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• First-ever career anthology of Blackpool-based psychedelic/progressive pop group Complex who self-released one of the world’s rarest, most expensive albums.
• In 1970-71, Lancashire quartet Complex pressed 99 copies of their self-titled debut LP and instant follow-up ‘The Way We Feel’ in an unsuccessful attempt to land a major label recording deal.
• Based around the songs of their teenage organist Steve Coe (later the mastermind behind Monsoon’s Top 20 hit ‘Ever So Lonely’), both albums are now hugely collectable, with a copy of their much-eulogised psych-pop first LP (“the strongest tracks are as good as anything I’ve heard”, claimed a review in UK prog/psych guide book Galactic Ramble) selling in 2015 for an astonishing £10,000.
‘Live For The Minute: The Complex Anthology’ brings together all of their recordings under one roof for the first time, with those two albums (bolstered by various contemporary out-takes, including the previously-unissued original demo of ‘Green-Eyed Lucy’) joined by a third CD of subsequent recordings that now gain their first-ever issue.
That third disc includes their semi-legendary, 25-minute unreleased acetate LP from early 1972, when Coe’s replacement Mike Proctor (collectable in his own right for his 1967 EMI mod/psych single ‘Mr Commuter’) took the band in a slightly heavier direction – as can now be heard for the first time on the eight-minute progressive rock epic ‘No Title (We Don’t Know Yet)’ and the equally heavy ‘To Make You See Me’.
Featuring roughly 75 minutes of previously unreleased music alongside newly remastered upgrades of those two albums, ‘Live For The Minute’ is a long-overdue anthology of the band’s body of work that includes the full Complex story, with new quotes and many previously unpublished photos.
Tracklist
DISC ONE:
1 FUNNY FEELING
2 MESSAGE FROM THE YEAR 2000
3 GREEN-EYED LUCY
4 JOSIE
5 WITCH’S SPELL
6 NORWEGIAN BUTTERFLY
7 SELF-DECLARATION
8 IMAGES BLUE
9 STORM ON WAY
10 MADEMOISELLE JACKIE
11 LIVE FOR THE MINUTE
Bonus tracks 12 HUSH
13 IMAGES BLUE (alternative version)
14 GREEN-EYED LUCY (alternative version)
15 NORWEGIAN BUTTERFLY (alternative version)
16 GREEN-EYED LUCY (original demo version)
1-11 The album ‘Complex’, recorded November 1970
12-13 Unreleased at the time 7” acetate, recorded July 1970
14-15 Unreleased at the time, recorded January 1971
16 Previously unreleased, recorded circa mid-1970
DISC TWO:
1 EVERY TIME I HEAR THAT SONG
2 AM I
3 WE DON’T EXIST
4 LEMON PIE FAIR
5 THE WAY I FEEL
6 MOVING MOOR
7 JEANANETTE
8 HEY GIRL YOU’VE GOT STYLE
9 IF YOU ARE MY LOVE
Bonus tracks
10 MOVING MOOR (alternative version)
11 THE WAY I FEEL (alternative version)
1-9 The album ‘The Way We Feel’, recorded June/July 1971
10-11 Unreleased at the time, recorded January 1971
DISC THREE:
1 NO TITLE (WE DON’T KNOW YET)
2 TO MAKE SEE ME
3 THE WITCH QUEEN OF NEW ORLEANS
4 BY THE TIME I GET TO PHOENIX
5 THEME FROM SHAFT
6 WE DON’T EXIST (alt version) 7 MOVING MOOR (alt version #2)
8 TEENYBOPPER JOE
9 ROCK’N’ROLL STAR
10 SMILEY ANNE
11 WHO GOT THE LOVE
12 SHE TURNS ME ON
13 DOWN TO THE CITY
14 JUBILEE
15 WHO DO YOU THINK I AM
16 CRUEL WOMAN
17 THE CRACK
18 SUSIE MY FRIEND
19 DIAL 999
Previously unreleased:
1-5 10” acetate LP, recorded March 1972
6-8, recorded spring 1973
9-10 recorded 1973
13 recorded December 1975
14-19 1976-78 recordings
11-12 Pye single, 7N 45589, recorded
December 1975, released April 1976