Sold Date: July 15, 2018
Start Date: July 8, 2018
Final Price: £32.79 (GBP)
Bid Count: 12
Seller Feedback: 509
Buyer Feedback: 161

CENTIPEDE -

SEPTOBER ENERGY

RCA NEON

1st UK Press 1971

NE 9

Machined matrices

Double album

An incredibly hard record (double album) to find with music which is largely free jazz and veering into prog at times. This copy has barely (or not at all??) been played. All four sides have a deep glossy sheen as if they were new records. Incredible for a set of record 47 years old!! This one is on the very collectable NEON label, the progressive arm of RCA which also gave us the Spring album amongst some other gems.

Tempted by the massive and incredibly talented line up on this record, you buy it and take it home with you. When you drop the needle, you are immediately scratching your head, waiting patiently for the massive introductory non-musical chaos to fall into some kind of semblance of rhythm or ‘song like’ material, but it doesn’t. Instead, it shifts up a gear and what you thought was chaos before was actually the calm before the storm. A storm that, if you persist, leads you through a four part journey of what you could describe as a ‘sonic safari’ which explores all manner of musical and non-musical meanderings.

Centipede is the concept created by Free Jazz pianist  who managed to assemble a 50 artist strong line up of the most creative musicians in Britain of the time, into a studio over 3 days to record an album. As if that wasn’t enough of a statement, recruiting Progressive Rock luminary  to produce the record was the icing on the cake. 

‘Septober Energy’ is a labelled as a ‘Progressive Jazz/Rock, Big Band’ experiment that explores Free Jazz, Ambient and snippets of all other styles of Jazz and Rock over four 20 min suites (2LPs’). Mostly instrumental material but with occasional lyrical and choral vocal appearances from , , ,  and , which add  some welcomed framework to the ‘free-ness’ of the tracks. I never realised just how soothing a human voice is when you’re immersed in Free music like this. Like a place of shelter.

Although I can see how ‘Septober Energy’ was not well received by fans of Prog (or Jazz for that mater),  i don’t think an album like this one was created to seek approval or success (commercially or otherwise) from any outside sources. Some might find that a little too self indulgent. But i guess when you have a 50 piece band, any self indulgent playing still has an audience big enough to justify it as there would have been 49 other artists cheering you on in the studio. Who needs the outside world when you have that??  Its a musical celebration, probably created for the sake of just getting together with a cast of creative people and exploring music in a really free and boundless way. And why the hell not?

Some of it is breathtaking and glorious. Saxophone solos that are magical, Slow building progressions which lead us unknowingly into a massive sea of sounds that are both frightening and enlightening all at once. Some of it is an absolute mess with total nonsensical passages of muted horn blowing and percussive crackling that makes one ‘zone out’ and switch off for a minute or two. Its not a masterpiece but it is masterful in its juxtaposing waves of delicacy and brutal forcefulness.

I struggle to find the words to do this record justice. But i do love it! For its courage and innovation. For its total abandonment of commercial viability. For its degree of difficulty through working with so many artists. For its uniqueness as a project and for the wonderful, structure-less and challenging music presented here. ‘Septober Energy’ is fantastic in the same way  or  are brilliant and essential additions to the Experimental Jazz/Rock annals.

I can sum up the spirit of the album by quoting from Keith Tippetts later record ’:… “May music never become just another way of making money”.

Vinyl:  EX+ .  Just two very thin shallow hairlines on side 1 otherwise no marks, hairlines etc. Audio is phenomenal and this vinyl sounds out of this world, a majestic classic. Played on my Project Debut deck with Ortofon cartridge and B&W speakers.The audio has beautiful separation and there is no background noise. These 2 vinyls look and sound great with a beautiful sheen. Under a strong light there are a couple of paper retraction traces, these are completely invisible in normal daylight and even new vinyls will have these. I played this in full and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I was even tempted to keep this as it will be very hard to find this ever again, it is indeed mega rare these days. Only two or three went up for sale this last year. Needless to say NO jumps or clicks. This is a real stunner, an absolute upgrade for its vinyl.

 Sleeve: VG to VG+.  A matt white gatefold dleeve with a full photo inner of the musicians. To the front there is remaining a deposit of a sticker removal. Maybe it is possible to remove this? I will not attempt. NO major creases, some light age related yellowing. A  superb thick spine with just very light storage wear on the sharp edges, fully readable. NO tears and NO splits . Only  light storage wear on the edges.

Super crisp opening.  Please let the pictures fully inform you of the quality at hand.  Probably one of the better ones you will ever find for this insanely rare album. A phenomenally scarce album and rumoured to only have been pressed in a quantity of a couple of hundreds. How many would have survived over the last 47years??

International postage will incur an extra fee for tracking if over £30.00. Please wait for me to send you an adjusted invoice before paying. The tracked fee will be at actual Royal Mail grade. I do not profit from postage and actually undercharge.

Though there are rarely ever any problems with my items, I always try my very best to describe everything exactly!  PLEASE REMEMBER to contact me FIRST,  if you have any problems at all, before you leave feedback and star ratings, so I get a chance to turn any negative experience into a positive one!  I can always happily sort anything out for you, if you let me know you have a problem!  This way no one has to leave Negative/Neutral feedback - and we both walk away happy! Similarly with the amount of stars, anything less than a full 5 * rating is effectively detrimental to a seller's rating as lower ratings will incur higher Final Value Fees  and lower priority in the bidlists eventually making it unattractive to list items on Ebay at all. I know of at least one major previous Ebay seller who has decided not to list via Ebay again. Please do NOT bid if you cannot give me at least 1 chance to sort everything out to your FULL satisfaction in the unlikely event of a problem.  Thanks again!!

This an excellent investment opportunity!!! Any questions please ask me and I will try to answer soon.