ANTHONY PHILLIPS - PRIVATE PARTS & PIECES PART II: BACK TO THE PAVILLION - 1980

Taking a five-year hiatus from his Private Parts & Pieces series, Anthony Phillips returned with its eighth installment in 1992. New England is without a doubt one of the strongest albums of the entire series, and it is my personal favorite one. The recording quality that had advanced with Slow Waves, Soft Stars is by now definitively established, with Phillips' guitar and keyboard pieces now wrapped in the perfect degree of clarity and reverb. An additional strength of the album is that he collaborates with a few other musicians who lend some further color to some of the pieces (though I will admit that the tone of Martin Robertson's soprano sax is a bit too smooth for my tastes).

The album's vivid aura is set right from its opening moments, the sunrise drift of "Aubade" bursting open into the joyful acoustic guitar of "Infra Dig." There are two songs with lyrics on this album, both of high quality. "Sanctuary" is a moody love song that I think ranks among Phillips' best tunes, played on piano with his usual graceful twists of phrasing and sensitivity. In contrast to the warmth and piano intimacy of "Sanctuary," "Unheard Cry" is all lonely acoustic guitar (with a folky, alternate tuning that could have fit reasonably onto Led Zeppelin III, in the style of "That's the Way") drenched in reverb, used to highlight its heartbreaking subject matter, apparently about an abandoned, ailing baby discovered too late for intervention. While perhaps too maudlin for some, this song packs quite an emotional punch, and the tender melody and lyrics (e.g., "When the lights go out/on the carousel/infant innocent/so life farewell") are almost shocking in their bleakness, at least for an Anthony Phillips album. Another shining moment is "Last Goodbyes." Short and sweet, with not a note wasted, this is simply a perfect two minutes and fifteen seconds of solo piano. The entirety of the piece is in the key of E, and when Phillips hits the final chord, a gently rumbling half-step down (E-flat), it is a simply brilliant choice for an ending, at once unexpected and devastating to the listener. If you listen to this song and its melody and don't feel a lump in the throat by the end, then you are not human.

For other things this album has to offer, cue it up to "La Dolorosa," a bit of twelve-string guitar recalling the glory days of Genesis (e.g., "Cinema Show" from Selling England by the Pound). I hear in the first part of "New England Suite" something of a resemblance to Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill." "Iona," "Spirals," and "In the Maze" are the same snippet overdubbed with separate lead instruments (e.g., acoustic guitar on "Iona," keyboards on "Spirals," sax on "In the Maze," respectively). The base music is hypnotic and mysterious, and in that way reminds me of the similarly brief "Magic Garden" on Back to the Pavilion. There's also the frosty-breath vibrancy of "Cathedral Woods," the multilayered "Sunrise and Sea Monsters," the rich combination of Phillips' acoustic guitar and percussion (including Japanese drum) on "Pressgang," and the stately closer "Now They've All Gone," all for the listener to sink their ears into with multiple listens.

I haven't heard all of Phillips' lengthy discography (a daunting accomplishment)... but out of the ones I have heard, if I could only recommend three they would be: The Geese and the Ghost, Tarka, and this one.
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