Jardine - Look At The Window [1969] [2008]

Review by Nick Karathanassis
A lost jewel of the late 1960s UK psychedelia! Jardine recorded this album in 1969 for release by Polydor. That never happened, and the LP was shelved.

Now, almost 40 years later, you can be among the first to discover the excellence of these brooding poetic tracks, all written by Keith Law just before he joined psych band Velvett Fogg for their only album. Something strange and sinister, with moments of fragile beauty, perhaps akin to what would have resulted if Comus had set their lyrics to Moody Blues-esque melodies.

Some heavy guitar solos, organ, flute, and flowing sitar, for good measure. Most of the bands in Birmingham were either pop or soul hased. Velvet! togg, along ivith Black Sabbath, The Moi>e, and Traffic were probably the onfy progressive bands. Velvett Fogg was the more outrageous and the more psychedelic. Keith Law's band Love and Understanding was pure flower-power, and as such was being, they were in 1967, one of the first Psych bands.

Jardine is the French translation of the English word "garden." Jardine is also the name of a short-lived but also charismatic and exceptional group from 1960 5 Birmingham, a hand that managed to leave some jewels which could easily have granted them a place close to the now legendary "kings" of the British psychedelic scene.