You know who’s due for a critical revival? Caravan, the obscurist early ’70s wuss-prog band from the U.K. They mixed up elements of jazz and folk, but really, they ended up sounding like early Yes performed by a team of earnest hobbits.

(I make a strong mental connection between Caravan and little people. And not just because their songs feature lyrics like “As wandering minstrels play tunes of yesterday / When dragons roamed the land, knights in armour gold / Charged on horseback bold / The maids were saved, the dragons slayed.” I mean, come on! Does late-period psychedelic music get any cuter than that?)

I found their album In The Land Of Grey And Pink online somewhere, and it’s just plain charming. It’s like Jethro Tull without the fatal self-importance. I’m not sure I’d want to invite the band members to dinner — they’d probably stink of incense and slip some psilocybin in my iced tea — but their music is smile-inducing. (An MP3 of the title track is available in the Flash widget here.)

Some song and album titles: “Nine Feet Underground / Nigel Blows a Tune / Love’s a Friend / Make It 76 / Dan” (a 22-minute epic), “For Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night,” “Dabsong Conshirto (Part 1: The Mad Dabsong; Part 2: Ben Karratt Rides Again),” and “The Fear and Loathing in Tollington Park.”

I nominate them for the soundtrack of the next Wes Anderson movie, assuming it features meadows, sun-dappled maidens, and little people.

18 January 2006

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