Love & Poetry

Personnel: Dave Lewis, Dave Lewis (vocals, guitar, piano, organ); Nigel Smith (vocals, bass instrument); Bob Downes (flute, bamboo flute, finger cymbals, tamtam, Chinese double bells, sound effects, leaf); Gordon Barton, Wilgar Campbell (drums).
Liner Note Author: Uncle Dave Lewis.
Recording information: CBS Studios; Pan Sound Studios; Recorded Sound Studios, London, England.
Arrangers: Dave Lewis ; John Hawkins ; John Hawkins.
Although Andwella's Dream were a versatile psychedelic group, they were nonetheless generic no matter what angle they were taking. On Love & Poetry, you get sustained guitar that walks the line between freakbeat and heaviness, some swirling organ and husky vocals that betray the influence of Traffic and Procol Harum, pastoral acoustic folky tunes in the Donovan style, airy-fairy dabs of phased guitars and storybook lyrics, etc. Eclecticism is to be commended, and since late-'60s British psychedelia is an interesting genre in and of itself, generic music in the subgenre is more interesting than some other generic music in other styles. Still, generic music is generic music, and being able to do a bunch of different things in an unexceptional manner does not make you exceptional. The fairly tuneful folk-rocker "Midday Sun" is the best cut; it's also interesting to hear a song about "Cocaine" in 1969, before the drug was too well known even in the counterculture. ~ Richie Unterberger