Drummer Ken Hyder left his Dundee, Scotland home during the summer of 1970 headed for the London jazz scene, where he quickly found himself replacing Robert Wyatt on the vacated throne of Mal Dean's Amazing Band. Study with John Stevens led to his playing with numerous different cutting-edge musicians at John's Little Theater Club, which was the center of new music in the 1970's. Soon Hyder founded his own band, Talisker, focusing on spontaneously improvised music and traditional Scottish folk music, with both aesthetics being mutually informed. The instrumentation driven by Ken was unique: paired double bass and paired reeds (alto, tenor, clarinets) with voices and whistles. In 1975 Talisker recorded their debut album, the breathtakingly beautiful Dreaming of Glenisla, which was released on the Virgin subsidiary Caroline Records. By turns serene and sensuous, impassioned and celebratory, this magnificent marriage of musical styles ultimately proves seamless. However, Dreaming of Glenisla's success was more than musical; with micro and macro-dynamics gloriously preserved it stands among the finest acoustic recordings of its generation. This long awaited reissue of Ken Hyder's classic album is augmented with previously unreleased studio recordings of his grand quintet, Talisker. |