Dr. Strangely Strange - Kip Of The Serenes (Collector's Edition) {1969}

Dr. Strangely Strange's debut album, Kip of the Serenes, is here reissued in a Collectors' Edition (as it's formally labeled on the back cover) that presents the record in a spruced-up CD edition. Are the extras to this record -- which is very much in the mold of the Incredible String Band, albeit in a milder form lacking the extremes of the ISB's innovations, and with Irish origins -- substantial? They don't appear so at a glance, since there are just four bonus tracks, though audiophiles will note that it's a new 24-bit remaster at the correct speed. The added songs include an alternate, longer take of "Strangely Strange But Oddly Normal" minus overdubs that's a little folkier in its arrangement, and has a brief sea shanty tacked onto its end; an unremarkably alternate take of "On the West Cork Hack"; and an instrumental backing track for another of the album's songs, "Strings in the Earth and Air." There's also an outtake from their first session in January, the nicely haunting "Mirror Mirror," a later (and somewhat more elaborately produced and spooky) version of which shows up on the rarities collection Halcyon Days. The truly significant improvements, actually, are the historical liner notes, the 32-page booklet including a thorough account of the band's origins and the sessions for the first album, extensive comments on the songs by original members, full lyrics for the songs, and even reproductions of the original tape box and handwritten notes regarding the compositions. Like the Hux label's other packages of Dr. Strangely Strange and Incredible String Band material, they prove the company to be the best caretakers of the archeology of these two similar groups that anyone could hope for, even if this offers less in the way of enticing rarities than Hux's other such projects have.

1.Dr. Strangely Strange - Strangely Strange But Oddly Normal (4:31)

2.Dr. Strangely Strange - Dr Dim And Dr Strange (7:36)

3.Dr. Strangely Strange - Roy Rogers (5:39)

4.Dr. Strangely Strange - Dark-Haired Lady (4:28)

5.Dr. Strangely Strange - On The West Cork Hack (2:36)

6.Dr. Strangely Strange - A Tale Of Two Orphanages (3:52)

7.Dr. Strangely Strange - Strings In The Earth And Air (1:56)

8.Dr. Strangely Strange - Ship Of Fools (6:20)

9.Dr. Strangely Strange - Frosty Mornings (4:02)

10.Dr. Strangely Strange - Donnybrook Fair (8:53)

11.Dr. Strangely Strange - Mirror Mirror (Kip Version) (4:41)

12.Dr. Strangely Strange - West Cork Hack (Alternate Take) (3:13)

13.Dr. Strangely Strange - Strings In The Earth And Air (Instrumental) (2:07)

14.Dr. Strangely Strange - Strangely Strange But Oddly Normal (Alternate Take) (6:00)

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