“He subsequently carved out a succeful career in the ELT
(English Language Teaching) field, but as a student at the University of East
Anglia in the late Sixties, the young Jeremy Harmer was a Bert Jansch-influenced
guitarist and singer/songwriter.
Accompanied by fellow student David Costa, he played at folk
clubs and events in the Norwich area before staging a student union concert
that led to him recording the album ‘Idiosyncratics And Swallows Wings’ in
single-take sessions at a local BBC studio.
Restricted to 99 copies, the album – akin to a homemade
version of Nick Drake’s ‘Five Leaves Left’ – featured some beguiling chamber
pop arrangements and self-consciously poetic, exquisitely gloomy songs like
‘People Smile With Ghosts In The Land Of Make-believe’, featuring David Costa
on second guitar and Sue Humphris on backing vocals.
Costa was significantly affected by the experience (“I knew
from that very moment on that was what I wanted to do … I just wanted to play
guitar in a band”), dropping out of university and putting together Trees. He
attempted to recruit Sue Humphris as lead singer, but she declined, suggesting
instead that they audition her sister Celia.”
“We recorded de LP late at night at the big studio on
Anglia TV. It was not really satisfactory. The equipment was not great and the
engineer – who did it for free i seem to remember – was not especially
experienced as a sound engineer, but rather a TV programme engineer. I can’t remember
any mixing conversations etc. But I guess there must have been. I remember being
rather worried about the sibilance in the vocal tracks but there was never a
chance to do anything about that. And on top of that i wasn’t really very
experienced about that kind of thing.”
Entre a melancolia endémica de Nick Drake, a tristeza de
Robert Wyatt e o folk barroco de Duncan Browne, “Pastiche”, o belíssimo “Sad
Song”, “Home of Years”, o tocante “Melanie” ou o “pesadelo utópico” ( palavras
do autor ) que é “People Smiling With Ghosts In The Land Of Make-believe”, “Idiosyncratics
and Swallows Wings” é um disco que não sendo perfeito no que concerne à forma,
é absolutamente essencial do ponto de vista criativo e histórico.
Uma última nota, eventualmente do interesse dos audiófilos:
“Due to the lack of master tapes, this reissue has been sourced from original
vinyl.” ( do folheto que acompanha a reedição )
