Universal Music is releasing “Mirage (2023 Remastered & Remixed Expanded Edition)“, a really good reissue of CAMEL 1974’s album. The package include the original ‘Mirage’ remastered, a buch of unreleased recordings from the sessions, and a New 2023 Remix of ‘Mirage’.
The original album sounds better then never and there’s very nice unheard early versions / outtakes, but we think the star of this reissue is the 2023 Remix, which turned ‘Mirage’ punchier, ‘bassier’, much more ‘updated.’ They’re definitely worth a listen. They don’t replace the original mixes, but they are absolutely enjoyable.
After a promising debut LP, ‘Mirage’ is the album that brought Camel into focus, and saw take their unique prog brilliance to a new level.
Camel released this second album almost a year to the day after their debut, yet it was a very different set of circumstances that greeted the release of ‘Mirage’ on March 1, 1974. The band’s debut release on MCA Records had received muted praise and they decided not to exercise their option for a second record.
This may have been the end for many bands, or at best slowed their progress. But with a new management team of Geoff Jukes and Max Hole of Gemini Artists guiding them, Camel moved to Decca Records’ Deram label camel and really hit their stride.
‘Mirage’ includes two of the band’s best-known songs in “White Rider” and “Lady Fantasy” and the quality of all five tracks on the album is unquestionable.
The LP opens with “Freefall” featuring keyboard player Bardens effective use of his brand new mini-Moog before it breaks into a driving keyboard and guitar riff-driven song that is a signal of intent. The shortest track on the album is “Supertwister,” which showcases Latimer’s beguiling flute alongside Bardens’s use of various keyboards.
It gives way to “Nimrodel / The Procession / The White Rider,” a nine-minute suite made up of three songs. In “The White Rider,” especially, it has all the elements that makes Camel so popular and so loved by prog fans. Majestic melodies that build into crescendos that give way to orchestral sounding parts that allow the band to stretch out while Latimer’s bell-like guitar rings out.
With “Earthrise” the mini-Moog is again to the fore before it breaks into a typical Camel loping melody that sounds like it should be the theme for a long-forgotten documentary.
The longest track on the album is the 12-minute epic “Lady Fantasy,” which has everything a prog anthem should. Sweeping themes, clever instrumental interplay, fantasy-esque lyrics, and a sense that these guys’ musical appreciation classes at school, listening to great classical composers had not been wasted. Bass player Doug Ferguson and drummer Andy Ward share the composing credits on “Lady Fantasy.”
The album’s artwork was, of course, based on the carton for a famous brand of American cigarettes that seemed much loved by GIs and gangsters in Hollywood movies.
In 2014, readers of Prog Magazine voted the album, recorded at Island Studios in London with overdubs at Decca Studios, No.51 in the Top 100 Prog albums of All Time.
Ignore it at your peril!
Tracklist:
01. Freefall (Remastered 2023) 5:55
02. Supertwister (Remastered 2023) 3:23
03. Nimrodel / The Procession / The White Rider (Remastered 2023) 9:17
04. Earthrise (Remastered 2023) 6:42
05. Lady Fantasy: Encounter / Smiles For You / Lady Fantasy (Remastered 2023) Camel 12:49
06. Earthrise (Decca Studios Demo Session / 15th July 1973) 7:15
07. The Traveler (Decca Studios Demo Session / 15th July 1973) 9:26
08. Supertwister (Decca Studios Demo Session / 15th July 1973) 3:06
09. The White Rider (Decca Studios Demo Session / 15th July 1973) 8:36
10. Lady Fantasy (Decca Studios Demo Session / 15th July 1973) 13:42
11. Lady Fantasy (Basing Street Studios Original Mix / Remastered 2023) Camel 13:01
12. Autumn 4:42
13. Freefall (NEW Remixed 2023) 5:53
14. Supertwister (NEW Remixed 2023) 3:20
15. Nimrodel / The Procession / The White Rider (NEW Remixed 2023) 9:23
16. Earthrise (NEW Remixed 2023) 6:40
17. Lady Fantasy (NEW Remixed 2023) 12:55
Lineup:
Peter Bardens - keyboards
Andrew Latimer - vocals, guitars, flute
Doug Ferguson - bass, vocals
Andy Ward - drums
Camel – Mirage(Expanded Edition-REMASTERED) (1974 / 2023)
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