Quatrain

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Quatrain is that it was originally pressed with the songs from side one appearing in duplicate; there was no side two. That’s what you get when you record an album for a label co-owned by a comedian (more on that later). First released in 1969 on Tetragrammaton Records, Quatrain is a generic, rather bland collection of late ‘60s psychedelic acid rock. The album, saddled by poor promotion, weak vocal work and awkward hippie-influenced lyrical references (“there are the young ones who seek the light to see”), is ultimately buried by the band’s largely forgettable songwriting. There are a couple of memorable moments amidst the wave of musical mediocrity. “Black Lily” and “Try to Live Again” are salvaged by the occasional hard rock riff, for example, while “The Tree” is an adventurous slice of psychedelia with a nod towards the progressive. As if the banality of the original lp wasn’t enough, the 2008 Sundazed cd reissue includes a whopping eight bonus tracks, all of which are similarly constructed paint-by-the-numbers hard rock (in what might be a rock first, however, the song “Towering Buildings” uses the French term “nom de plume”). Hardly required listening, Quatrain is at best an odd curio for collectors only.

Notes: Tetragrammaton Records was a short-lived label co-owned by Bill Cosby. In addition to issuing the first four Deep Purple albums here in the US, the label was best known for releasing Two Virgins, the infamous 1970 John Lennon and Yoko Ono album that featured the two artists nude on the front cover. The company went out of business later that year. For more on the history of Tetragrammaton Records, visit http://bsnpubs.com/.