Fish Rising

Introduction

I was listening to the excellent "Fish Rising", Steve Hillage's debut solo album, and thought I hadn't published a playlist on Vocal for a while, and thought, "What about a marine-based progressive playlist?" I will close it with "The Salmon Song" from "Fish Rising", but will share with you a few sea life pieces that you may be unaware of.

I didn't include "Octopus's Garden" by The Beatles because I thought that was not as funny as the opener to this playlist.

Kevin Ayers and The Whole World - "The Oyster And The Flying Fish" from "Shooting At The Moon"

I love the work of Kevin Ayers, and this is a bit of silliness from a brilliant album. These are the musicians who made up The Whole World:

Kevin Ayers – guitar, bass, vocals

The Whole World

David Bedford – organ, piano, accordion, marimbaphone, guitar

Lol Coxhill – saxophone, zoblophone

Mike Oldfield – bass, guitar and vocal

Mick Fincher – drums, percussion, bottles & ashtrays

The Whole World Chorus – backing vocals

Additional musicians

Bridget St. John – vocals ("The Oyster And The Flying Fish")

Robert Wyatt – vocals ("Colores Para Dolores")

Some of these you may know very well.

Syd Barrett - "Octopus" from "The Madcap Laughs"

This was post Pink Floyd Syd. The story and making of “Octopus” is fairly straightforward.

Syd Barrett entered the studio under Peter Jenner’s supervision in 1968. On 20 July that year, he and a group of uncredited session musicians recorded “Clowns and Jugglers”. Work then halted for nearly a year. Recording resumed in May 1969 with producer Malcolm Jones and Soft Machine. Though nearly finished, Syd re-recorded the track in June 1969 with David Gilmour, raising the key.

Brian Eno - "Mother Whale Eyeless" from "Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy"

From the initial repetitive rhythm to the gorgeous middle eight, this is one of my favourites from this brilliant album, which is often on my player.

Yes - "The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)" from "Fragile"

This is probably the first all Bass instrumental ever recorded. And as it uses harmonics in its structure. There are some backing vocals, but this is all Chris Squire, with percussion provided by Bill Bruford.

Harold Budd, Brian Eno with Daniel Lanois - "A Stream With Bright Fish" from "The Pearl"

A beautiful piano piece from three amazing talents. Listening to this, you feel bathed in pure ambience. Very calming.

Chemical Brothers - "The Salmon Dance" from “For That Beautiful Feeling”

A bit of lighthearted dance from the Chemical Brothers. I hadn't heard it, but it came up while looking for the Steve Hillage song that concludes this playlist.

Gong - "Tropical Fish/Selene" from "Camembert Electrique"

Gong were led by the Australian Daevid Allen, based in France and with strong Canterbury connections and produced some amazing music. I bought "Camembert Electrique" when Virgin reissued it as part of their 49p series (along with stuff like "The Faust Tapes". A vinyl copy today is significantly more expensive.

I love the cover art and the music, and I still play my CD copy lots today. I love when "Tropical Fish" transitions into "Selene"

Steve Hillage - "The Salmon Song" from "Fish Rising"

I don't know whether I bought the album because of Steve's work with Gong, and heard this, or heard this and then bought the album, but that riff is just awesome and still sounds as fresh today as when I first heard it, and it radiates pure joi-de-vivre.

Two excellent suggestions from Russell Leisenheimer:

Robert Wyatt - "Sea Song" from "Rock Bottom" and "His Greatest Misses"

Radiohead - "Weird Fishes" from "In Rainbows"

Conclusion

Thank you so much for reading and listening. I hope you found something new that you enjoyed.