Jethro Tull - A (A La Mode) 40th Anniversary.
Jethro Tull
A (A La Mode)- 40th Anniversary
(Chrysalis)
8.5/10
By Paul Davies
An album that divides opinion amongst fans, A is considered to be the release that broke up what many Tull aficionados feel to be the best of the band's many formidable line-ups. With the clue being in its title, A began life as a putative Ian Anderson solo album; whilst the rest of the band that finished the Stormwatch tour went on a well-earned sabbatical. Home demos worked up by Anderson convinced Chrysalis that this album required the Jethro Tull imprimatur to promote and sell across global territories. With the irrepressible Martin Barre on board to weave his classy six-string magic, a whole new band emerged on the Tull musical landscape with keyboard and violin experimentalist Eddie Jobson, (Roxy Music/Frank Zappa) Fairport bassist Dave Pegg, and Mark Craney (Tommy Bolin Band) forming up behind Anderson and Barre.
With a more direct and shorter song-scape reflecting the then changing musical climate, Black Sunday remains the album's only epic composition that stands shoulder to shoulder with the many ambitious musical movements in the Tull canon. With Jobson weaving modern electronics into the crisp arrangements, there was also a visual transformation finding the band donning white jumpsuits as though off to work a shift at a nuclear processing plant. The music itself still sizzles hot as isotopes; even more so on this Steven Wilson redux.
Elsewhere, Anderson cannily reflects topical news narratives on the superb nuclear war early warning system ode Flyingdale Flyer and the Iranian embassy siege on Crossfire. Jobson, in particular, delivers his inimitable visionary abstract sonics thereby adding new dimensional shapes to this release. Working John, Working Joe, Batteries Not Included, Protect And Survive, and Uniforms possess a clinical charm in their compact musical forms. There’s even an endearing instrumental as The Pine Martin's Jig harks back to the preceding 'rural albums' musical investigations with its wistful flights of flute.
Wilson has elevated and widened the fidelity of these original tracks, superbly engineered by Robin Black in its original form, but it's the further goodies in this package that mesmerises with its bulging swag of musical gems. An extended Crossfire, an early take of single Working John, Working Joe, and Cheerio (showing the working plans for follow up album Broadsword), and an outtake of Coriusk finally join up here with its family of songs.
Having been one of many a Tull fan's treasured bootlegs, the complete live concert from The LA Sports Arena 1980 superbly documents this moment of great change in the musical direction of this legendary band. A set comprising songs from the preceding golden run of albums enables the newer songs to insinuate themselves into the psyche of committed fans. Listening now, with the full benefit of hindsight, this harbinger of further direction changes works very well on these Wilson stereo mixes.
Three DVDs containing 5.1 mixes of all the aforementioned recordings, plus a fan favourite smartened up David Mallet directed live/concept performance of Slipstream, with Anderson bringing out his Aqualung persona once again, presented in a case-bound book filled with an extensive history of the album and track-by-track annotations by Anderson, is a delicious final part of a fabulous package that perfectly slots into the sequenced run of these audio-dacious remastered box sets.
Courageous in embracing musical change and presentation, none of what went before were as pivotal as this new decade recording that heralded in a new era for Tull. Transformational electronics found Jethro Tull challenging their audience on this recording and those that followed on from A’s legacy. Ripe for re-evaluation, this freshly disinterred comprehensively collected redux positively presents a persuasive case for this flawed gem solo to band release.
