Gothic Horizon - The Jason Lodge Poetry Book, Nice Copy

	£		67
	$		89

Gothic Horizon - The Jason Lodge Poetry Book

(Argo ZFB 26 1971 UK LP )

Very scarce first LP of lyrical folk rock from the duo of Andy Desmond and Richard Garrett. Mostly acoustic with good songs, hippyish laid back feel, nice album! The songs themselves remind me a lot of the Kinks with a very British feel, in fact the whole album is reminiscent of across between the Incredible String Band and an acoustic Kinks, imagine if Ray Davies had joined a hippyish folk duo instead of the Kinks. Very enjoyable album.

Very scarce in any form, this is a pink label test pressing in a finished sleeve, possibly unique(?).

Tracks:

The Jason Lodge Poetry Book

Song For Susan

Odysseus

A J Lone’s Dog

Willow Tree Vale Song

Six Summers Back

Song

Althea Williams

Wilhelmina Before Sunrise

St Valentine’s Day Massacre

A Third For Jason Lodge

Pisces

A Farewell Ode To Port Sunlight

Condition: Sleeve VG+/ Record M-

Sleeve:

Standard Decca single sleeve design made of thin card laminated on the front only. Manufactured by Graphis Press Ltd.

The front sleeve with it’s lovely colourful collage design is in generally nice shape, it’s extremely clean with no writing or tears anywhere. There are a couple of very small creases coming in from the spine, most of these are very light but one has cracked the laminate. The laminate itself is clean and clear producing a nice reflective surface. The lamination has shrunk over the years leaving a line a few millimetres in from the open edge nothing can be done about this but it doesn’t look bad anyway, the card left is very clean so it’s not really noticeable. There is the beginning of a circular indentation where the record sits, this is only visible at the top on the white part, the lovely colourful design hides it on the rest of the front.

The rear sleeve is unlaminated white card which does show some signs of wear but nothing serious, actually it’s more dirt than wear caused by being handled over the years. For the most part the sleeve is clean, there is some light dirt along the top and the beginning of some light ringwear which probably wouldn’t show on a more colourful sleeve. There are no tears, creases or writing anywhere. At arms length in a PVC sleeve (which I’ll supply) it looks just fine.

The spine is rather thin still square, clean and unworn. The lamination carries over from the front sleeve and is cracked in a couple of places but all of the writing is still clearly readable.

The top seam is totally unworn.

The bottom seam is also totally unworn.

Record:

The record itself is manufactured from good quality thickish vinyl which reproduces the sound extremely well. As with most records manufactured by Decca it’s an excellent pressing. The vinyl is extremely clean, it has been cleaned using a professional Moth record cleaning machine which has removed any dirt or dust which was present leaving a record which looks and sounds very nice indeed. Seen under normal light the vinyl has that lovely glossy sheen that only sparsely played records have with no surface marks visible at all. When placed under a very revealing harsh lamp the occasional light hairline mark is revealed but these are few and are nothing to worry about anyway as they’re caused by just taking the record in and out of the sleeve and are totally inaudible.

The two labels are pretty much perfect, very clean, no tears, the only writing being the hand written catalogue numbers. No stickers, no tears, very little discernible spindle wear. The matrix numbers stamped into the dead wax are ZRG 3457 1W AND ZRG3458 1W.

When placed upon the turntable the record is flat and fit’s the spindle tightly. The music sounds just great, it has a rich full sound which is clear and clean and comes from the speakers with a warmth and vibrancy which suggests that the players are in the same room. No sign of any distortion or groove wear anywhere, the only unwanted surface noise I heard when playing this fine record was a few seconds of extremely light crackles on the run in groove on side one which disappear before the music starts and about 30 seconds of very very very light clicks during the first song on side two, which unfortunately is a quietish track otherwise these would not have been noticeable, between the tracks is pretty much silent these small problems apart the record plays as nicely as it looks, which is very nice indeed. A lovely looking and sounding record which will grace any collection.

What you can expect from me:

Fast friendly communication, quick postage with good strong packaging and the record will be exactly as described above, if you disagree with my description of the condition then a full refund is available (sorry, no refunds if you don‘t like the music!).

What I expect from you:

Good communication and quick payment, any disagreement’s (not that I’m expecting any!) can be settled amicably.

Payment and postage:

I’d prefer cheques from UK buyers but paypal is available if necessary, overseas buyers must use paypal. I’m not responsible for any parcel after it leaves my hands, I will have proof that the parcel as posted and will help in any way I can in any dispute between you and the postal authorities but the decision on whether to insure a parcel or not is yours and as such the responsibility for the parcel is yours too however insurance is mandatory on any parcel sent outside of the UK, this is for your protection as well as mine, the cost of the insurance is included in the postage costs quoted. The decision to make insurance mandatory for overseas parcels was not an easy one, but it’s one I have been left with no alternative to, the root of the problem is Paypal which allows people to claim their money back no matter what is provided to prove that a parcel was posted. I have been robbed in this way 9 times since starting to accept Paypal payments, in the previous 25+ years of sending records all over the world, I only ever lost one parcel, that cannot be coincidence and it cannot continue so unfortunately I have had to pass on the costs of the insurance to overseas buyers. If the actual cost of postage and packing is less than the advertised rate then I will happily refund the difference.