Despite my teenage (and beyond) love of the so-called 'Canterbury Sound', it was a complete coincidence that I ended up living for 40 years quite near to Canterbury, a city seemingly unaware of its minor part in rock / prog music. There were tiny enclaves of acknowledgment, one being Dave's CD/record shop in the Indoor Market, which did have a section entitled Canterbury, which is where I picked this up.
Sinclair made his name in Caravan, Camel and Hatfield and the North, before semi-retirement as a full-time gigging musician, issuing occasional albums during the 1980s and 90s and this one features his own songs with lots of Canterbury colleagues.
Opener What's Rattlin' is a chirpy little song about having moved on from the 'Canterbury Sound' written with former Hatfield colleague, Pip Pyle, and contains some sublime soprano sax from Didier Malherbe (Gong), and it's followed by instrumental (apart from a few la-la-las) my Sweet Darlin' which is a pleasant enough listen. Videos takes its time to get started, but once it does, rocks nicely (including some lovely clarinet from Tony Coe, recently departed jazz musician and father of BBC 6 Radio's Gideon Coe). Coe also solos on the next tune, Barefoot, some smooth jazz, and that's followed by Outback In Canterbury, a strange combination of didgeridoo, clarinet (Malherbe) taking up most of the first half, before some lovely gentle acoustic guitar. Over From Dover is a rambling, noodling la-la-la instrumental, before the much longer Out Of The Shadows, similarly without lyrics, but not vocals, it's more upbeat and occupies twelve minutes far more interestingly than I'd expected, although by Where In The World the peaceful instrumental pieces are failing to make much impression. Bamboo is a gentle environmental song, sweetly backed by Malherbe's bamboo flute, and the album ends with the heartfelt plea for peace, love and understanding, What In The World, a fitting end to an enjoyable album.
This album is never going to be held up as a shining example of the Canterbury Sound, but it is a gentle reminder that those from the genre had a life making music that could be enjoyed long after the 1970s heyday.
3* - an enjoyable mix of songs and tunes from the fair city of Canterbury
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