What Are You Listening To?

[Ruby]

RAMASES – Space Hymns




 
One those freebies. Unfortunately, my copy has a regular envelope cover and not the six panel foldout which would have been nice, since it’s a rather magnificent example of Roger Dean’s artwork – the steeple of a church blasting off like a rocket. But I am not complaining!
 
Once upon a time there lived a man named Kimberley Barrington Frost who believed himself to be a reincarnation of the great Pharaoh, Rameses, tasked with bringing a message to mankind through music. Not entirely sure why he changed the spelling of the name for himself – received wisdom, I guess! He made two albums – this one, in 1971, and Glass Top Coffin, in 1975. Space Hymns lists among its personnel all the members of the soon to be 10cc plus Martin Raphael who played the sitar, and Ramases’s wife, now named Selket (as opposed to Dorothy), who also sings and co-wrote some of the songs. As far as I can tell, she is still with us.
 
This is what it says on the back of the cover:
 
“This album is dedicated to the earth people who are unusual because they have begun to pause, look back, and wonder where they have come from and why, and where they are going to!
The earth is a living thing just as we are and has a soul as we do.
You look at the heavens through a telescope. Reverse the telescope and you have a microscope through which (if powerful enough), you would see almost the same sight. (Electrons in orbit around their stars.) “In my father’s house there are many mansions” (The Bible)
We are most probably existing on a molecule inside the material of, perhaps, a living thing in the next size up.
The rocket ship shape of churches probably dates back to Moses’s visit to speak to God on the mountain and what he saw there.”
 
Psychedelic rock of the prog persuasion - the music is (in parts) as compelling and mysterious as the (possibly quite confused) character behind its creation whose life and death appear to be shrouded in misinformation and/or a complete dearth thereof. Unsurprisingly, there is talk of mental illness.  Anyway …

The first track from Side 2 – “Earth People” … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj1ijRZvPX4

And the lead track – “Life Child”