Dreaming With Alice

Totally unknown monster downer psych effort originally released in Italy in the early 70s on the IT label. Italian record dealer Stefano Della Schiavo turned up a handful of copies about 20 years ago and the buzz has been growing since. Layers of electric and acoustic guitars, fuzz and other tripped out sounds. Low key vibe that sounds like it was recorded in an opium den. I LOVE THIS ALBUM!!!!!

Over the years the album has attained mythic status - hell I sold my original copy on Ebay for over $4000 about 10 years ago - it was so rare I was afraid to play it.

I guess Fry became aware of the interest or he was tracked down somehow.  After all these years the album has been given a proper reissue.  The impossible happened - the original analogue master tapes were located in Italy.  The album was mastered by Bernie Grundman (and the vinyl edition pressed at RTI).

Unless you are sitting on an original copy this is the best its going to be.

BUY OR DIE!

"The definitive reissue of an album equal parts pastoral folk and contemplative psychedelic; perhaps the reason the term “acid-folk” exists; one of rock’s rarest and most sought-after albums.

The first time since 1971 that this album has been pressed from the original master tapes, recently discovered in Italy. Lacquered directly from tape in an all-analog transfer by Bernie Grundman.

Mark Fry was 19 – recently graduated from high school and in Italy studying painting – when he walked barefooted into RCA’s Italian subsidiary, played some songs he’d written on his guitar and was signed to record the album that would become legend.

The first recordings he made proved stuff, so he was paired with members of the Scottish band Middle of the Road, who were in Rome while under contract to RCA Italiana. Convening in a basement home studio with two 4-track reel-to-reel recorders, Mark’s visions coalesced in a dreamy, airy manner – “Nick Drake meets Dr. Strangely Strange with a touch of Lewis Carroll” The Word Magazine would later write.

Pressed in small amounts for Vincenzo Micocci’s RCA sublabel It, Alice remained an out of reach masterpiece for many but its creator, who returned to England in 1971 and subsequently traveled the world, playing music, sometimes recording and painting. By the time of its rediscovery, its master tapes were assumed lost."