Although close to 40 people helped out at various points, it was two Sevenoaks School boys from Kent, England who started the core line up of the obscure “Pig Rider” in 1965, haunting the music rooms and trying out strange ideas for inspiration, such as getting a nonmusical friend to count random numbers off on the other side of the room to keep rhythm. Taking their uncanny styles together and starting to jam and include more and more musicians as time went on, “Pig Rider” has quite a storied history. Comprised of bedroom recordings and such, there are a large number of songs here, some with very strange titles. At first it can look like a bit much to delve into for the uninitiated, but for the fearless searchers of the undiscovered, Pig Rider’s “Robinson Scratch Theory” is a worthwhile listen as it is very off the wall and these musicians knew no boundaries. They are what I view as the Monty Python of early 70s UK folk, intelligent but full of humor and off-kilter traditional folk gone to the loony bin for a stay.This folk whimsy, with a tasteful sound, featuring ever-present funky and 70s organic sounding synthesizers/keyboards, which are used here to hold down the rhythm over laid with multi tracked fuzz lines, which are quite well harmonized and build a la Jimmy Page on "Ten Years Gone". Lyrics are traditional folksy British and are sung in a typical style but there's an overall darkness and philosophical tinge heaviness here. There are dogs barking, weird chants, background noise, evil progressive rock synths reminiscent of Xian psych and other loner-in-the-bedroom recordings. As this is such a long and dense listen I’m not doing this track by track, but more aiming for the overall feel of the group. I will say, there is a 10-minute epic here which goes through all the moves, which is pretty much the icing on the cake as to what this duo was capable of. This is a very unique record indeed, and not for the faint of heart, really. It's got the intensely personal stamp of throwing caution to the wind and laying down “in the moment” fueled flights of inspiration. Let's just say there was nothing like Pig Rider, one of the few if not only bands to meld an authentic British folk feel, with a wry sense of British humor and chemical influence to the sometimes spontaneous outbursts. It can go from beautiful acoustic folk to intense fuzz-psych lo fi blow outs on the drop of a dime. This collection may not be for everybody but it is a wild ride for the brave-hearted.

thanks for such in-depth review. glad to see there are more Pig Rider fans out there!