Dando Shaft - Anthology (1970-72/2002) Lossless

All three of the band's early-'70s albums are combined onto this two-CD set, with the addition of a non-LP single A-side, an outtake (identified as an "album extra") from Dando Shaft, and four songs from a radio session. Could listeners ask for anything more? Well, just a bit, actually, in the way of documentation. For whatever coy reason, the date and source of the four radio session tracks are not given, though one would guess they almost certainly date from the early '70s, circa 1972 (as a 1972 non-LP single, "Sun Clog Dance," is included on the session, though mysteriously given the title "Spring Clog Dance" on this CD). Other nitpicking notes: "Lullaby," identified as an "album extra" from Dando Shaft, is actually just a marginally different (if at all different) version of that album's "'Til the Morning Comes." And one of the other songs from the radio session, identified as "Don't Forget the Animal," is in fact not a song that never appeared on their proper records, but a radio version of a fragment of one of the tracks, "The Magnetic Beggar," from their third album, Lantaloon. Finally, the non-LP B-side of "Sun Clog Dance," "This Gift," is for some unexplained reason not included. But for all that, this is a very good package, containing virtually all of their official studio releases of the era and adding some extras that, if ill-documented, are at least genuine extras. (It should also be noted that two of the songs from the radio session, "Thruxton Flute" and "Digging Up the Roses," in fact don't appear on any of the studio releases.) With serviceable liner notes, it's a worthy package of the near-total output of a British folk-rock band that was too derivative (particularly of Pentangle) to qualify as a major group, but was a pretty decent one that will be enjoyed by devoted fans of the genre.