U.K. - U.K. (1978) [2009, Japan SHM-CD, 30th Anniversary Edition]

Posted By: v3122

Date: July 3, 2010

The debut album from amalgamated progsters John Wetton, Bill Bruford, Eddie Jobson, and Allan Holdsworth has the edge over both Danger Money and Night After Night because of the synthesis of melody and rhythm that is inflicted through nearly every one of the eight tracks. While not as commercial sounding as Wetton's 1980s supergroup Asia, U.K. mustered up a progressive air by the use of intelligent keyboard and percussion interplay without sounding mainstream. Jobson's work with the electric violin and assorted synthesizers adds to an already profound astuteness carried by Wetton. Former Yes and Genesis drummer Bill Bruford is just as important behind the kit, making his presence felt on numbers like "Thirty Years" and "Nevermore." Without carrying the same rhythms or cadences through each song, U.K. implements some differentiation into their music, straying from the sometimes over-the-top musicianship that occurs with the gathering of such an elite bunch. The melodious finish of such tracks as "By the Light of Day" and "Alaska" showcases the overall fluency of each member, and shows no signs of any progressive tediousness that could have easily evolved. All three of U.K.'s albums are enjoyable, but the debut sports the most interest, since it spotlights their remarkable fit as a band for the first time.

~ Mike DeGagne

U.K. Biography:

U.K. were a short-lived British progressive rock supergroup active from 1977 through 1980.

In September 1976, singer/bassist John Wetton and drummer Bill Bruford, alumni of King Crimson, worked on forming a band with Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman. The project was stopped by Wakeman’s label. According to Bruford, “A&M Records were unwilling to let their ‘star,’ Wakeman, walk off with a used, slightly soiled King Crimson rhythm section, and the idea failed.”

Determined to work together, Bruford and Wetton next asked guitarist Robert Fripp to reform King Crimson which Fripp had disbanded in 1974. When Fripp declined, Bruford and Wetton decided that each would bring in a musician of his choice to formulate a band. Wetton brought in keyboardist/violinist Eddie Jobson, whom Wetton knew from his work with Roxy Music in 1976 – “stealing” him from Frank Zappa. Bruford recruited guitarist Allan Holdsworth (formerly of Soft Machine and Gong) who had played guitar on Bruford’s 1977 debut solo album, Feels Good to Me.

U.K. released their self-titled début album in 1978 and followed it with a supporting tour.

Following two lengthy American tours (June-October 1978), first Holdsworth and then Bruford departed U.K. over musical differences, going on to form the jazz rock fusion group Bruford. After the departure of Bruford and Holdsworth, U.K. didn’t bring in another guitarist. Drummer Terry Bozzio (another one-time Frank Zappa band member) joined Wetton and Jobson, and as a result U.K. became a trio with a progressive rock lineup of keyboards/bass/drums (albeit supplemented by Jobson’s violin). The trio recorded the album Danger Money, released in March 1979, and spent much of that year touring North America as opening act for Jethro Tull. A live album, Night After Night, was recorded in Japan that Spring and released in September. Following a final European tour in December 1979, and in spite of plans to record a new studio album in America in March 1980, U.K. disbanded. The reason for this was Jobson’s and Wetton’s different ideas on how the band should have gone on. Jobson wanted UK to go on with more long instrumental pieces, while Wetton thought that performing shorter songs was a better idea. Jobson stated that one song in particular was the reason of the band to disband: “When Will You Realise?”, a non-LP B-side (to date still unavailable on CD) featured on the “Night After Night” single, which Wetton would re-record (with slightly different lyrics) in 1980 on his solo album Caught In The Crossfire.

Throughout their brief existence, U.K.’s music was characterised by skilled musicianship, jazzy harmonies, close harmony vocals, use of odd time signatures (like 7/4 on the song “In the Dead of Night”), electric violin solos, and unusually varied synthesiser (Yamaha CS-80) sonorities.

U.K. - U.K. (30th Anniversary Edition):

Tracklist:

01- In The Dead Of Night
02- By The Light Of Day
03- Presto Vivace And Reprise
04- Thirty Years
05- Alaska
06- Time To Kill
07- Nevermore
08- Mental Medication

Personnel:

Eddie Jobson – electric violin, keyboards, Electronics
John Wetton – lead vocals, bass
Allan Holdsworth – guitars
Bill Bruford – drums, percussion

XLD

X Lossless Decoder version 20100518 (120.3)
XLD extraction logfile from 2010-05-18 20:17:01 +0600
U.K. / U.K.
Used drive : OPTIARC DVD RW AD-5670S (revision 2AHH)
Use cdparanoia mode : YES (CDParanoia III 10.2 engine)
Disable audio cache : OK for the drive with cache less than 2750KB
Make use of C2 pointers : NO
Read offset correction : 48
Max retry count : 100
TOC of the extracted CD
Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 00:00:00 | 05:33:20 | 0 | 24994
2 | 05:33:20 | 04:33:41 | 24995 | 45510
3 | 10:06:61 | 03:00:17 | 45511 | 59027
4 | 13:07:03 | 08:01:68 | 59028 | 95170
5 | 21:08:71 | 04:36:36 | 95171 | 115906
6 | 25:45:32 | 04:56:44 | 115907 | 138150
7 | 30:42:01 | 08:10:12 | 138151 | 174912
8 | 38:52:13 | 07:21:70 | 174913 | 208057
Track 01
Filename : /Users/gubarenko/Desktop/U.K. - U.K./01 - In The Dead Of Night.flac
Pre-gap length : 00:02:00
CRC32 hash (test run) : 415A7654
CRC32 hash : 415A7654
CRC32 hash (skip zero) : 141FA597
AccurateRip signature : E548C2CF
->Accurately ripped! (confidence 3)
Statistics
Read error : 0
Skipped (treated as error) : 0
Edge jitter error (maybe fixed) : 0
Atom jitter error (maybe fixed) : 0
Drift error (maybe fixed) : 0
Dropped bytes error (maybe fixed) : 0
Duplicated bytes error (maybe fixed) : 0
Inconsistency in error sectors : 0
Track 02
Filename : /Users/gubarenko/Desktop/U.K. - U.K./02 - By The Light Of Day.flac
CRC32 hash (test run) : B868A138
CRC32 hash : B868A138
CRC32 hash (skip zero) : 1DF6884C
AccurateRip signature : 82DAB166
->Accurately ripped! (confidence 3)
Statistics
Read error : 0
Skipped (treated as error) : 0
Edge jitter error (maybe fixed) : 0
Atom jitter error (maybe fixed) : 0
Drift error (maybe fixed) : 0
Dropped bytes error (maybe fixed) : 0
Duplicated bytes error (maybe fixed) : 0
Inconsistency in error sectors : 0
Track 03
Filename : /Users/gubarenko/Desktop/U.K. - U.K./03 - Presto Vivace And Reprise.flac
CRC32 hash (test run) : 5E65A8F4
CRC32 hash : 5E65A8F4
CRC32 hash (skip zero) : 7E19A5AD
AccurateRip signature : D458BD0C
->Accurately ripped! (confidence 3)
Statistics
Read error : 0
Skipped (treated as error) : 0
Edge jitter error (maybe fixed) : 0
Atom jitter error (maybe fixed) : 0
Drift error (maybe fixed) : 0
Dropped bytes error (maybe fixed) : 0
Duplicated bytes error (maybe fixed) : 0
Inconsistency in error sectors : 0
Track 04
Filename : /Users/gubarenko/Desktop/U.K. - U.K./04 - Thirty Years.flac
CRC32 hash (test run) : 9B79BFD4
CRC32 hash : 9B79BFD4
CRC32 hash (skip zero) : 3D695FBD
AccurateRip signature : 20CE51D1
->Accurately ripped! (confidence 3)
Statistics
Read error : 0
Skipped (treated as error) : 0
Edge jitter error (maybe fixed) : 0
Atom jitter error (maybe fixed) : 0
Drift error (maybe fixed) : 0
Dropped bytes error (maybe fixed) : 0
Duplicated bytes error (maybe fixed) : 0
Inconsistency in error sectors : 0
Track 05
Filename : /Users/gubarenko/Desktop/U.K. - U.K./05 - Alaska.flac
CRC32 hash (test run) : 86ED3EDF
CRC32 hash : 86ED3EDF
CRC32 hash (skip zero) : 27527588
AccurateRip signature : 36104CEF
->Accurately ripped! (confidence 3)
Statistics
Read error : 0
Skipped (treated as error) : 0
Edge jitter error (maybe fixed) : 0
Atom jitter error (maybe fixed) : 0
Drift error (maybe fixed) : 0
Dropped bytes error (maybe fixed) : 0
Duplicated bytes error (maybe fixed) : 0
Inconsistency in error sectors : 0
Track 06
Filename : /Users/gubarenko/Desktop/U.K. - U.K./06 - Time To Kill.flac
CRC32 hash (test run) : C46F00C2
CRC32 hash : C46F00C2
CRC32 hash (skip zero) : 9C8788C0
AccurateRip signature : C0C02855
->Accurately ripped! (confidence 3)
Statistics
Read error : 0
Skipped (treated as error) : 0
Edge jitter error (maybe fixed) : 0
Atom jitter error (maybe fixed) : 0
Drift error (maybe fixed) : 0
Dropped bytes error (maybe fixed) : 0
Duplicated bytes error (maybe fixed) : 0
Inconsistency in error sectors : 0
Track 07
Filename : /Users/gubarenko/Desktop/U.K. - U.K./07 - Nevermore.flac
CRC32 hash (test run) : D651AC46
CRC32 hash : D651AC46
CRC32 hash (skip zero) : D88853C3
AccurateRip signature : A74AD427
->Accurately ripped! (confidence 3)
Statistics
Read error : 0
Skipped (treated as error) : 0
Edge jitter error (maybe fixed) : 0
Atom jitter error (maybe fixed) : 0
Drift error (maybe fixed) : 0
Dropped bytes error (maybe fixed) : 0
Duplicated bytes error (maybe fixed) : 0
Inconsistency in error sectors : 0
Track 08
Filename : /Users/gubarenko/Desktop/U.K. - U.K./08 - Mental Medication.flac
CRC32 hash (test run) : 14D7BFD6
CRC32 hash : 14D7BFD6
CRC32 hash (skip zero) : 49896C79
AccurateRip signature : 7DA8ED9D
->Accurately ripped! (confidence 3)
Statistics
Read error : 0
Skipped (treated as error) : 0
Edge jitter error (maybe fixed) : 0
Atom jitter error (maybe fixed) : 0
Drift error (maybe fixed) : 0
Dropped bytes error (maybe fixed) : 0
Duplicated bytes error (maybe fixed) : 0
Inconsistency in error sectors : 0
No errors occurred
End of status report

Audiochecker

AUDIOCHECKER v2.0 beta (build 457) - by Dester - opdester@freemail.hu
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-=== DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE! ===-

Path: …\U.K. - 1978 - U.K

01 -=- 01 - In The Dead Of Night.flac -=- CDDA (100%)
02 -=- 02 - By The Light Of Day.flac -=- CDDA (100%)
03 -=- 03 - Presto Vivace And Reprise.flac -=- CDDA (100%)
04 -=- 04 - Thirty Years.flac -=- CDDA (100%)
05 -=- 05 - Alaska.flac -=- CDDA (99%)
06 -=- 06 - Time To Kill.flac -=- CDDA (100%)
07 -=- 07 - Nevermore.flac -=- CDDA (100%)
08 -=- 08 - Mental Medication.flac -=- CDDA (100%)

Summary 99,88% CDDA

109996420

Download U.K. - U.K. (30th Anniversary Edition):

RS.com - All links:
U.K. - U.K. - All RS and TB links

Turbobit - lossless:
U.K. - U.K. - One file

Turbobit - MP3 CBR320:
U.K. - U.K. - One file

Turbobit - Scans(Tiff):
U.K. - U.K. - One file

pass:
www.avaxhome.ws

Should you encounter any dead links, please send me a private message.

All thanks go to mgubarenko