Pacific Ocean Blue [Import]

'Pacific Ocean Blue' is a cult classic which lives up to its reputation. It's lush, heartfelt, emotionally stirring and unique. This superb re-release does justice to an extraordinarily good album which has been commercially unavailable for a surprisingly long time.

The packaging is lavish - a fold-out digipak style slipcase which reproduces all the original artwork including inner pictures and lyric sheet. To this is added a substantial booklet including a great deal of information and many rare photographs. If that's not enough for you, there's a pdf file on one of the discs with more.

'Pacific Ocean Blue' comprises the first 12 tracks on the first disc - for my money it's up there with 'Astral Weeks' by Van Morrison as amongst the top 10 indispensable albums. A previous reviewer criticised the sound quality of this release: I don't believe such criticism is justified. An A-B comparison with the original (long deleted) CD release, whose quality was perfectly acceptable, reveals a very similar tonality. In places the new release is somewhat clearer and certainly offers greater dynamics - but overall the original feel has been respected and reproduced. As ever, those migrating from vinyl might take a few listens to readjust.

What of the 21 'bonus' tracks? I have always had the impression that the legendary 'lost' second solo album 'Bambu' was lost somewhere within Dennis Wilson rather than in the sense of a lost tape. There's nothing here to change my mind on that score. There are at most half a dozen tracks which hold a candle to Pacific Ocean Blue, of which about three are really magnificent. The remainder either deserve their status as out-takes, or are promising tracks so unfinished as to even, in several cases, lack all vocals.

Other reviewers have mentioned the lack of the single releases "Lady" and "Sound of Free". I can see how they might have been welcomed, but they originated many years before the first solo album, so I feel there's a rationale for omitting them. Neither do I hold these rare tracks in the high regard others seem to...

If I were to have a gripe it's that the extra tracks on disc one break the mood at the end of the original album. I'd have sacrificed an instrumental or two to keep that disc to the original running order. That said, whilst I generally have very little sympathy for record companies, on this occasion I feel Sony deserve the applause to overwhelm the criticism (however constructive it may be). They have released this album into the wild again, and the team who put the release together evidently did it with care and with love.

When Dennis Wilson became the first Beach Boy to release a solo album everybody raised a flabbergasted eyebrow , especially the other Beach Boys. The notoriously party hard beach bum( he was the only Beach Boy to actually surf) seemed an unlikely candidate to get an album out first but he had been working on the album for most of the 1970,s but in 1976 he made a concerted effort to record an album proper and Pacific Ocean Blue finally saw the light of day in August 1977. What may have been even more surprising was just how emotionally broad and how superb the album was. Under any criteria Pacific Ocean Blue is a classic.
Its been unavailable for ages but not only has someone had the good sense to re-issue this great album they have done a superlative job of it too. There are loads of photo's, a booklet explaining the albums conception and execution and an extra disc with tracks from the never released follow up "Bambu " also dubbed "The Caribou Sessions". Disc one also has four bonus tracks all previously unreleased and unlike a lot of un-released material these are well worth hearing.
Anyone unfamiliar with this album may be shocked by Dennis Wilson ,s voice a cracked slightly husky instrument , light years away from the sweet harmony dripping tones of the Beach Boys. The thing is though his voice suit's the rather introspective melancholic and reflective nature of much of the material on Pacific Ocean Blue .A touching song like "End Of The Show" wouldn't be the same without that vulnerable lived in quality his voice suffuses the words with.
The music in this album has been called "California gospel" and that in many ways makes sense .There is copious use of choral vocals courtesy of The Double rock Baptist choir but the songs are usually arranged around guitar, keyboards, bass and percussion with some horns and reeds. The scope of sounds, textures and nuances Wilson and producers John Hanlon( The extra tracks) and Gregg Jakobson evince from this is truly staggering. It helps that these are such tremendous songs of course . Most of the songs are co-written with either Jakobson, Mike Love , Karen Lamm-Wilson or Carl Wilson with Jim Dutch and Steve Kalinich also contributing .
What songs they are too -from the throat tightening choral magnificence of "River Song" to the boogie woogie tones of "What's Wrong" to funk/blues hybrid "Friday Night" to the gorgeous ballad "Thought Of You" , "Time" "You And I" this is a flawless album . They even carry off the loose funk grooves of the title track and "The Rainbow " is just a great pop song. And the bonus tracks are a genuine bonus . I especially love the instrumental "Mexico " and the choral magnificence(again) of "Tug Of Love"
And as a bonus to the material that is already a bonus there is the extra disc which again is well worth hearing. While not as essential as the main album "Bambu" still has stellar moments of radiating virtuosity. "It's Not Too Late" is a heart-rending wracked ballad ,"School Girl" has a gulping choral majesty , "Love Remember Me" is bordering on the ecstatic but is still underpinned with an affecting melancholy ."Constant Companion" exudes such a rich multi-dimensional harmonic magnificence I had to keep checking to see a choir hadn't moved into the attic and started practising . "Time For Bed" is what I imagine would have transpired had Harry Nilsson gate crashed the Sgt Pepper recordings after a night out with Lennon. "Album Tag Song" could be off Dion,s "Born To Be With You" with it's broiling fat piano notes .
Pacific Ocean Blue is a seminal album up there with "No Other", "Bryter Layter" , "Berlin " .Albums that aren't just tremendously rewarding to listen to but seem to have an intangible extra element that transports the music into realms of artistry we hadn't heard before. It's been way, way overdue a release so not only is it justice that this is out but that so much love and attention hads gone into the final result. Very much like the album that inspired it.

Dennis Wilson was the hidden heart of the Beach Boys. Sure, brother Brian was correctly acclaimed as a pop genius and brother Carl was gifted with a voice beamed straight out of heaven, but behind that dumb good-time-boy public personna their brother Dennis was quietly & modestly nurturing a musical talent of such proportion that it remains a matter of wonder and mystery to the increasing number of admirers whose lives have been touched by his work. In the beginning, of course, he was the kid who laid down the beat for the band who would now & again take a turn as lead singer on the occasional song. What is seldom remarked, however, is that something happened to Dennis during the unfortunate Smile sessions that saw Brian's production methods unravel before his very eyes. Dennis was as moved by what was happening to his brother as anyone else, perhaps even more than most, but he is on record as having being deeply affected by the music created for the most famous lost album in rock history and it's as if in tracks like 'Surf's Up' & 'Cabinessence' he heard hints of his own way forward.

The first manifestations of his development arrived with two exceptional contributions ('Be Still' & the ever popular 'Little Bird') to the Beach Boys' Friends album in 1968. He then added his mark to the subsequent 20/20 & Sunflower albums and issued an impressive solo single that suggested the launch of a solo career. This activity was followed by a worrying silence. When Surf's Up was issued in 1971 Dennis was conspicuous by his absence and I have no doubt that this great album would have been elevated to classic status had it included work by Dennis. It's not that he wasn't making music- evidence of what he was fashioning in the studio at that time eventually surfaced on the band's Good Vibrations box set in the form of 'San Miguel', featuring Carl taking the lead vocal on a track written and fashioned by Dennis, & it's so gorgeous that it beggars belief that a production of such sumptuous quality could have been deliberately omitted from an album of which it would have been an obvious highlight. It was probably intended for a solo Dennis Wilson project that failed to take off, but there was even better to come. Dennis was back in the creative fold for both Carl & The Passions and Holland, and by now it was clear that he was proving to be the band's most consistent creative force. Those of us looking forward to hear more from him were nevertheless disappointed by his alarmingly low profile on 15 Big Ones & Beach Boys Love You, but it turned out that his absence was attributed to a re-engagement with a solo project. This time around, he delivered Pacific Ocean Blue- a masterpiece which hit the shops during the high summer of punk in 1977.

This album provides ample evidence that Dennis Wilson was possessed of more than an occasional talent. Here was a musician/composer with a genuine vision, genius even, who specialised in creating soundscapes of dramatically epic scope but delivered with sublime finesse & impeccable musical taste. Pacific Ocean Blue was & still is a thing apart from standard Beach Boys fare & yet it still stands tall as the greatest single artistic achievement of any member of that band in the aftermath of Smile. Here were great wide-screen vistas of sound which you could explore in the company of a creator who introduced you to passages of breathtaking beauty amidst others invested with an undertow of turbulence that was indeed evocative of the ocean- as exemplified by the rhythmically scored backing vocals on the album's opening River Song. No one but no one else (including Brian Wilson) was making music of such heartfelt, haunting grandeur in the mid 1970s and this lovingly remastered re-issue is as warmly welcomed as recovered treasure. It might still be regarded as an 'acquired' taste but if that's so its a forever kind of taste- which goes some way to appreciating the value of its status as arguably the most revered cult album of the rock era. It also demonstrates that this music is timeless. This record envelopes me as effectively today as it did on first hearing, but the enhanced sound quality enables me to enjoy even more detail than before, filling me with renewed awe.

Like Pet Sounds, Pacific Ocean Blue was bound to be a tough one to follow, as Dennis was soon to discover. Included here on the second disc are the remnants of its intended successor Bambu, which turned out to be the artist's very own personal Smile in that it was abandoned when its architect lost sight of the overall design. Like its predecessor, this record was endowed with some half dozen stunning performances but on this occasion the gap between the very best and the rest was far greater. The makings of another terrific album are here in the likes of 'All Alone', 'Love Surround Me', 'Wild Situation' & 'Love Remember Me', with strong hints of Dennis telling the story of a love affair (he & Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac were an item at this time). Unfortunately for us he left behind rather too many tracks that had yet to be moulded into coherent shapes, thus denying us much more than a blurred snapshot of what might have been. Among those unfinished items was an incredible backing track for a song titled 'Holy Man', for which Dennis had yet to supply either full lyrics or a lead vocal. The biggest surprise of this reissue is the inducing of Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters to take on the daunting task of not only 'finishing' the lyric but providing a lead vocal which complements the tone, timbre and delivery of Dennis' own voice so effectively that it emerges as a triumph in its own right. In fact, it's utterly magnificent & my personal favourite 'new' track of the year by a very long stretch indeed. On the strength of this performance, Taylor Hawkins should be encouraged to make an album of his own as soon as possible (perhaps it's happening as I write, I don't know but can only hope so).

I have no way of ending this review other than to admit that for me this record is one of the crowning glories of rock music. Enough.