ODYSSEY
“Setting Forth: Deluxe Edition"
Once
upon a time, when the music business was more
music than business (but only just), there was
a lean, mean, and super tight band who created
a quintessential dose of New York sixties
psychedelia: one perfect album, loaded with
heavy swirling organ, ferocious fuzz guitar,
and powerhouse vocals. That band was Odyssey.
Their album, “Setting Forth,” did not take
them from support slots in their native Long
Island to the major label heights of other
local bands like Vanilla Fudge. But it is that
same Odyssey “Setting Forth” album that is one
of the greatest guitar-heavy psych records in
the world, and as a result one of the most
sought after (and expensive) psychedelic
rarities ever pressed on wax. Now it has been
painstakingly remastered, repackaged for this
2xCD deluxe edition, ready for true psych fans
to devour.
This is truly one of the pinnacles of
underground psychedelic music, recorded in
1969, released in an edition of fewer than 100
copies, and impossible to find as it only came
in a plain white cardboard sleeve; an
incredible, musically accomplished, hard
rocking album of originals that jumps right
out of the speakers and grabs you, from it’s
opening In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida-esque riffs right
to the grooving end. The 24-page booklet that
accompanies this two-disc set has the complete
band history by Odyssey leader Vinny Kusy, as
well as rare photos from his own archive.
Bonus tracks on disc one are three “basement
recordings” from the “Setting Forth” era. The
second disc contains Odyssey “Live at
Levittown Memorial Auditorium: 1974,” a
live recording that was never really meant to
be, recorded by Odyssey’s sound engineer on a
portable cassette recorder. It is the only
document of Odyssey in their progressive rock
phase, just before sometime Odyssey
keyboardist Tom Doncourt and band-member Fred
Callan recorded their legendary Cathedral
“Stained Glass Stories” album.
•One of the ten rarest psych albums from the
USA
•Sleeve notes by the group's leader and
keyboardist Vinny Kusy
•Odyssey Live at Levittown remastered by Tom
Doncourt of Cathedral
•2xCD packaged in a Stoughton tip-on gatefold
mini-LP sleeve, with a 24-page booklet and an
OBI, in a mylar outer sleeve
Disc One:
Odyssey “Setting Forth”
01 Angel Dust 5:43
02 Sally 4:34
03 Church Yard 3:00
04 You're Not There 3:44
05 Got to Feel It 3:17
06 Tied by a Rope 4:24
07 Society's Child 5:02
08 Denky's Boogie 4:43
09 St. Elmo's Fire 3:04
10 Come Back 3:29
Bonus Tracks (Basement Recordings):
11. Odyssey (2:50)
12. Melody Man (4:11)
13. Whiter Shade of Pale (4:45)
Disc Two:
Odyssey “Live at Levittown Memorial
Auditorium: 1974”
01. Winter Summer Spring and Fall (7:25)
02. One More Time, Can't you Feel... (4:34)
03. Morning Light (12:35)
04. For Band Babies (3:02)
05. Lord, Make a Regular Man Out Of Me
(10:45)
06. SHE... Who must be Obeyed (15:32)
Bonus Track:
07. Winter Summer Spring and Fall (pipe
organ) (7:58)
CD catalogue number: LION 601(2)
UPC: 778578060121