Bread Love And Dreams - Bread Love And Dreams (Reissue, Remastered) (1969/2012)

The name might at first suggest California ’67 flower-power or compatriot mainstreamers who hit on the first word for their moniker. But the truth is a bit different. Based on an Italian mid-50s ‘romantic comedy’ film (Pane, amore e fantasia), a Glaswegian-educated singer-songwriter met a female folk duo at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and ‘decided to record some demos together. We thought they sound good so we kept going’. For the first time all three of their albums are available at the same time.

This almost-unique configuration—not often a chap in a band is the odd one out, gender-speaking rather than other criteria—gelled from the off. After he did his set, Angie & Carolyn (as they were known then) played and their manager asked him if he wanted to join their demo session. They immediately realised that their musical styles were intertwined and shared. Bread Love & Dreams are often compared to the Incredible String Band, probably because of locale (though the Shindig special on ISB for example ignored them), or Dr. Strangely Strange but their quirkiness is less strident and potent though beauty is a key element of all three groups. They’re more like a collage of Loudest Whisper, Mark Fry, Roger Rodier, Wooden Horse, Trader Horne with a smattering of Pentangle. Even Pearls Before Swine for those seeking beyond the Atlantic.

David McNiven (vocals, guitar, flute, clarinet, harmonica), Angie Rew (vocals, guitar, African and European percussion), and Carolyn Davis (vocals, guitar) were fired up by a mutually creative spark. Rew told Seasons They Change (2010) that the early days were intense, rehearsing and gigging all the time anywhere they could, including an incredible eight shows per night for a fortnight in two clubs in snowy Cologne. A Turkish bouncer ‘adopted’ the girls and carried them with their guitars and amps under each arm between clubs. It’s often said that the debut was recorded in London, but in fact was taped in Edinburgh then Ray Horricks, a producer and A&R rep for Decca who saw them at the Fringe in ’68, took the tapes to London to add and mix early the next year. McNiven went there soon after to collect their advance for three albums: the princely sum of ten quid.

The eponymous Bread Love & Dreams appeared in October 1969, mostly songs that McNiven and Rew/Davis wrote prior to meeting. Always hard to find, it is now available via Talking Elephant (TECD195); Wikipedia, who should know better, lists an infamous Korean bootlegger as an official CD release. A dozen songs, filling all available vinyl space, ooze the period. One might dispute the placing of the opener (the album starts and leaves up- tempo) about binge-drinking and its hangover (Switch Out The Sun): ‘Yesterday I hit the bottle and today it hit me back’, but finger-picking and close harmonies are a good introduction. Virgin Kiss is more ISB style, the only track, with bongos about a magical moment with the poetically-named Isidora. Bass and strings add to the feel. The first sung by Rew, The Least Said, is about the ending of a relationship, and less directly on Until She Needs You (with McNiven’s backing vocals over violin/cello) also from the female perspective’s ‘reincarnations’, the only time across three LPs that they border on saccharine.