One record at a time: 453. Jon and Vangelis - The Friends of Mr Cairo

"The Friends of Mr Cairo" was originally released in 1981 but despite the band's high hopes, it did not sell well. The pair's first album "Short Stories" had been propelled to chart success by the hit single "I Hear You Now" but an edited version of the title track from this album didn't even manage a chart placing. 

A despondent but determined Vangelis set to work writing a new single and after a brief recording session with Anderson, "I'll Find My Way Home" was born. Once the sides of the disc were flipped and a photo sleeve was added alongside the new single, the album finally charted in the top ten and achieved the sales originally expected. 

Today I will be listening to the original six track version of the album with the white cover. Whilst I had owned the newer version of the LP for a long time I was intrigued by the original cover and decided buy a cheap copy from eBay. Unfortunately the wonderful people at Evri managed to partially destroy the sleeve on its journey between the eBay seller and my front door which made my purchase somewhat pointless. However, the disc itself is near perfect and is one of the best I have ever encountered. I have no idea what makes this copy sound so good but it has very little background noise and Vangelis's instruments spring across the sound stage as if they are in some kind of pseudo 3D format. 

Aside from the single "I'll Find My Way Home" this album seems to be the sound of Jon Anderson having some sort of a mid-life crisis. The lengthy title track is essentially a reminiscence about the gangster movies he watched in his childhood and comes replete with impressions of Jimmy Cagney and James Stewart that stretch the credibility of the song to its absolute limit. "Back to School" (or "Back to School Boogie" depending on which version of the artwork you are looking at) is a load of old 12 bar blues nonsense where Anderson tells us he wants to go back to school where it was safe (inconceivably this was actually released as a single!). "Beside" seems to be an aimless story about reflecting on the past but none of the lyrics really make much sense. 

"Outside and Inside" is a fairly unremarkable ballad but Vangelis adds some nice synth flourishes that elevate is just enough to be worth a listen. The pulsating "State of Independence" is the highlight of the record and the version here is somewhat longer than the single version. "The Mayflower" is a bit of a Marmite track: some will love it, others loathe it. Vangelis's music is pretty good, but the sci-fi nonsense theme and the butt-clenchingly bad voice over do drag it down. 2.5/5