''A Curious Feeling'' is the debut solo album from English keyboardist Tony Banks. It was recorded at

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's Polar Music Studios during a brief hiatus for Banks's main group Genesis and released in 1979 on Charisma Records. It is one of only two of Banks' solo albums to have entered the UK Albums Chart, reaching 21 and staying on the chart for five weeks.David Roberts ''British Hit Singles and Albums'', Guinness World Records Limited. The album is a loose adaptation of the 1966 Daniel Keyes novel '' Flowers for Algernon''. Its cover was designed by Hothouse and contains ''Wuluwait - Boatman of the Dead'' by Australian artist Ainslie Roberts. It was digitally remastered in 2009.

History

The instrumental piece "From the Undertow" was used in the 1978 British film '' The Shout'', for which Banks, with

Mike Rutherford Michael John Cloete Crawford Rutherford (born 2 October 1950) is an English guitarist, bassist and songwriter, best known as co-founder, lead guitarist and bassist of the rock band Genesis (band), Genesis. He and keyboardist Tony Banks (musici ...

, composed the incidental music. No soundtrack of the film has been released. The piece was originally intended to be the intro to "Undertow" from the Genesis album '' ...And Then There Were Three...'' (hence the title). Initially, producer & engineer David Hentschel couldn't attend the sessions at Polar Studios due to catching measles from his daughter at the time, so assistant engineer Dave Bascombe did the recording. As Tony Banks elaborated, "at that stage ascombewas pretty green and I was pretty green, so we put the basic tracks down and the results were pretty good, quite surprisingly." Hentschel eventually recovered in time to oversee the final overdubs and mixing at Maison Rouge Studios in London.David Hentschel Talks About Producing Both Tony Banks & Mike Rutherford's First Solo Albums
/ref> The album was re-released on 19 October 2009, remixed from the original masters by Nick Davis, who also created a 5.1 DTS 96/24 surround mix which is available on the second disc of the deluxe edition.

Reception

According to Banks himself, the album "got some extremely scathing reviews, I don't think they were fair" but he conceded "this was post-

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and this was really not the album that people wanted to hear".Interview with Tony Banks. ''

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's Sounds of the Seventies''.

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. 29 June 2014 ''

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'' reviewer Jerry Ewing agrees with Banks, writing that the album is made of "lush pastoral English prog rock that deserved better at the time" and is probably the musician's best solo effort.

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gave a positive retrospective review, asserting that "Banks manages to capture the wonderment and allure that enveloped Genesis'

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days... yet he filters out the instrumental intricacies, unorthodox time signatures, and complex poetry which enveloped these works to create a milder but equally effective progressive realm ic" They praised the album for lacking the instrumental pretentiousness that most would have expected, instead focusing on strong progressive rock compositions.

Track listing

Personnel

* Tony Banks – keyboards, guitars, bass, percussion *

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– drums, percussion * Kim Beacon – vocals

Production

* Tony Banks – producer * David Hentschel – producer, engineer * David Bascombe – engineer * Geoff Banks – equipment * Andy Mackrill – equipment * Dale Newman – equipment * Hothouse – design * Ainslie Roberts – cover painting

Charts

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Curious Feeling, A 1979 debut albums Tony Banks (musician) albums Albums produced by David Hentschel Albums produced by Tony Banks (musician) Caroline Records albums Charisma Records albums Albums recorded at Polar Studios