Immram: The Voyage of the Corvus Corrone review

Immram: The Voyage of the Corvus Corrone is a lost prog-rock classic. Or is it?

The CD comes encased in a hard-covered book the size of an old-fashioned LP. The front is marbled and embossed with a gold icon, perhaps Celtic in origin. Inside are pages of fantastical illustrations, in a style that seems to combine Roger Dean (of the Yes album covers) and Guy ­Peeleart (David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs), and a convoluted pick-a-path fantasy tale involving an intrepid escape from a dystopian nightmare.

Lost classic or retro reconstruction? According to the liner notes, Immram: The Voyage of the Corvus Corrone is the reissue of an album made in 1975 for an obscure and soon-to-be-defunct French label, Akashic Records. There’s the testimony of one Louis-Sébastien Monad, purportedly a former employee of the label, who recalls three mysterious and unidentified characters delivering the original recording, then vanishing without a trace. There are accounts of the album’s brief availability, and the uncanny experiences of those who encountered it at the time. And there is the explanation of how, 34 years later, the master tapes and artwork fell into the hands of three New Zealanders – Paul McLaney, Matt Pitt and Jeremiah Ross – who restored, remixed, remastered and generally prepared the material for reissue.

Musically, it is a plausible example of a mid-70s prog-rock opus. The fantasy theme is consistent with an era that produced concept albums like Jethro Tull’s Broadsword and the Beast or Jon Anderson’s Olias of Sunhillow. Synthesisers summon the spirits of Tangerine Dream and Jean-Michel Jarre with pre-digital whirrs, whoops and washes. The guitar solos are heroic, in the style of Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour. Only the drum machine seems a little modern; then again, maybe these mystery men were just a year or two ahead of their time?

But the giveaway is the singer, whose dulcet voice is clearly that of locally based singer-songwriter McLaney. When he sings, any notion of pastiche or parody falls away and one hears only complete engagement with the songs, and the romantic escapist scenario.

It is evident McLaney loves this stuff, for all its excesses. He only wishes he was living in an age where it was still taken seriously. The fact is that in 2011 the elaborate and entertaining ruse surrounding this preposterous, intricately crafted epic – a fantasy wrapped in a fantasy – is the only way he’ll get away with it.

IMMRAM: THE VOYAGE OF THE CORVUS CORRONE (Escape Artists Recordings).