Geoff Mann & Marc Catley: The Off The End Of The Pier Show & In Difference: The Definitive Edition

ALL TRACKS COPYRIGHT CONTROL

Please note this is a PRE-ORDER and will not be shipping until September 2023

We are delighted to announce the forthcoming release of another of ‘Geoff’s’ albums in the Definitive Edition series. This release combines both the albums Geoff recorded with his good friend Marc Catley, being The Off The End Of The Pier Show and In Difference.

All the artwork is being updated and expanded by our good friend Spencer Rowbotham. The extensive 20-page booklet will contain all of Geoff & Marc’s lyrics, as well as some of Geoff’s artwork, photos, sleeve notes, and in the case of ‘…The Pier Show’ a short story!

The Off The End Of The Pier Show comprises six instrumental pieces featuring flute, keyboards and a range of guitars, originally released in 1991 on Plankton Records. It is wobbly music certainly, but expertly played and produced and once you get tuned into it, I think you’ll agree it’s a wonderful album. Sort of early TN put though a wobble machine!

As Andrew Wild writes rather more eloquently in His Love, “The Off The End Of The Pier Show is an album of multi-rhythmic, polyphonic guitar-based instrumentals. It’s compelling, atmospheric and hypnotic, gently flowing with occasional loud flourishes. The glorious ‘The River’ is fifteen minutes of noodling which morphs into some trademark wobbly guitar (not so far from ‘Fur Helene’ by Twelfth Night) before closing out with Catley’s massed guitars à la Mike Oldfield. The magnificent ‘Terrence The Termite…’ bears striking similarities to the early work of Twelfth Night, and the guitar sound Andy Revell created using an echo unit.”

The album’s title comes from an off-the-cuff comment by producer Clive Davenport. ‘I told Geoff that I have a musical pier that is pretty wide,’ he recalls, ‘But some of it was off the end of my pier. That became the name of the album.’

Here are a couple of reviews…

“Highly refined progressive music full of varied and superb intuitive musicianship, whether spacey, floating or rhythmic, there’s a wealth of great music here.” [Audion. UK]

“The music is an engaging blend of progressive looping minimalism for guitars, akin to Mike Oldfield, Summers and Fripp…For those who like real melodies rather than patterns alone in their minimalism, Catley and Mann provide some tasty tunes, not to mention cascading lines, and broken harmonies which perfectly fit the modular and interlocking patterns. Though the guitars dominate, the mix of acoustic with electric instruments, and the broad spectrum of effects and gizmos yields sonorities ranging from sterling, pristine sounds to marvellously distorted and otherwise colourful guitar timbres….’ [Dean Suzuki. i/e]

…Some themes are very atmospheric, others are dreamy and some themes are a bit hypnotic and spun-out. The album really is a jewel and needs (and really deserves) repeated listening. I have only one point of criticism; the album is too short, because after fifty-five minutes you are longing for more – [Background]

---

In Difference was originally released in 1988 on cassette only, on Plankton Records. It contained nine songs and ran to forty-eight minutes. It is an interesting mix of songs written and produced by Geoff and Marc, and although coming from different musical backgrounds their lyrical connection is clear.

To complement the original nine track album, we have added the four tracks originally released as The Peel Tower Hop and a live version of ‘The War Is Won’, which we believe is the only recording of Geoff & Marc playing together live.

As Andrew Wild notes in His Love, Geoff was keen to work with Marc Catley, and produced, sang backing vocals and programmed ‘Roland’ on Marc’s EP; The Peel Tower Hop released in May 1987. This was recorded by Clive Davenport at Charter Studios, who once described Geoff as ‘a song writing machine’.

As Marc Catley says ‘Geoff had songs that did not sit well with the rock sound of The Bond, so contributed five songs to In Difference, and I four. Composition was done individually. Geoff and I worked well together, and our skill sets meshed, although I tended towards writing music down, Geoff preferred improvising.’

‘The Calling’ and ‘The War Is Won’ are slow, asymmetrical rock songs with bubbling bass, programmed drums and, as you’d expect, forthright, committed vocals. ‘This Time’, ‘Closer To You’ and ‘All Along The Way’ are three of Geoff’s very few almost purely acoustic tracks.

Tracks 10-13, were produced by Geoff and released as the EP The Peel Tower Hop (on cassette and 7-inch vinyl only), with the first three included on a subsequent CD release entitled Fine Difference, which also included tracks from Geoff’s Chants Would Be A Fine Thing, so this is the first-time track 13 ‘Magnify’ has appeared on CD.”

This is what Marc says about the live version of ‘The War Is Won’. “Geoff and I attended the Greenbelt Music Festival most years, but because we were always there with our own bands we never performed together, except on this one occasion. It was August 29^th, 1988, and when Geoff wandered into the Musician’s Info/Plankton Records marquee on the Festival Fringe, it was suggested that we do an impromptu gig. We performed four songs from the newly released In Difference. Geoff is on rhythm and vocals, me on lead.”

Here are extracts from a couple of reviews of In Difference…

“Marc Catley describes his music as classical acoustic rock, and I guess that’s a pretty fair label. There are some very pleasant instrumental passages where acoustic is the order of the day, but there are also tracks where rock is definitely to the fore. Neither Marc nor Geoff feel hemmed in by the constraints of any standard songwriting formula., and this gives them both the opportunity to explore many areas, both musically and lyrically.”
[Christian Music. UK]

“Refreshing…Very good.”
[Background. Holland]