Short Reviews [Tomorrow - 1968 - "Permanent Dream" [2023 Edition]]

Tomorrow’s debut album was released in 1968 with a line-up of Keith West (vocals), Steve Howe (guitar), Junior (bass), and Twink (drums) with some keyboards provided by producer Mark Wirtz. West’s success with his solo hit single "Excerpt from 'A Teenage Opera' (Grocer Jack)" led to the band breaking up, with Twink later joining The Pretty Things before moving to The Pink Fairies and Howe of course joining Yes. What we have here is a re-imagining of that album by Howe, featuring some less well-known studio tracks, a new title, running order and sleeve along with modern post-production, balance and edits. This means the album length is now 14 songs, two of which are live, and Howe has dropped some songs altogether to bring in others, but I am sure I am not the only person who has never actually heard the original as while it is now viewed by many as one of the finest psychedelic albums of the age, it was not a commercial success with even the single “My White Bicycle” (which is known by many) not damaging the charts. Howe has not cleaned the sound too much, so it still sounds very much of the time, but I am just not sure how relevant that makes it in 2023. Mind you, Howe is now well into his seventies, and this is obviously a passion project for him, so if he didn’t do it now, it would probably never be done. He was just 20 at the time this was recorded and was already a very fine guitarist indeed. West has a fine voice, and it is something of a surprise that he did not achieve much more after the demise of the band. For Yes fans this is something of a novelty release which will probably be played once or twice and then put with the rest of the collection, but fans of psychedelia will certainly get a lot from this.