Spin The Black Circle

I had a Scalextric racing set in the 70s that I got for Christmas one year. It had belonged to my Uncle Steve and he and my Dad had stayed up late Christmas Eve setting it up and then playing with it for hours on end. It was fun to play with but a real drag to have to get it all out and set it up every time. Many a time I would be fed up with it after setting it up and just have to pack it back up again. So when a few years later a young dentist that worked at the same practice that my Mum was a Registered Dental Surgery Assistant (R.D.S.A., dontcha know) offered to trade me my Scalextric for 2 LP's I was curious. Which LP's, I wanted to know? One was The Stranglers' "Black & White", a dark, menacing LP full of classics such as Nice'N'Sleazy and Do You Wanna, which also came with a 7" single on white vinyl containing, among other tracks, their brilliantly disturbed version of Walk On By. The other LP was a rare gem, The Last Inca by Adrian Wagner.
I was immediately interested in this because at age 11 I was a bit of a prog-rock nut, being into ELP and Vangelis, loving his Spiral LP to death, and when some time earlier I had watched an edition of the TV news magazine programme Nationwide I had seen a piece about Mr. Wagner and been mightily interested. He had recorded an album entitled Instincts at his home studio and I have the distinct memory of seeing a shot of Adrian in his bathroom, sitting on the lid of the toilet with his drum kit around him and mics everywhere, flushing the toilet and then laying down a solid rhythm. I thought, "This guy is a bit bonkers... I love it!"

Adrian Wagner was a descendant of the famous classical composer and a founder of the famous Electronic Dream plant, makers of the famous Wasp synth in the 1970s. The Last Inca is an entirely instrumental album based on the story of the Inca civilization and how it died out. I loved the album, I loved the sleeve design (by Hipgnosis), I loved the little booklet that came with it... it was fantastic.All that, and it was released on "The Famous Charisma Label" which I loved for...well, the label design, and the fact that it was Genesis' label. And now I find out that it was subsequently re-released along with Instincts as a double CD entitled Inca Gold. It's on my Christmas list, so if anyone needs any gift ideas...