Illusion
Boyle's instrumental opener to the Hopper-era album, kicked off by Hugh Hopper's fuzz bass.
Isotope, from Illusion
- Written by
- Gary Boyle
- Length
- 3:55
- Album
- Illusion
Play on hypersongs (1)Play on hypersongs (2)
The opening and title track of the second album is an instrumental by Gary Boyle. The quartet of Boyle on guitar, Laurence Scott on keyboards, Hugh Hopper on bass and Nigel Morris on drums recorded it at Rockfield Studios in Monmouthshire, with Poli Palmer producing and Gary Martin engineering. It runs just under four minutes.
The Strawberry Bricks review notes that Hopper's fuzz bass starts it off. David Randall counted it, with E-Dorian, among the album's frenetic jazz rock workouts, and Phil Aston of Now Spinning wrote that it sets the tone for the record.
Live
The band played it on stage with Hopper. A short version from London on 23 July 1974 and a longer one from Bremen on 20 May 1975, with Aureo de Souza added on percussion, both appear on Cuneiform's Golden Section, which opens with the Bremen take. The uploads in the hypersongs web are the official upload of Esoteric's 2011 remaster of the studio track and a fan upload of the song.
On stage
- 1974-07-23, London A 3:13 version from the Geoff Wall archive, on Golden Section.
- 1975-05-20, Post-Aula, Bremen Radio Bremen concert broadcast, 4:02, opening Golden Section.
Sources
- Isotope: Illusion (Esoteric remaster), Discogs (2011)
- Isotope: Illusion (US), Strawberry Bricks
- Isotope reissues, Get Ready to Rock (2011)
- Isotope: Upward Curve review, Now Spinning (2026)
- Isotope: Golden Section, Discogs (2008)