Even in the Quietest Moments...

Peter Henderson engineered and Geoff Emerick mixed; most of it was recorded at Caribou Ranch in Nederland, Colorado, with overdubs, vocals and mixing at the Record Plant in Los Angeles. Davies said the thin mountain air made voices go weird and sax playing difficult, so they finished in Los Angeles. Hodgson spent about five years on "Fool's Overture", which includes a Churchill speech excerpt, Big Ben and a Holst quotation; "Downstream" was a single take of Davies on vocal and piano. It reached number one in Canada and the Netherlands and 16 in the US, and was the band's first US Gold album within months. Singles were "Give a Little Bit" (May 27, 1977, US 15, UK 29) and "Babaji". AllMusic called it elegant yet mildly absurd, witty but kind of obscure.