THE BEACH BOYS
“You’re sittin’ in a dentist’s chair/And they’ve got music for you there”
Feel Flows: The Sunflower & Surf’s Up Sessions 1969-1971
CAPITOL/UME
ON 15 August 1970, The Beach Boys repaired to Brian Wilson’s house in Bel-Air, setting up in the studio downstairs. Sunflower, their new album, was due out in a fortnight, but the band were already sketching ideas for a follow-up. Wilson laid down a basic track for “’Til I Die”, a song he’d been struggling with for some time but was yet to perfect. Mike Love, meanwhile, unveiled the quietly rapturous “Big Sur”.
Trailed this June ahead of – a major compilation centred around and its 1971 successor, – “Big Sur” finds the band in their preferred“California Saga” in 1973, but the original is far more persuasive. Much bootlegged but widely unavailable until now, its belated appearance teased the possibility of a trove of hidden revelations within The Beach Boys’ catalogue. makes good on that promise. Produced by Mark Linett and archive manager Alan Boyd – the capable hands who delivered 2011’s – it’s a set as vast as it is remarkable, containing no fewer than 135 tracks, 108 of which have never been officially released before. Strung across five CDs are various live cuts, outtakes, demos, alternate mixes and isolated backing tracks that show the full extent of The Beach Boys’ endeavours at a critical point in their history.
