Busking usually gets a bad rap from the perspective of not just the performers, but the transient audience passing by, mostly out of tune and uncaring about what’s going on right there on the side walk. Some groups have made it off the streets – the Libertines and Pete Doherty most notably of late – but for the most part, it seems to just be a way by which to gain a few bucks for a drink or a piece of pizza. You don’t make millions with your guitar case open as a seemingly talented beggar. That’s not meant to dissuade you vagabonds from attempting it, but ya know…

One of the more curious street bands to almost make it is a group called Subway. During the early ‘70s American guitarist Irvin Mowrey made his way to Great Britain just to see what was going on, which seems as good a reason as any. While there, he met Malcolm Watson, a violin player. They began laconically jamming and eventually headed underground to the tube station. It was there that a Brit radio honcho invited them to his station. Unfortunately, VISA problems caused Mowrey to hit the road and the two wound up in France.

There, the two went through the same motions. And oddly enough, when playing in the subway, they were again approached by some executive type with the promise of a recording gig. None of this would happen today – it seems like a fairy tale, but nonetheless, the duo worked up enough material between them that they were set to head in to the studio and set down eight tracks. The resultant self titled disc didn’t sell at all even after the duo embarked on a tour with Supertramp of all groups. And the way that the French recording industry worked at the time was to recover the unsold discs, melt them down and reuse the material. This act served to ostensibly wipe out Subway. Apparently a few hundred remained and from these discs, a digital version was derived. And I can say that it’s surprising that no one was hip to this upon its initial release in ’72.

While this effort is clearly a fey psych folk offering, a few moments do present themselves as a bit more than the tripe one might expect. There are certainly a bounty of embellished production bits and spacey, far off sounds added to this duo’s compositions – and even at times a proper rhythm section, which begs the question, who were those dudes? Regardless of the answer to that, “Enturbulation - Free Form,” ends up being a monstrous jam that includes not just Mowrey’s guitar and Watson’s violin, but an additional six string and organ. The track moves in and out of time a bit, with the rhythm section seeming confused at times. The overall arch of the track, though, could sit alongside some of the less ambient tracks from Pink Floyd during this same period. It doesn’t make up for the line “I don’t mean to sound righteous now…” on “Song for Sinking Shelters,” but it gets close.