Label politics prevented Jethro Tull’s 1980 album A being Ian Anderson’s solo debut, but the solo seed had been sown. In ’83 the near-electro Walk Into Light shed the Tull straitjacket, and he ran a concurrent solo career until 2014’s Homo Erraticus. The 10-vinyl 8314 comprises all six solo albums, plus Roaming In The Gloaming, a 12-track collection of pristine, previously unreleased, chat-free live recordings from 1995 to 2007. There’s a book, too.
The earlier albums are the work of one who doesn’t care – not about the music, of course, but about the reaction to it. Without a template to follow or a fan base’s expectations to meet, he took flight.
