“A shadow shall fall over the universe, and evil will grow in its path, and death, will come from the skies”. Let’s go back to the year 1970 when a debut album landed on our home planet Earth on the Youngblood label, the same year when King Crimson unleashed their third studio album Lizard, Pink Floyd put out Atom Heart Mother, Genesis and Van der Graaf unleashing Trespass and The Least We Can do is Wave to Each Other, an album that takes place in the future, and album that was miles and miles ahead of its time.
A band called Julian’s Treatment releasing their sci-fi conceptual rock opera, A Time Before This. Written by musician and keyboardist Julian Jay Savarin, the story takes place in the same universe of his “Lemmus trilogy” but according to Jon Wright’s 2008 liner notes from the Esoteric reissue, “the latter was a direct narrative lift. ‘A Time Before This’ although clearly inhabited by the same races on the same planets and star-systems, bears no direct relationship to any of the books in the trilogy”.
I first became aware of Julian’s Treatment back in the fall of 2008 in College when I was discovering the Cherry Red sub-label Esoteric Recordings. Falling into the world of bands such as Rare Bird, Man, Marsupilami, Egg, Jonesy, and Supersister to name a few. These were bands that were often under the radar when bands like Floyd, Genesis, Yes, and ELP, were flying high in their charted success between the States and Europe.
Julian’s Treatment was different. It was dark, surreal, ominous, and sci-fi power that hurls through the cosmos. Known for his sci-fi novels, Savarin was born in his native Dominica, but moved with his family to London in the mid-60s. He took a degree in history and served in the R.A.F before going into the London underground music scene where he wanted to create music with his own stories to music.
Signing a deal with Miki Dallon, known as a well-known songwriter and record producer from the ‘60s and ‘70s, scored a hit for The Sorrows ‘Take a Heart’ and Neil Christian’s ‘That’s Nice’. He started the label Young Blood in 1969 after his previous company Strike folded the previous year in 1968. Signing not just Don Fardon, but other bands and artists alongside Julian’s Treatment; Python Lee Jackson, Dando Shaft, Salamander, Roy Harper, Mac Kissoon, and Elias Hulk.
But after A Time Before This was released, according to the liner notes from the See For Miles 1990 reissue by Bevis Frond, the problems of management, promotion, and money led to the band’s demise as the band split up. As Julian went back to writing, working on part two of the Lemmus trilogy which would later be known as Waiters on the Dance, which would later be released in 1973 on the Birth label.
It carries the same similar approach, continuing where A Time Before This had left off with its heavy organ prog-rock attack, Lady Jo Meek, during her brief run with Catapilla as her sister Anna took over on vocals, For Jo, taking over the vocal duties of Australian’s Cathy Pruden who did the first album and left the band to be married, Jo herself added a haunting and sombering effect to Savarin’s arrangements.
And from Toffee Sunday Smash’s host Andy Morten, who wrote in his liner notes for the 2011 Guerssen reissue of the album on vinyl, Savarin briefly return to his home in Dominica to clear his mind. But he was back in London to work on another follow-up to Waiters on the Dance. The third and final part was possibly going to be called, Beyond the Outer Rim. But it never saw the light of day.
Until now. The good folks from Lee Dorrian’s Rise Above sub-label Rise Above Relics have found the original tapes the band recorded in 1974. Some thought it was lost, but now, 51 years later, its time to give Beyond the Outer Mirr and Julian’s work the proper recognition he truly deserves.
The lost album is a hidden treasure of the 1970s-era from the British progressive rock movement. Listening to Beyond the Outer Mirr, it carries the continuation of the Waiters story that would have made George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry shit in their pants and give the torch to Julian by writing the Star Wars story and some episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, by giving it justice.
When you hear a song like ‘Tell Me’, you can just imagine the early introduction to the guitar opening of Boston’s ‘More than a Feeling’ from Nigel “Zed” Jenkins, channeling his inner vision of Tom Scholz to come in handy from his instrument as the sound the strings and Savarin’s eerie keyboards sets up the danger that’s about to come.
The riffs, Dover’s bass, and Jo Meek’s singing on why the alien race has disappeared and gone into other universes, sends up this question-and-answer motif by landing on this mysterious planet while the surreal opening introduction behind ‘Age Beyond’ gives us an insight of Annie Haslam’s Renaissance and bits of 1978 rock opera Ulysses: The Greek Suite starring Ted Neeley of Jesus Christ Superstar fame and Yvonne Iversen, it speaks of ‘Polyphemus (Island of the Cyclops)’ that comes to mind.
Meanwhile, Savarin, Odell, and Dover, walk into some bluesy-jazzy approach in their arrangement for the ‘Worlds of the Outer Rim’ that speaks of an ascending ride into a film-noir situation of a crime scene gone horribly wrong. But it’s the layered arrangements behind the ‘Broken Dreams’ that opens up those crystalise doors to reveal the past and present in front of our very eyes.
The chanting double-tracking vocals sending Morse code message to other alien worlds speaks to mind of Magma shouting; “Listen! Listen! Listen! Hear us! Hear us! Please! Somebody listen!” it then switches into this eerie Varese-like shriek from the string arrangements before Jo’s vocals singing to the dark red sky, returning to the Time Before This-era that speaks of the ‘First Oracle’ then delving deeper into the abyss.
It’s almost a reprise of ‘Fourth from the Sun’ as Meek channels Pruden’s arrangements. But in this singer-songwriter orientation, going back to the styles of Judy Collins, Joan Baez, and The Who-like fanfare that Jenkins does. It has some elements from the West Coast sound from the Asylum label when they were unleashing some incredible music with a sermon-like atmosphere.
The closing two tracks ‘I Am You’ and the 12-minute epic ‘Kizeesh’ sees Julian traveling deeper into the world of Neil Ardley’s arrangements for ‘The Time Flowers’ which he recorded with electronic composer Keith Winter back in 1971 for a BBC Session, inspired by J.G. Ballard’s short story ‘The Garden of Time’ released in 1962. There’s some stronger elements of Ron Geesin and Schoenberg that comes to mind when you hear the classical string orientations that fits into the Lemmus trilogy.
Beyond the Outer Mirr closes up the chapter of Julian’s Treatment. It’s quite a rare experience to see what the third album could have been, following it up to Waiters on the Dance. As I’ve mentioned earlier, it is time to go backwards, during the heyday of the progressive movement to see and hear what Savarin was completing during 1974, and once again, give him the proper handshake he truly deserves.
by
Zachary Nathanson, April 11, 2025
Tracks
1. Age Beyond - 3:33
2. Worlds Of The Outer Rimm - 3:22
3. Tell Me - 4:32
4. Broken Dreams - 4:39
5. Third From The Sun - 4:35
6. I Am You - 7:38
7. Kizeesh - 12:49
All compositions by Julian Jay Savarin
Personnel
*Julian Jay Savarin - Keyboards
*Jo Meek - Vocals
*John Dover - Bass
*Nigel "Zed" Jenkins - Guitar
*Roger Odell - Drums
