Liftoff — Nektar’s cosmic debut. Journey to the Centre of the Eye is where Nektar’s story begins: an ambitious, continuous cosmic concept album that plays as a single forty-minute suite. Released in 1971 by four English musicians who had settled in Germany, it drifts through swirling organ, dazzling Mellotron and Roye Albrighton’s spacey guitar, clearly indebted to early Pink Floyd yet already distinctly Nektar.

The short version

The debut album by Nektar, recorded near Cologne and released in November 1971; formally split into thirteen tracks, but really a single continuous piece of music around forty minutes long. Nektar were four English musicians who had formed the band in Hamburg, and this record is an ambitious science-fiction concept album, sometimes called a rock opera, telling the story of an astronaut and the fate of mankind. Saturated in psychedelic, spacey textures and clearly inspired by early Pink Floyd, it is uneven and derivative in places, but atmospheric and hugely ambitious, and it launched one of progressive rock’s great cosmic bands.

Four Englishmen in Germany

Nektar were formed in Hamburg in 1969 by four English musicians, guitarist and singer Roye Albrighton, keyboardist Allan Freeman, bassist Derek Moore and drummer Ron Howden, together with Mick Brockett and Keith Walters, who ran the band’s celebrated light show and helped with the words and titles. Having built a live following in Germany, they went into Dieter Dierks’ studio near Cologne to make their debut, adapting material from their stage act into a single, continuous forty-minute concept piece. Working within the limits of eight-track tape, they recorded much of it live as a band, in single takes, to keep the energy of their concerts. Inspired in part by science-fiction writing, the album tells of an astronaut swept up by aliens, shown the errors of humanity and returned to a doomed Earth, a bleak, cautionary tale often read as a comment on the nuclear age.

The sound

Atmospheric, psychedelic space rock, ambitious and continuous. Rather than separate songs, the album flows as one long journey, its thirteen linked sections drifting between spacey calm and harder, driving passages, with musical themes returning as the story unfolds. Allan Freeman’s organ and Mellotron create swirling, symphonic soundscapes, Roye Albrighton’s guitar and heavily treated, reverbed vocals add an eerie, otherworldly quality, and the rhythm section drives the shifts in mood. The clear influence of early Pink Floyd runs throughout, alongside touches of the Moody Blues and Beatles-style vocal harmonies, yet the band already sound like themselves. It is very much a debut, a little uneven and rough around the edges, but its cosmic atmosphere, ambition and sense of narrative sweep make it a distinctive and absorbing listen.

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The songs

Because the album is really one continuous piece, it is best heard whole, as a single flowing journey rather than a set of tracks. It opens with a Pink-Floyd-like Prelude before moving into the unsettled Astronaut’s Nightmare, and from there drifts through a series of linked passages, spacey instrumental interludes, eerie vocal sections and heavier rock episodes, that carry the story from launch to cosmic revelation to bleak conclusion. Recurring themes tie the whole thing together, and near the end the band even nod affectionately to the Beatles. Sections such as The Dream Nebula and It’s All in the Mind stand out, but the real reward is following the album’s narrative arc from beginning to end in one sitting.

Reception and legacy

Journey to the Centre of the Eye is regarded as a strong, atmospheric and ambitious debut, and a cult favourite among space-rock and progressive fans. Admirers praise its cosmic atmosphere, Freeman’s Mellotron and organ, Albrighton’s guitar and the sheer scope of its single-suite concept, and some rank it among the band’s finest. Others find it uneven or derivative of early Pink Floyd, and feel the band would refine the idea far more successfully on their next album. Either way, it is a fascinating starting point, the birth of Nektar’s cosmic, narrative-driven style and the first step in a remarkable run. For anyone drawn to early-seventies space rock and concept albums, it remains an absorbing and rewarding listen.

The verdict

An ambitious, atmospheric cosmic debut, and a rewarding listen for lovers of early space rock and concept albums — a single, continuous forty-minute journey through psychedelic soundscapes and a bleak science-fiction tale. Come to it for the swirling organ and Mellotron, Albrighton’s spacey guitar and the sweep of its story, rather than for polish or concision. Play it whole, in one sitting. Then A Tab in the Ocean for the album on which the band refined this vision, Remember the Future for their concept masterpiece, and ...Sounds Like This for their raw live side. The launchpad for one of prog’s great cosmic voyagers.

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