The Pretty Things & Philippe DeBarge - "A New Day" (Philippe DeBarge Acetate) 1969

Sometime after the release of their now legendary record "SF Sorrow" The Pretty Things were approached by French playboy/millionaire Philippe DeBarge. DeBarge, a Pretty Things superfan with loads of cash, desperately wanted to commission the band to write and produce an album for him. The band jumped at the opportunity, knowing that this album would essentially have no budget, allowing them to experiment with all kinds of instrumentation and production techniques. The only condition was that DeBarge would sing lead vocals on all the tracks. The band agreed, and headed off to Nova Studios, one of London's first 8-track facilities, full of the latest recording technologies.

The resulting album is a true psychedelic masterpiece. If you think about it, few bands of this era had this kind of artistic freedom and cold hard cash at their disposal, except for maybe The Beatles. Unfortunately, though the album was finished, it was never released. An Acetate of the record briefly circulated among DeBarge's social circle and then was essentially lost.

Lucky for us the Acetate was found and has now been remastered for us to enjoy. "A New Day" is by far my favorite track.
Enjoy!
08 - a new day (1968).mp3