The Kinks Choral Collection (Special Edition)

This SPECIAL EDITION now comes with a bonus track! The curtain rises on Ray Davies' debut album for Decca, The Kinks Choral Collection, on which he has hand-picked a selection of songs from his repertoire and arranged them for his band and choir. And not just any old choir. Davies fans will be aware that, wherever else his career has taken him, he has always remained rooted in his native north London. Therefore the only logical choice for this Muswell Hillbilly boy's new album was the Crouch End Festival Chorus. "With a song like Waterloo Sunset, I feel as if the people I wrote it for are singing it, and tha's whats interesting," he says. "I know some of the singers in the choir, though not all, but as a group I imagine them all living in north London, and they are my subject matter as well as the people singing it. There's some sort of symmetry there." The disc was recorded in London too, with the sessions divided between Konk studios and Air Lyndhurst in not-too-distant Hampstead. The seed of the new album was planted when Davies was asked to perform at the BBC Electric Proms at the Roundhouse in 2007, around the time of the release of Working Man's Café. He'd first met choirmaster David Temple when he conducted the 80-piece choir used in Davies' Flatlands piece (a commission from the Norwich and Norfolk Festival). He bumped into Temple again in Highgate, where he was conducting the Crouch End Chorus in a local church, and hit upon the idea of using the Chorus for his Electric Proms appearance. This worked so well that they reunited for two performances at the Hampton Court Festival last summer, and then inevitably the discussion turned to capturing Davies and choir on disc. Davies had his own conception of how each song would work with the choir, but Temple played a vital role in shaping and interpreting his wishes. The finished tracks display an ingenious palette of choral techniques, from the tricky tempo changes and contrasting parts of "Shangri-La" to the minimalist, Steve Reich-like "ah-ah-ah" sounds in "You Really Got Me." One of the most instantly striking efforts is the acapella treatment of "See My Friends." "I started 'See My Friends' with a band, but I rearranged it after we'd finished recording it," he recalls. "In other words, I cut it up in the studio after it was recorded. It sounds brilliant! I'm really pleased with it, because it's an a cappella version." The selection of six songs from the Village Green album is testament to how highly he regards that particular album, though he admits that some of the songs are not well known. "I think these songs fit together really well as a record," Davies says. "I couldn't re-record anything unless I could bring something new to it, and I think I certainly have."