In an endlessly-quotable scene from surreal British comedy The Mighty Boosh, Noel Fielding’s Tony Harrison feels a concept formulating as he and Richard Ayoade’s Saboo are DJ-ing. The plan is to play Fleetwood Mac’s famously-expansive Tusk LP, “in its entirety, with the pauses, as Lindsey Buckingham intended it to be heard.” It was a tall order when the episode aired a decade ago, but now this five-disc marathon is out in the open. Yes, everything is just as you left it as far as the original 1979 classic is concerned – the gypsy wandering of Sara, the unmistakable march of the title track, the unkempt lust of Brown Eyes.
With this mammoth reissue, however, you’re also hearing Tusk as you’ve never heard it before. A slew of alternative takes and demos show both the development of the songs, as well as the sliding-doors moments revealing what could have been. A whole crop of live cuts – hitherto only heard in bootleg quality – sound great too.
This’ll be particularly fascinating for trainspotters and devotees, but it should be clear this is not territory to be crossed by those that still think Fleetwod Mac are – as the aforementioned Saboo might put it – “bullshit munchers.”
BY DAVID JAMES YOUNG
