Island Records · 1973
Folk run through a tape-echo until it turns liquid. A blessing, a snarl, and one song held out to a drowning friend.
Start with the guitar. Everything on Solid Air comes back to what John Martyn does with an acoustic instrument and an Echoplex — a tape-echo unit built for studio effects that he turns into a second voice. Run an acoustic guitar through it and the most intimate instrument in British folk becomes liquid, looping, half-electronic. In the winter of 1972, at Sound Techniques in Chelsea, Martyn uses that trick to make a record folk has no category for. He is twenty-four, four albums in, married to Beverley Martyn, and certain of one thing: the guitar can do more than anyone has asked of it.
He does not work alone. John Wood, the Sound Techniques engineer who shaped Nick Drake's records, co-produces and finds the room sound. Danny Thompson, the Pentangle double bassist, brings actual jazz — and becomes Martyn's musical foil for the next thirty years. John "Rabbit" Bundrick lays Fender Rhodes underneath everything. The result sits on several borders at once and refuses to pick a side.
The title track is written for Nick Drake. The two are Island label-mates and friends, and by late 1972 Martyn is watching Drake disappear into a depression he cannot reach. "It was done for a friend of mine," Martyn says later, "with very clear motives." Drake dies in November 1974, aged twenty-six. So Solid Air is, before it is anything else, a hand held out to someone going under — and the strange thing is how universal that private gesture sounds. The song floats on Tristan Fry's vibraphone and Tony Coe's saxophone, unhurried, smoke-filled, ambient two decades before the word means anything in pop.
The record is not all tenderness. "I'd Rather Be the Devil" takes Skip James's "Devil Got My Woman" and tears it open: Martyn's guitar, pushed through the Echoplex and a filthy fuzz, snarls and slides and collapses into something close to free jazz. It is the violent end of the same man who, three songs later, sings "May You Never" alone — just voice and guitar, a secular blessing that becomes his signature song and that Eric Clapton covers on Slowhand in 1977, carrying it further than Martyn ever could. Between the devil and the blessing, across nine songs, is a complete portrait.
On the question of pressing: the 1973 Island original (ILPS 9226, pink-rim palm-tree label, gatefold) is the document. The most sought-after first presses carry "GO STERLING" in the deadwax — the Sterling Sound cut, warm and full-bodied, the one collectors chase. Clean VG+/NM copies run roughly €50–130 on Discogs, with real variation by stamper. The 1970s and 80s Island reissues offer the same master for less, €20–40. The audiophile step up is the 2016 half-speed master (Universal/Island, ARHSLP003), cut by Miles Showell at Abbey Road from the original quarter-inch tape: open highs, a rock-solid stereo image, and a rendering of Thompson's bass that occupies physical space in the room. It was a limited run, now out of print; expect €40–70 used. For the music without the hunt, the Universal 180g reissues (2009, 2011) are the honest entry point, from €22.
Solid Air outlived the people who made it possible. Drake was gone within two years. Martyn spent the following decades trying to make this record again and never did — Inside Out and One World came close in spirit, but the specific weather of these two months in late 1972 did not return. Find the half-speed for the sound, the Sterling original for the history. Then play the title track once, properly, and notice who you think of.
The record John Martyn made watching a friend go under, and never managed to make again. Get the 2016 Abbey Road half-speed for the sound; the 1973 Sterling original for the history. Start with the title track.
Solid Air on Vinyl — Which Pressing?
ILPS 9226, pink-rim palm-tree label, gatefold. First presses with "GO STERLING" in the deadwax are the prize — warm, full-bodied Sterling Sound cut. VG+/NM on Discogs €50–130; stamper variation is real
same master, lower outlay, €20–40. The sensible choice for the period sound without first-press money
Universal/Island ARHSLP003, Miles Showell cut from the original quarter-inch tape. Open highs, solid stereo image, physical bass. Limited run, now out of print: €40–70 used. The reference pressing
the honest, findable entry point, from €22
Groov-illa participates in Amazon and CDandLP affiliate programmes. Purchases via our links may earn us a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Which is the best pressing of Solid Air?
It depends what you want. For sound, the reference is the 2016 half-speed master (Universal/Island ARHSLP003), cut by Miles Showell at Abbey Road from the original quarter-inch tape: open high frequencies, a rock-solid stereo image and a double bass that fills the room. It was a limited run and is now out of print, so expect €40–70 on the used market. For history, the 1973 Island original (ILPS 9226) is the one — first presses with "GO STERLING" etched in the deadwax, the Sterling Sound cut, are the most sought-after, with clean copies between €50 and €130. If you just want to hear the record without collector money, the 2009 and 2011 Universal 180g reissues start around €22.
Who is the title track about, and what is the Nick Drake connection?
Nick Drake. Martyn and Drake were Island label-mates and friends, and through 1972 Martyn watched Drake sink into a deepening depression. The song came out of that: "It was done for a friend of mine," Martyn said, "with very clear motives." Drake died in November 1974, aged twenty-six. The song never names him and never explains — it describes a man trapped in something heavy and weightless at once, the "solid air" of the title. It is one of the most grief-struck yet restrained dedications in British music, and part of why a record born from private worry ends up sounding universal.
Where does Solid Air sit in John Martyn's career?
It is his peak. Before it came a run of developing records — London Conversation (1967), the acoustic folk of Bless the Weather (1971) — plus two albums made with his wife Beverley. Solid Air, in 1973, is where every obsession lines up at once: folk, the jazz Danny Thompson brings on double bass, the blues, and that liquid Echoplex sound that anticipates ambient and trip-hop by two decades. Afterwards Martyn pushed further out — Inside Out (1973) and especially One World (1977) leaned harder into electronics and dub — but he never again found this exact balance of tenderness and fury. He spent the following decades chasing it. Solid Air is where any listening to Martyn should begin.
