Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

We thankfully live in age where we can place our thoughts of a creative’s art with informed insight as they delve into their back catalogue and remind, through combined packaging and box sets, of their journey, their exploration of their individuality and dreams, their sound as they honed expression and voice in such a way that does not immediately become clear when listening, in music’s sense, to a single album and then another perhaps a few weeks later.

The strength of contact is determined by the listener’s wish to fully dive into the box set available, to focus at all times on the experience rather than just crash out and move onto another artist after one session.

This concentration of thought is one that empowers the listener, it reflects on the beauty and the direction, it asks only of the listener to give it the same consideration as one would afford a three-hour film, a novel read in one sitting, to be comfortable as the music of a particular period or era defines their time.

Beverley Craven’s Memories (The Complete Epic Recordings 1990-1999) is a case in point. Three albums separated by a decade, fairly unusual at the time as most musicians or bands would lean heavily into the market appeal and bring out three albums in a third of the time, but grace and pleasure are never easily demanded, they take time to bed in, and in the self-titled debut, Love Scenes, and Mixed Emotions, what comes to mind is one of creativity being studiously afforded development, that whilst there may have been other reasons for the first decade of Ms. Craven’s studio output being squeezed down to three albums, it nonetheless is appreciated that an artist of such feminine power understood that time takes time, that progression is not in the mind of the listener but in the artists.

The beauty of this three-cd box set comes with the added tracks on each one, B-sides a plenty, and a set of songs from the outstanding Birmingham Symphony Hall, and the Royalty Theatre. Rather than feeling as though they are additional fillers, they are strong reminders of how we have lost for the most part the delicate balance required in concentration, that mass market digital downloads have sapped at our ability to see music as an audio drama of a person’s whole existence rather than a series of snippets, a catch up in conversation.

Memories (The Complete Epic Recordings 1990-1999) is a gift. The reminder, not that it was ever needed, that Beverley Craven’s voice and performance was one undying pleasure, a love story that rightfully took its time to be explored and appreciated. For memories are precious indeed, and there is no doubting the presence of such as these Epic, in name and label, songs return in full view.

Ian D. Hall