Released: 12th January 2004
Produced and re-mixed by Harry Williamson, assisted by Gilli Smyth
An expanded re-release of the 1981 Mother Gong release Battle of the Birds, which was previously only available as a limited cassette release available via mail order and sold at gigs. The recording makes use of Ant and Harry Williamson's 1978 recording of Gypsy Suite (with additional flute parts by Didier Malherbe and oboe by Ant's brother Robin) as the backing music for Gilli Smyth's narration of the story of the Battle of the Birds. Harry and friends also contribute some spoken parts as characters in the story and additional musical contributions were also later made by Jan Emerick, Hugh Hopper and Guy Evans.
This CD essentially makes use of Ant and Harry's music as the backing for the story and is not a "new" Ant release. Ant's contribution to the recording is confined to his co-writing and playing on Gypsy Suite, which is available in it's original form on the Gypsy Suite CD release.
Tracks 13 -15 are instrumental mixes of three of the pieces used as the backing for the story and were not featured on the original cassette release.
