The third and most untamed chapter in the brief, brilliant life of Patto. Originally issued in October 1972 on Island, Roll 'Em Smoke 'Em Put Another Line Out arrives via Guerssen in a remastered vinyl edition, faithful to the original cardboard sleeve and accompanied by an insert with detailed liner notes by Ralph Heibutzki and rare photos and memorabilia.
Patto formed in London in 1970 from the ashes of Timebox - the lineup uniting vocalist Mike Patto, bassist Clive Griffiths, drummer John Halsey, and the singular guitarist Ollie Halsall, soon to become one of the great cult figures of British music, later a central voice in Kevin Ayers' bands and a guitarist's guitarist of the era. Operating at an oblique angle to the prog mainstream, Patto folded jazz phrasing, blues weight, soul feel, and an English absurdist humour into a body of work that has resisted comfortable classification for half a century.
Recorded at Island Studios and produced by the band themselves after the departure of Muff Winwood, Roll 'Em Smoke 'Em is looser, rougher, and more sardonic than its predecessors - a record made under the weight of dwindling label patience, and all the more vivid for it. "Flat Footed Woman" lurches forward on Halsall's serrated lines; "Loud Green Song", described by Nick Saloman (Bevis Frond) as "a cross between Hendrix and the Sex Pistols", anticipates by years the collision of virtuosity and noise that would surface elsewhere in the decade. "Singing The Blues On Reds", "Mummy", and the closing two-part "Cap'n 'P' And The Atto's (Sea Biscuits)" thread through ballad form, jazz-rock combustion, and outright comic theatre without ever settling. Halsall's playing throughout - fluid, percussive, harmonically restless - remains the central marvel.
Remastered by Prof. Stoned, this Guerssen edition restores one of the most distinctive and least classifiable artifacts of early 1970s British music to circulation. A record made by musicians of formidable ability who refused to take any of it too seriously, and is the stronger for it.
