David Bowie - A Divine Symmetry: The Journey to Hunky Dory (2022)

This collection celebrates the twelve months running up to the release of the album 'Hunky Dory' in December 1971 via home demos, BBC radio sessions and live and studio recordings. The collection contains 48 previously unreleased tracks/demos from the period, and new alternative mixes of 'Hunky Dory' tracks by original co-producer Ken Scott.

Much in the same way that Conversation Piece and The Width of a Circle expanded (or exhausted, depending on your perspective) the eras of the David Bowie albums they were "complementing" (Space Oddity and The Man Who Sold the World, respectively), Divine Symmetry is both an explicit companion to Hunky Dory as well as an implicit break with its two box-set predecessors. Whereas Conversation Piece felt like a barrel-scraping endeavor and Width relatively thin, Divine Symmetry manages to be more substantial and better organized than either. This is almost certainly not by accident, as Hunky Dory is arguably the first "classic" album in Bowie's catalog and definitely more deserving of such an in-depth approach. Here, an entire disc's worth of material is given over to demos—including takes on "Waiting for the Man" and "Quicksand" that Bowie put to tape in a San Francisco hotel room—while two others contain Peel sessions and a full 14-song live show from September, 1971. Also included is the entirety of the ultra-rare (500 copies) BOWPROMO promo album, featuring rough mixes of several Hunky Dory tracks as well as a couple of songs ("Bombers," "It Ain't Easy") that were left off the original release, but made their way out later, as well as era-specific alternate and obligatory "2021 alternative mixes." The sequencing of the set, front-loaded with the material that's either the most historically interesting (again … Bowie recording "Waiting for the Man" in a hotel room!) or the most dynamically engaging, works in its favor. The four-song run of "Space Oddity"/"Amsterdam"/"The Supermen"/"Oh! You Pretty Things" at the heart of the Aylesbury concert is positively electric, but several other moments—the "Kooks" performance from the Peel session, for instance—are also quite riveting. By the time the alternate material shows up near the end, it's welcome from a completist perspective, but by that point, even the most steadfast Bowie fan may have tired of hearing the same few songs over and over again. Nonetheless, the set is quite listenable, but more importantly, it accomplishes its mission of illuminating this creatively explosive period in Bowie's career and sets the series up for future successes. © Jason Ferguson

Tracklist
Disc: 1
1 Tired Of My Life (Demo)
2 How Lucky You Are (aka Miss Peculiar)[Demo]
3 Shadow Man (Demo)
4 Looking For A Friend (Demo)
5 Waiting For The Man (San Francisco Hotel Recording)
6 Quicksand (San Francisco Hotel Recording)
7 King Of The City (Demo)
8 Song For Bob Dylan (Demo)
9 Right On Mother (Demo)
10 Quicksand (Demo)[2022 Remaster]
11 Queen Bitch (Demo)
12 Kooks (Demo)
13 Amsterdam (Demo)
14 Life On Mars? (Demo)
15 Changes (Demo)
16 Bombers (Demo)

Disc: 2
1 Queen Bitch (In Concert: John Peel)[Mono]
2 Bombers (In Concert: John Peel)[Mono]
3 The Supermen (In Concert: John Peel)[Mono]
4 Looking For A Friend (In Concert: John Peel)[Mono]
5 Almost Grown (In Concert: John Peel)[Mono]
6 Kooks (In Concert: John Peel)[Mono]
7 Song For Bob Dylan (In Concert: John Peel)[Mono]
8 Andy Warhol (In Concert: John Peel)[Mono]
9 It Ain't Easy (In Concert: John Peel)[Mono]
10 Queen Bitch (In Concert: John Peel)[Stereo]
11 The Supermen (In Concert: John Peel)[Stereo]
12 Looking For A Friend (In Concert: John Peel)[Stereo]
13 Kooks (In Concert: John Peel)[Stereo]
14 Song For Bob Dylan (In Concert: John Peel)[Stereo]
15 Andy Warhol (In Concert: John Peel)[Stereo]
16 It Ain't Easy (In Concert: John Peel)[Stereo]

Disc: 3
1 The Supermen (Sounds Of The 70s: Bob Harris)
2 Oh! You Pretty Things (Sounds Of The 70s: Bob Harris)
3 Eight Line Poem (Sounds Of The 70s: Bob Harris)
4 Kooks (Sounds Of The 70s: Bob Harris)
5 Fill Your Heart (Sounds Of The 70s: Bob Harris)
6 Amsterdam (Sounds Of The 70s: Bob Harris)
7 Andy Warhol (Sounds Of The 70s: Bob Harris)
8 Introduction (Live Friars, Aylesbury, 25th September, 1971)
9 Fill Your Heart (Live Friars, Aylesbury, 25th September, 1971)
10 Buzz The Fuzz (Live Friars, Aylesbury, 25th September, 1971)
11 Space Oddity (Live Friars, Aylesbury, 25th September, 1971)
12 Amsterdam (Live Friars, Aylesbury, 25th September, 1971)
13 The Supermen (Live Friars, Aylesbury, 25th September, 1971)
14 Oh! You Pretty Things (Live Friars, Aylesbury, 25th September, 1971)
15 Eight Line Poem (Live Friars, Aylesbury, 25th September, 1971)
16 Changes (Live Friars, Aylesbury, 25th September, 1971)
17 Song For Bob Dylan (Live Friars, Aylesbury, 25th September, 1971)
18 Andy Warhol (Live Friars, Aylesbury, 25th September, 1971)
19 Looking For A Friend (Live Friars, Aylesbury, 25th September, 1971)
20 Round And Round (Live Friars, Aylesbury, 25th September, 1971)
21 Waiting For The Man (Live Friars, Aylesbury, 25th September, 1971)

Disc: 4
1 Oh! You Pretty Things (BOWPROMO Mix)[2022 Remaster]
2 Eight Line Poem (BOWPROMO Mix)[2022 Remaster]
3 Kooks (BOWPROMO Mix)[2022 Remaster]
4 Queen Bitch (BOWPROMO Mix)[2022 Remaster]
5 Quicksand (BOWPROMO Mix)[2022 Remaster]
6 Bombers (BOWPROMO Mix)[2022 Remaster]
7 Lightning Frightening (aka The Man)
8 Amsterdam (Early Mix)[2022 Remaster]
9 Changes (Mono Single Version)[2015 Remaster]
10 Andy Warhol (Full Length Mono Single Version)[2022 Remaster]
11 Amsterdam (2015 Remaster)
12 Life on Mars? (2016 Mix)
13 Changes (2021 Alternative Mix)
14 Life On Mars? (Original Ending Version)
15 Quicksand (2021 Mix - Early Version)
16 Fill Your Heart (2021 Alternative Mix)
17 Bombers (2021 Alternative Mix)
18 Song For Bob Dylan (2021 Alternative Mix)
19 The Bewlay Brothers (2021 Alternative Mix)