(Psychedelic / Blues Rock) Human Instinct - Pins In It - 1971, FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

This band started out as The Four Fours in New Zealand and were one of its finest mid-sixties combos. In August 1966, they headed for the U.K., playing on board a cruise ship and changing their name to The Human Instinct en-route.

Arriving initially in Southampton, they soon found their feet, acquiring a good agent and auditioning for promoters at Wembley's Starlight Ballroom. Here in England, they supported top acts such as the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, Bluesology, Jeff Beck Group, Cat Stevens, Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Moody Blues, Small Faces and Spencer Davis Group. They were also a popular attraction in the London clubs, playing at venues such as The Marquee, Tiles Club, Zebra Club and The Playboy Club in Park Lane. They also took over The Peddlers' residency whilst they themselves were overseas.

A singles deal offered by Mercury Records resulted in three essentially pop efforts, after which they teamed up with former Springfields' guitarist and vocalist Mike Hurst, who was working as a producer / A&R man. They were duly signed by Decca Records' new progressive Deram label. A new 45, A Day In My Mind's Mind, was recorded at Olympic studios and released in December 1967. This double-sided pop-psych gem was completed by Death At The Seaside, a cover of a Hall / Christie song about the death of Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt.

A second 45, Renaissance Fair was released in 1968. Originally a Byrds' 'B' side The Human Instinct retained its basic structure but substituted a swirling string section for the raga guitars on the original. Maurice Greer turned down the chance to join The Jeff Beck Group during their time in England, opting to return instead with the rest of the band. You can check some of the U.K. 45s out on three U.K. compilations. Staircase To Nowhere (Rubble 12) included A Day In My Mind's Mind and Pink Dawn and British Psychedelic Trip, Vol. 3 featured The Death Of The Seaside (also on Psychedelic Unknowns, Vol. 7) and Renaissance Fair (also on Deram Dayze). The strongly British-influenced A Day In My Mind's Mind, with its morse code type introduction and catchy vocal line, can also be found on the New Zealand compilation, No. 8 Live Wire.

In 1968, they returned to New Zealand where they recorded five excellent and very rare albums of guitar-based hard rock. Back home they underwent various line-up changes. Most significantly, at Maurice Greer's brother Frank's suggestion (he was the band's manager) Billy Te Kahika was recruited to the line-up on guitar. His searing guitar work gave them a new dimension and, by late 1969, they had secured a residency at Auckland's Bo Peep Club.

Their first New Zealand based album Burning Up Years included four compositions by the now legendary guitarist / songwriter Jesse Harper:- Blues News, Fall Down, I Think I'll Go Back Home and Ashes And Matches, which owe much to blues / R'n'B roots. There's an unusual cover of Ray Davies' You Really Got Me, with Greer singing in between the bars. Greer's own composition Maiden Voyage blends various tempo changes with choppy guitar and Hendrix-style guitar histrionics. The closing title cut is lengthy, haunting in places but with lots of frenetic guitar work towards the end.

Stoned Guitar is a definite progression on their earlier effort. The title cut, a band instrumental composition, commences with a screeching and stunning sound effects opening. What follows is very Hendrixque instrumentation. The opening cut Black Sally is a guitar driven Dennis Wilson composition. There are two Jesse Harper compositions, Jugg-A-Jug Song and Midnight Sun, with lots more guitar-driven instrumentation. There's an acoustic cover of John Kongos' Tomorrow and the album concludes with the ten-minute long rendition of Rory Gallagher's Railway And Gun, recorded live at the Bo Peep Club.
(Fuzz Acid & Flowers)

Pins in It is the third album by New Zealand blues-rock band The Human Instinct. It was released in 1971 and was both the first album to feature bassist Neil Edwards (formerly of the Underdogs) and the last to feature Billy TK on guitar. TK's departure signalled the end of the band's hard rock era.
(Wikipedia)

This is at least an improvement over the interminable Stoned Guitar, with a much more concerted attempt to write songs and go for a somewhat more wide-ranging scope of early-'70s progressive rock than the heavy blues-psychedelia that dominated their first albums. This may have been due to the absence of songs by non-member Jesse Harper, who wrote much of the material on the first two Human Instinct LPs. It's still not that good, however. It is routine hard-progressive-psychedelic early-'70s rock, perhaps good enough to give them headliner (and later cult) status in New Zealand but bottom-of-the-bill ranking in the U.K and U.S. The decision to cover Pink Floyd's "The Nile Song" is certainly unusual; this would have been considered kinda nuts in England and America, but perhaps not as odd in more remote New Zealand, where audiences would have been less likely to be familiar with the original version. It doesn't match the Pink Floyd rendition, though. ~ Richie Unterberger

Maurice Greer — lead vocals, drums, percussion
Neil Edwards — bass
Billy TK — guitars
Dick Hopp — flute ("Rainbow World", "The Nile Song")
Robert Hooper-Smith — organ ("Play My Guitar", "Highway")