Unicorn’s Last Orders Opens the Archives for a 37-Track Double CD

Unicorn’s Last Orders brings together a band’s worth of unfinished business. Released on September 25 through Think Like A Key Music, the two-CD collection follows the English country-rock group through concert tapes, studio demos and recordings made at Ken Baker’s Shed Studio in Send. Its closing track reaches all the way from 1976 to 2026.

Baker’s songs were the constant through Unicorn’s changing fortunes. The band recorded four albums, worked extensively with David Gilmour and developed a sound built around close harmonies, melodic guitar playing and a distinctly English cast of melancholy. Gilmour later recorded Baker’s “No Way Out Of Here” for his own solo debut. But Unicorn’s catalogue left much of the group’s songwriting unheard.

In his new booklet essay, David DiSanzo describes Baker moving on from songs as soon as another batch arrived. That habit left behind an archive with much more to offer than routine alternate takes. Last Orders brings those recordings together with performances that show how the songs worked in front of an audience.

Two discs, two sides of the archive

Disc one opens at London’s Paris Theatre in February 1971. Five live recordings, including “P.F. Sloan” and “Barriers, Keys and Things,” lead into four Pathway Studio demos from 1972. The final nine tracks come from a soundboard recording made in Boulder, Colorado, during the band’s November 1974 American tour, with “Keep On Going,” “Sleep Song” and “The Farmer” among the selections.

Disc two moves into the working life of the songs: Shed Studio recordings from 1976–77, sessions at Easy Street in 1978 and Fairdeal in 1981, and three later recordings by Baker and Martin with additional musicians. The performances preserve ideas that continued developing beyond the band’s album releases.

The final track supplies a particularly fitting ending. For “The Last Song,” Nick Capaldi recorded new vocals at Echo Town Studio in Dorchester in 2026 over an unfinished backing track made at Shed Studio in 1976. It brings a recording featuring Baker, Pat Martin, Pete Perryer and Kevin Smith into the present, fifty years after the original session.

Watch the album trailer

Produced for release by Roger Houdaille and Pat Martin, the collection has been restored and remastered by Prof. Stoned. The illustrated booklet includes DiSanzo’s essay, detailed recording credits and photographs, with the colour Hipgnosis session also supplying the CD artwork. The set is dedicated to the memory of Pete Perryer.

Tracklisting

CD 1 — Live and studio recordings, 1971–1974

1. 115 Bar Joy
2. Barriers, Keys and Things
3. Jesus Knows
4. P.F. Sloan
5. Fully Baked
6. Me And My Worried Head
7. Mary
8. Good Times
9. Can’t Move On
10. Electric Night
11. Holland
12. In The Gym
13. Just Wanna Hold You
14. Keep On Going
15. Nightingale Crescent
16. Sleep Song
17. Take It Easy
18. The Farmer

Tracks 1–5: Paris Theatre, London, 1971. Tracks 6–9: Pathway Studio, London, 1972. Tracks 10–18: Boulder, Colorado, 1974.

CD 2 — Demos, later sessions and a final collaboration

1. Sitting In Line
2. Does It Have To Be This Way?
3. Whatever Money Can Buy (Demo)
4. Bon Soir Blues
5. Forgive And Forget
6. So Tired
7. Come In From The Cold
8. Heatwave 76
9. Hate Waiting For You
10. Nighttime
11. Time Between
12. Long Road
13. If You Ain’t Scared (Demo)
14. I Wish That You Would Come
15. You & Me On A Sunday Afternoon
16. Real World
17. I Used To Be A Rebel
18. White Man’s Blues
19. The Last Song (feat. Nick Capaldi)

Tracks 1–10: Shed Studio, 1976. Track 11: Shed Studio, 1977. Tracks 12–13: Easy Street, 1978. Tracks 14–15: Fairdeal, 1981. Tracks 16–18: Fat Sound Studio. Track 19: backing track recorded in 1976, with new vocals recorded in 2026.

Explore Last Orders / Order the 2-CD set