Wise After the Event

Wise After the Event is the second studio album by English musician and composer Anthony Phillips, released in May 1978 on Arista Records in the United Kingdom and in June 1978 on Passport Records in the United States. After promoting his previous album The Geese & the Ghost (1977), Phillips began to prepare material for a new album. It remains his only album that features himself on lead vocals on each track. Production In March 1977, Phillips released his debut solo album, The Geese & the Ghost. Around the time it was put out, Phillips did consider furthering his education and return to music college but the album "did enough" for him to continue with making albums. Phillips recalled that the rise in punk rock in England at the time of The Geese & the Ghost increased the pressure for him to write more commercial songs and deliver hit singles. He had started an instrumental album based on Tarka the Otter, but the project was put on hold due to his difficulty in securing a recording deal. Within such a climate, Phillips found himself "forced" to make a new studio album of "mainstream pop songs" which he never felt completely comfortable doing, and lacked enough confidence in the material he had written by himself. He began with putting ideas down at his home studio using a TEAC 4-track tape machine and a 2-track Revox recorder. After preparing a collection of ideas Phillips presented them to producer Rupert Hine and session musicians Michael Giles on drums and John G. Perry on bass, the three rehearsed them for one week at Giles's home studio in Dorset, and recorded the developed tracks onto 4-track tape. After Phillips secured a deal with Arista Records, the original plan was for Wise After the Event to be released as an album with an accompanying EP of extra material. Artist Peter Cross began to design the cover art when the decision was made, but when the decision was made to scrap the EP Cross had moved onto other projects and there was insufficient time to correct his design, resulting in discrepancies with the running order of the tracks. This was corrected on the 1990 CD reissue. The unreleased music was released in 1980 on Phillips's next album Private Parts & Pieces II: Back to the Pavilion, the second in his series of "generic" albums that showcase ideas, demos, and outtakes of recordings.