“There were individual pieces, rather than one long piece, on the album, but the storyline still linked them together. We had a bunch of songs that we wrote, and we liked the idea of the circus. We went to ‘Circus Krone’ in Munich to take some of the pictures”: that’s how NEKTAR bassist Mo Moore outlined the gist of the band’s 1974 album in our interview earlier this year. Indeed, the musicians abandoned their previous space-based ideas for “Down To Earth” and made it appropriately warmer, with the help of such fellow travelers as P. P. Arnold and Robert Calvert. Recorded at Chipping Norton Studios in England, where its predecessor had been laid down too, it lacked the scope of 1973’s "Remember The Future" as a result, and fans didn’t value it as high, so now the time came to reassess the classic.
The platter’s expanded edition will be issued on February 27th, 2026 as a four-CD box set, where the freshly remastered record is augmented with a smattering of alternative mixes, a live-in-the-studio session based on familiar material, and the previously unreleased concert from the tour that followed the album. What’s not to love?
Down To Earth
CD 1 – The Album:
1. Astral Man
2. Nelly The Elephant
3. Early Morning Clown
4. That’s Life
5. Fidgety Queen
6. Oh Willy
7. Little Boy
8. Show Me the Way
9. Finale
bonus tracks:
10. Nelly the Elephant (Chipping Norton mix)
11. Early Morning Clown (Chipping Norton mix)
12. That’s Life (Chipping Norton mix)
13. Oh Willy (Chipping Norton mix)
14. Show Me the Way (Chipping Norton mix)
15. Robert Calvert out-takes
CD 2 – Live at Chipping Norton Studios, Oxfordshire – March 27th, 1974:
1. Desolation Valley
2. Oops – Unidentified Flying Abstract
3. Mundetango
4. One Mile Red / The Ticket
5. We Must Have Been Smashed
6. Summer Breeze
CD 3 – Live at The Keil Auditorium, St. Louis – April 2nd, 1975 – part 1:
1. Introduction
2. Astral Man
3. Recycled
4. A Day In The Life Of A Preacher
5. Show Me the Way
6. Marvellous Moses
7. It’s All Over
8. Good Day
CD 4 – Live at The Keil Auditorium, St. Louis – April 2nd, 1975 – part 2:
1. Remember The Future Part One
2. King Of Twilight
3. 1-2-3-4
4. Remember The Future Part Two
5. Let It Grow
6. Woman Trouble / Rock ‘n’ Roll Medley
