Emerging from the Dulwich College area in 1970, the progressive rock quartet Quiet Sun came together with Phil Manzanera on guitar, Bill MacCormick on bass, Charles Hayward on drums, and Dave Jarrett on keyboards. MacCormick’s brother Ian supplied the group’s name after reading an article on sunspots and solar flares titled “The Year of the Quiet Sun.” Warner Bros. granted the band rehearsal space, allowing them to tour the south of England and cultivate a modest audience, although they remained unsigned. In 1971 Manzanera joined Roxy Music, MacCormick entered Matching Mole, Jarrett turned to teaching, and Hayward became part of Gong. Three years later, while enjoying success with Roxy Music, Manzanera revived Quiet Sun during the final months of 1974 as he prepared his solo album Diamond Head. He scheduled twelve-hour studio sessions, devoting eight hours daily to Diamond Head and four to Quiet Sun, which produced the album Mainstream. The musicians largely revisited material rehearsed in 1970, yet several pieces from that era instead appeared on Diamond Head, among them “Frontera”—later reworked by Robert Wyatt as “Team Spirit” on Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard—and “Alma.” These two albums supplied much of the repertoire for 801’s concerts, which included Manzanera and MacCormick. Hayward subsequently departed to establish This Heat. Once the original pressings of Mainstream sold out, the compact-disc edition remained available solely as a costly Japanese import for a period. In 1999 Manzanera’s own label reissued Mainstream, and in 2000 a selection of the band’s early pre-Roxy demos surfaced on his collection Rare One.
