A hardback book and double vinyl album released in 1979, conceived, written and illustrated by Patrick Woodroffe

Patrick Woodroffe

Patrick James Woodroffe is an English artist, etcher and drawer, who specialises in fantasy science-fiction artwork, with images that border on the surreal...

, with music written and performed by Dave Greenslade

Dave Greenslade

Dave Greenslade is a British keyboards player. He has played in his own eponymous band, Greenslade, and others including Colosseum, If and Chris Farlowe's Thunderbirds....

. The title means, approximately, 'the first five books (pentateuch) of the creation (cosmogony

Cosmogony

Cosmogony, or cosmogeny, is any scientific theory concerning the coming into existence or origin of the universe, or about how reality came to be. The word comes from the Greek κοσμογονία , from κόσμος "cosmos, the world", and the root of γίνομαι / γέγονα "to be born, come about"...

)'.

The story and artwork within 'Pentateuch' concerns the discovery of an abandoned spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter

Jupiter

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...

, and the project to decipher the ideograms in the pentateuch 'document' discovered within. Most of the book is a retelling of the document, in much the same way as a modern translator might retell the contents of a Babylonian tablet or Egyptian papyrus scroll. Particularly remarkable is the combinatorial ideographic

Ideogram

An ideogram or ideograph is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by familiarity with prior convention; others convey their meaning through pictorial resemblance to a physical object, and thus may also be referred to as pictograms.Examples of...

 script created by Woodroffe and used throughout the artwork.

Greenslade contributes the 74 minutes of music as his second solo project, enlisting Phil Collins

Phil Collins

Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins, LVO is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, pianist and actor best known as a drummer and vocalist for British progressive rock group Genesis and as a solo artist....

 amongst others to help.

A CD reissue was released in 1994, achieving the awkward transfer of Woodroffe's 12" x 12" book into a 5" square booklet with some success, though the impact of some of the artwork is lost, and the end of one track is faded out early.

The story was retold without music in Woodroffe's 1987 book The Second Earth. This featured additional artwork and was rewritten with extended prose replacing the original verse form. The additional artwork is not always as closely linked to the story as the original selection. A Japanese edition was also published.

Track listing (Double LP & CD version)

Side 1

1. "Introit" – 4:05
2. "Moondance" – 3:09 (CD version – original LP version is longer)
3. "Beltempest" – 2.:41
4. "Glass" – 3:02
5. "Three Brides" † – 5:56

Side 2

1. "Birds & Bats & Dragonflies" ‡ – 3:48
2. "Nursery Hymn" ♦ – 3:32
3. "The Minstrel" ‡ – 2:42
4. "Fresco/Kashrinn" – 2:24
5. "Barcarole" † – 3:51
6. "Dry Land" – 3:54

Side 3

1. "Forest Kingdom" † – 3:53
2. "Vivat Regina" – 3:44
3. "Scream but Not Heard" – 2:57
4. "Mischief" ‡ – 5:36
5. "War" †‡ – 3:06

Side 4

1. "Lament for the Sea" † – 3:08
2. "Miasma Generator" † – 5.23
3. "Exile" – 2.33
4. "Jubilate" – 3.00
5. "The Tiger and the Dove" – 5.35

All titles composed and played by Dave Greenlade except percussion played by Phil Collins in tracks mark with † and by John Lingwood in tracks mark with ‡. Vocals on track ♦ Nursery Hymn by Kate Greenslade (age 2 years and 6 months).

External links

• Patrick Woodroffe web site.
• 'Prog Archives'
• Examples of the ideographic script