Julian Cope walked away from the mainstream years ago. He'd come to realize that his visions were too idiosyncratic, too beyond the confines of three-minute pop songs to continue as he had in the first decade after The Teardrop Explodes. This extensive collection starts here with a three-song EP (it's also the first CD of a two-CD physical package); this includes the epic "The Armenian Genocide," a 16-minute piece of tribal performance where pounding drums, chants, and an electric guitar make their way to the end of the jam. "Hymn to the Odin" starts with a narrative poem backed by an acoustic guitar, clomping drums, and various cheap synths. "Why Did the Chicken Cross My Mind?" slowly builds into what sounds like a man pounding on a piano at a funeral. (According to Cope, the sessions for the two parts finished on the day of the funeral for his arch-nemesis Margaret Thatcher, so anything's possible.) After the smooth meditative world of 2012's Woden, it's a blast to hear Cope taking the rough road home once again.