The record
At a glance
- Artist
- Focus
- Dutch title
- Focus Plays Focus
- International title
- In and Out of Focus
- Album
- Debut studio album
- Original tracks
- Seven
- Producer
- Hubert Terheggen
Why it matters
The debut contains both the band Focus was and the one it could become
In and Out of Focus matters because Focus's later identity is already present but not yet dominant. The long instrumental Focus introduces van Leer's numbered series; Anonymus creates a jazz-rock framework that the band would revisit as Anonymus II; flute, organ and Akkerman's guitar already behave as co-leading voices.
At the same time, the album contains more conventional vocal songwriting than Moving Waves or Focus 3. Why Dream, Happy Nightmare, Black Beauty, Sugar Island and the vocal reprise of Focus place English-language singing at the centre. The contrast is genuine evidence of a band still deciding how it should communicate.
The original rhythm section gives the record its own identity. Martijn Dresden's bass, trumpet and voice and Hans Cleuver's drums, bongos and backing vocals appear on no later Focus studio album. Replacing them with Cyril Havermans and Pierre van der Linden changed both weight and flexibility for Moving Waves.
The album also teaches a discographic lesson. The September 1970 Dutch release was called Focus Plays Focus and contained seven tracks. International In and Out of Focus editions changed the order and often added House of the King. A listener's idea of the debut can therefore depend on territory and format.
1969–70
A theatre-band quartet records in London
Thijs van Leer had formed a trio with Martijn Dresden and Hans Cleuver before Jan Akkerman joined in late 1969. The four musicians worked in the Amsterdam production of Hair, gaining daily ensemble experience while developing their own material.
Hubert Terheggen connected the group with publishing and recording opportunities. During time away from the theatre production, Focus travelled to Sound Techniques in Chelsea and recorded the album in January 1970. Terheggen produced and Jerry Boys engineered.
The sessions yielded a mixture of songs and instrumentals rather than the largely non-lyrical format later associated with Focus. Van Leer played a broad keyboard and flute palette; Dresden and Cleuver contributed voices and writing; Akkerman's electric and acoustic guitars brought both rock edge and chamber detail.
Imperial released Focus Plays Focus in the Netherlands in September. International partners used In and Out of Focus, new artwork and different sequences. House of the King, issued as a single around the turn of 1971, became the added eighth title on many editions.
The original quartet
The only album by the original four
Van Leer's range is already the band's organising resource. Organ can sustain the long instrumental, piano and electric piano support the songs, Mellotron and harpsichord add arranged colour, and flute gives the music an immediately recognisable upper voice.
Akkerman avoids one fixed guitar role. He can sharpen a vocal arrangement, answer organ in Anonymus, support Focus with sustained lines or lead the acoustic momentum associated with House of the King.
Dresden contributes more than bass foundation. Trumpet changes the available colour, his voice gives Happy Nightmare another character, and his co-writing helps the debut feel less centred on a single composer than later Focus records.
Cleuver moves between rock drumming, bongos and ensemble vocals. The lighter rhythmic profile distinguishes this quartet from van der Linden's more explosive attack on Moving Waves.
Sound and construction
Vocal pop and long-form instrumentals pull in different directions
The original album opens at maximum scale. Focus lasts nearly ten minutes, allowing organ, flute, guitar, bass and drums to establish a patient instrumental identity before any short vocal song appears.
Why Dream and Happy Nightmare then pull toward compact psychedelic and pop forms. Voices sit inside arranged instrumental detail rather than above a simple backing. Cello on Happy Nightmare adds a darker chamber register.
Anonymus is the central ensemble experiment. A recurring modal theme supports guitar-organ dialogue and rhythmic development, pointing directly toward the enlarged Anonymus II on Focus 3.
The second side of Focus Plays Focus moves through three vocal songs: Black Beauty, Sugar Island and Focus (Vocal). The last compresses material related to the opening instrumental into song length, making the album itself move out of and back into its own theme.
House of the King changes the international configuration. Its acoustic pulse and flute melody are concise, bright and largely self-explanatory. Adding it gives the debut a stronger instrumental single but weakens the original mirror between the two Focus versions.
Track guide
Seven Dutch originals plus the international calling card
Focus (Instrumental)
The opening instrumental establishes van Leer's numbered compositional line before the later Focus II and Focus III. Organ provides breadth while guitar and flute introduce distinct melodic viewpoints.
Dresden and Cleuver maintain a lighter, more elastic foundation than the later classic rhythm section. The music develops through ensemble exchange rather than one uninterrupted solo.
Beginning the debut with its longest piece is a statement of ambition. The band name becomes both title and method: this is the sound Focus wants the listener to examine.
Why Dream
The album contracts into an English-language vocal song co-written by van Leer and Cleuver. The lyric's questioning mood is carried by harmonic unease rather than theatrical vocal display.
Organ, guitar and backing voices make the arrangement denser than a simple pop interlude. The original quartet's collective singing is especially audible.
Its position after the long opener reveals the debut's central uncertainty and strength: Focus can move toward songcraft without abandoning instrumental detail.
Happy Nightmare (Mescaline)
Dresden's lead voice changes the front of the band, while the title places altered perception inside a compact psychedelic song rather than an extended improvisation.
Wouter Möller's cello adds weight and an uneasy chamber colour. Guitar and keyboards surround the vocal with shifting texture instead of illustrating every image literally.
The track preserves a version of Focus in dialogue with late-1960s art-pop. Later albums would keep the timbral imagination while relying less on this kind of vocal song.
Anonymus
A recurring theme gives the quartet space to develop instrumental conversation. Organ, guitar and flute trade prominence while bass and drums keep the framework mobile.
The piece is more groove-centred than Focus, with repetition used as a platform rather than as a final statement. Its openness made it suitable for later expansion.
Focus 3's Anonymus II does not make this version obsolete. The debut performance shows how the original quartet balanced the material before Ruiter and van der Linden transformed its scale.
Black Beauty
The second side returns to vocal writing. Van Leer sings while organ and guitar give the song a slightly formal frame, and Dresden's trumpet broadens the arrangement.
The title centres an admired figure, but the music's value lies in its measured melodic construction rather than a detailed narrative sequence.
Placed after Anonymus, it restores song scale without erasing the instrumental band's personality. The transition is part of the debut's in-and-out motion.
Sugar Island
A more outward, rhythmically direct song introduces escape imagery and group backing voices. Its surface is among the debut's most immediate.
The arrangement retains unusual detail through keyboards, guitar colour and Cleuver's percussion. Accessibility is treated as another ensemble texture.
Some later territorial reissues omitted the song, so its presence is an important test of whether an edition preserves the Dutch album.
Focus (Vocal)
The original album closes by returning to material related to its opening instrumental and compressing it into a vocal form. The same identity is viewed at a different scale.
Van Leer's voice replaces part of the long instrumental argument, while the quartet keeps enough harmonic resemblance to make recognition immediate. This mirrored ending is the strongest structural reason to hear Focus Plays Focus in its Dutch order before trying later configurations.
House of the King
Akkerman's instrumental became the international album's most useful calling card. Acoustic guitar establishes a quick pulse, van Leer's flute carries the principal melody and a short electric-guitar turn adds contrast.
Its compact baroque-shaped line can suggest a British folk-rock group, but the balance of flute, acoustic rhythm and electric interruption is already recognisably Focus.
The track was not part of the original seven-track Dutch sequence. Hear it as an added single whose success changed the album's international identity, not as the inevitable conclusion of every edition.
Separate songs
Dreams, altered perception, escape and musical self-definition
The debut is not a continuous concept album. Its songs address dreams, perception, admiration and escape, while the instrumentals investigate ensemble form. The title In and Out of Focus was applied internationally and should not be converted into a retroactive plot.
Dream states do recur. Why Dream questions waking and imagination; Happy Nightmare names chemically altered perception; Sugar Island imagines elsewhere. These songs share instability without describing one protagonist.
The deeper unity is musical self-definition. Focus (Instrumental) proposes a large form, Anonymus tests group interaction, and Focus (Vocal) translates identity into a compact song. House of the King later adds the instrumental single as a fourth possibility.
The album's uncertainty is historically valuable. The band has not yet decided whether voice, flute, organ, guitar or improvisation should dominate. Moving Waves would make that multiplicity sound more deliberate.
Many first editions
A debut repeatedly renamed, reordered and repackaged
The Dutch Focus Plays Focus and international In and Out of Focus editions use different names, portraits and graphic treatments. Later territories introduced still more designs, including optical dot patterns and revised photography.
This variety reflects licensing through Imperial, Polydor, Sire and later reissue labels. A cover alone cannot establish which sequence is inside.
The original seven-track programme begins with the long instrumental Focus and ends with its vocal counterpart. Many international eight-track editions reorder the material and insert House of the King, creating a different narrative of the band.
Packaging is therefore part of the album's history rather than a stable visual icon. Collectors should check label, catalogue number and track order together.
From Focus Plays Focus
A quiet first release, then a flute-led second life
Imperial released Focus Plays Focus in the Netherlands in September 1970, months after the January session. It brought the group an Edison award but did not create the international audience later reached by Moving Waves.
Why Dream and Happy Nightmare were paired for an early single. House of the King then proved more effective as a concise instrumental and reached number ten in the Netherlands.
International releases used In and Out of Focus and often promoted House of the King within the album. After Focus became successful abroad, the debut was reissued again in 1973, sometimes with reduced track selections.
The changing release history explains contradictory catalogue descriptions. Seven, eight and even six-track vinyl versions exist; the modern Red Bullet sequence standardises eight titles but is not the original Dutch order.
Before Moving Waves
The rough map beneath the classic Focus sound
The debut is often judged against the more confident Moving Waves, yet its value lies in showing how that confidence was assembled. Focus, Anonymus and House of the King identify three instrumental routes the band would pursue: lyrical suite, open framework and concise single.
The original quartet never made another studio album. Dresden and Cleuver's voices, trumpet, bongos and lighter rhythmic feel make this more than an immature version of the later lineup.
Anonymus gained the clearest sequel when the Ruiter-van der Linden quartet expanded it on Focus 3. The numbered Focus series likewise became a thread through later albums and performances.
In and Out of Focus is therefore both a beginning and a fork. Its vocal art-pop direction largely receded, while its instrumental language became the basis of the band's international identity.
Which edition?
Choose a sequence knowingly
Begin with the Dutch seven-track order: Focus (Instrumental), Why Dream, Happy Nightmare, Anonymus, Black Beauty, Sugar Island and Focus (Vocal). That sequence preserves the designed return at the end.
Then add House of the King as a separate single. This makes its clarity audible without pretending it was always part of the original LP.
The widely streamed Red Bullet edition opens with Focus (Vocal), places House of the King fifth and ends with Focus (Instrumental). It contains the relevant eight titles but tells a different structural story.
When buying vinyl, verify Sugar Island and House of the King individually. The international title does not guarantee either a specific order or a complete eight-track programme.
A listening path
Start with the Dutch album before adding House of the King
- First listen: Use the seven-track Focus Plays Focus order and notice the instrumental-to-vocal frame.
- Second listen: Follow Dresden and Cleuver to hear what disappears after the original quartet changes.
- Add the single: Play House of the King afterward as the concise instrumental route outward.
- Trace the future: Compare Anonymus with Anonymus II and Focus with Focus II and Focus III.
- Continue: Move to Moving Waves to hear the new rhythm section and a much firmer instrumental identity.
Research trail
Sources and further reading
- Official Focus history — Focus
- Sound Techniques recording archive — Sound Techniques
- 50 Years album and credit record — MusicBrainz
- In and Out of Focus track and personnel record — AllMusic
- In and Out of Focus release-group record — MusicBrainz
- Focus debut edition archive — Focus Collection
- In and Out of Focus digital catalogue — Red Bullet via Spotify