Certainly one of a kind. Recorded in the days when cost time and resources were no object.
I read somewhere that Warner's gave him a choice of how to spend the budget for the album, some thing along the lines of, with the band you used for the the Bert Burns sessions we can afford two weeks in the studio, or two days with the best session musicians we can get. I presume he chose the latter, with a later date for overdubs.
I'm sure someone bettter informed than me will shed some light on this.
On a different note, for most of the last 30 years, it's been or been close to, my favourite album. I had endless nights during the nineties ( decent income but few responsibilities) when I would wake up on the sofa after a few toots, with the run out groove clicking, knowing I should go to bed but having to listen to ballerina one more time. Sweet thing is just joyous. Some times I think I've played it so many times I won't enjoy it much, until I put it on, and then just disappear into the music...
I love quite a lot of his other stuff, especially the Them stuff, which is great, but I think AS is his highest point. That's hugely due to the jazz background of the band; no one is just playing a bass line or a drum pattern, they're improvising, which gives it so much depth and richness but van was really channelling something on this album, too; it's on another plane to anything else he recorded. When discussing the music I want at my funeral ( hypothetical, I should say; nothing pending I know about), after suggesting the bushes scream while my daddy prunes and Mr Slater's parrot. I usually settle on sweet thing.
As a bass player, I just marvel at Richard Davis' playing on this whole album; I just don't have the words...