[ ANOTHER SPLASH OF COLOUR is the first compilation to document the Psychedelic Revival which hit the British music scene in the first half of the Eighties.
Label: RPM Records (2) – RPMBX530
Format: 3 × CD, Compilation
Box Set, Compilation
Country: UK
Released: 29 Apr 2016
Genre: Rock, Pop
Style: Psychedelic Rock
This 3-CD set expands upon an original V/A LP, A Splash Of Colour, issued by WEA at the start of 1982 and including many of the Nu Psych scene’s major players:
Mood Six, High Tide, Miles Over Matter, The Barracudas and The Times. All the musical tracks from this landmark album now appear on CD for the very first time!
Originally released as a 13-track LP in 1981, this compilation documents the fruits of New
Psychedelia, which set the scene for glammy Britpop, nerdy twee pop, playful college rock, and more.
"We’re a reaction against the violence of London. Here you can be what you want to be. We’re carrying on where the '60s left off. We put jelly on the floor and ask people to eat it. The fact that they do shows that there is still hope for the world." These are the words of the Doctor, a glammed-up, pylon-haired oddball, speaking to the UK’s Observer magazine in 1981. The Doctor’s heady proclamations, made in the wake of punk and postpunk and at the dawn of Thatcherism, were typical of an idealistic new movement rooted in the mod revival. It antagonized both dreary realists, who were unforgivably bland, and the reigning New Romantics, whose pop-futurist stylings were considered elitist and played-out, stuck in front of the bedroom mirror. New Psychedelia, fomented in early-80s England, peered instead into the kaleidoscope of psych-rock—13th Floor Elevators, Traffic, the Nuggets compilations—and saw something momentarily more appealing.
A Splash of Colour, originally released as a 13-track LP in '81, documented the scattershot fruits of that vision, just as it began to spread beyond clubs and second-hand clothes stores in London’s Soho
and Kensington. Reissued as Another Splash of Colour, the set has now expanded to three discs, comprising 64 songs recorded between '80 and '85. Ancestors of glammy Britpop, nerdy twee pop, playful college rock, and prime-era Creation Records rub shoulders, jostling for attention as each song pulls the rug from under the last.
What connects the groups is their investment in a collective, '60s-themed imaginarium, from
Robyn Hitchcock’s inspired nonsense
("It’s a Mystic Trip") to the straight-faced period pieces of groups like
Pink Umbrellas ("Raspberry Rainbow"). Though genre revivalism was hardly novel, New Psychedelia—which, besides this compilation, left few footprints in the British underground—was the first scene since punk to observe the widespread rejection of '60s Britrock, and to reject that rejection. Thanks in part to the "second Cold War," as well as the severity of Margaret Thatcher’s conservative politics, many would-be dissidents had drifted into a state of woozy social escapism. That musical response, writes one-time NME scribe Neil Taylor in Another Splash of Colour’s liner notes, "made a curious contrast, as the inimitable Dan Treacy was to later point out on 'She Was Only a Grocer’s Daughter': 'Relax your mind and float downstream/Pretend it’s all a very bad dream.'"
by Jazz Monroe
Associate Staff Writer ]
For New Psychedelia’s frontmen (and it’s curious to note that no group represented here had a frontwoman), those bad dreams were a creative goldmine. The compilation’s second track, "Just Like a Dream" by
the High Tide, is a grim fantasy of nuclear apocalypse. It’s joined by escapist head-ventures from
the Marble Staircase ("Still Dreaming"), Treacy’s
TV Personalities ("The Dream
Naz Nomad & the Nightmares, who cover the Electric Prunes’ "I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)." Rather than dream up a new world, the artists were scavenging and inhabiting the recent past—in this case the late '60s, already established as the unimpeachable golden age—because they considered their copious imagination an end in itself, rather than a weapon. Like their siblings in twee pop, the scene’s aggrieved youngsters saw no contradiction in protesting neoliberalist austerity by reviving the '60s idealism that failed to prevent it.
Inspires"), and
There’s much to enjoy in the free-spirited music that impulse wrought, even if it proved a bit of a dead-end. "Just 'cos the blank generation blew it/Don’t mean we have to," is a typically feisty missive from Miles Over Matter, whose kaleidoscopic "Something’s Happening Here" is the record’s closest thing to a manifesto.
The Barracudas, who applied their psych fripperies and lyrical polemic more sparingly, contribute a neat, jangly anthem called "Watching the World Go By," which rallies disenchanted dreamers who believe "The world is just too crazy" and who "prefer being left behind."
Cleaners From Venus, led by the great Martin Newell, offer "Wivenhoe Bells II," a more pastoral and poetic social commentary that could slide onto XTC’s Skylarking, with a reverb-heavy, alienated vocal that clambers over tumbling arrangements, like a child across beach rocks.
While wimpy eccentrics characterized the scene, the highlights here are diffuse. The militant urgency of
Blue Orchids’ "Work," a hit on John Peel’s radio show, isn’t far off that of the group’s
The Soft Boys' "Only the Stones Remain" and
Julian Cope’s brilliantly haughty "Sunspots" are neo-psych heavyweights that have swaggered through the decades, while Glasgow band
the Chicanes, on "Further Thoughts," identify and triangulate the best bits of all of it, corralling dingy postpunk, breezy Postcard pop, psych mystique, and post-hardcore dissonance into something surprisingly forward-facing.
transatlantic contemporaries Mission of Burma and the Wipers.
In fact, listening through the comp, there’s a sense New Psychedelia’s weak link was maybe the psychedelia: When Another Splash of Colour drags, it’s thanks to emboldened hammer-ons, zealous chorus pedals, or stray jam passages—many of the fineries that another psych descendant, the shoegaze scene, ditched a few years later. Still, the cluttered, trove-like format suits the record. As is customary for sprawling retrospectives, listeners enter an unspoken pact in which they’ll persevere with, say,
Firmament & the Elements’ "The Festival of Frothy Muggament" (sample lyric: "We played and they paid/And was it good?/Mmm, yay, verily, it was good") because forays into absurd theatricality are part and parcel of any scene sustained by LSD-fuelled boat parties and a fondness for shirts with Edwardian frills. Not only does the record’s scrappy, lived-in ambiance reflect the DIY necessities of that scene—it creates an intimate, densely packed time-capsule, in which strange aromas have mingled until even the minor curios are a source of wonder.
ANOTHER SPLASH OF COLOUR transforms the LP into a 64-track compendium spanning the years 1980-1985, from the roots of the psychedelic revival in post-punk and the mod revival through to the much-publicised London scene based around club nights like the Groovy Cellar and onto its second revival of sorts in 1984/85 with the early releases on Creation Records and the popularity of the Alice In Wonderland club.
All the key artists are included, from Nick Nicely to the Liverpool contingent (Icicle Works,
Julian Cope) to The Soft Boys and solo (Robyn Hitchcock, Kimberley Rew), the Whaam! camp (
TV
Personalities, The Times, Direct Hits, Marble Staircase, Le Mat), early Creation Records tunes (
the Revolving Paint Dream, the Jasmine Minks, Biff Bang Pow!) and the Psych scene’s eventual chart-toppers
Doctor & The Medics (with a previously unreleased track!).
Many of the Mod Revival bands who evolved into Psychedelia are represented:
Purple Hearts, Squire, The Jetset, The Heartbeats, The Onlookers and The Vandells. ASOC even boasts a bona fide hit single in Scarlet Party’s Byrdsy favourite ‘101 Dam-Nations’.
Punk/new wave artists also turned their hand to making Psych records: The UK Subs’ Charlie Harper, The Damned under the guise of
Naz Nomad & The Nightmares (and
Captain Sensible solo), Elvis Costello’s backing band The Attractions.
The deluxe clamshell package includes a weighty booklet with a 9,000-word sleeve-note by ex-NME journalist and author Neil Taylor.
As well as boasting many rarities new to CD (The Third Eye, Firmament & The Elements, Pink Umbrellas, Magic Mushroom Band, etc.), some tracks are previously unissued.
ANOTHER SPLASH OF COLOUR follows other acclaimed Cherry Red genre box sets which have attracted enthusiastic reviews and healthy sales: Looking Back/Keep Lookin’, Dust On The Nettles, Scared To Get Happy, C86, Millions Like Us, Love Poetry & Revolution, etc.
[ For regulars at Alice in Wonderland and the Bat Cave some of Londons more obscure 80`s nightclubs the Psychedelic scene in the mids 80`s was thriving, many bands featured on the Cherry
Red box Another Splash Of Colour Psychedelia in Britian 1980-1985 frequented and played at these clubs, as were other small clubs all over the UK.
Taking from predecessors such as The Electric Prunes, and The Seeds scene, the 3 cd box set covers a wide range of bands playing Psyche inspired music during this period.
One could argue it was a time a limbo for some bands that seemed to fall into this scene, the likes of
Robyn Hitchcock, Julian Cope and the Icicle Works, and some old flames of the Punk scene also,
Charlie Harper, Captain Sensible, also bands from the Creation Records stable,
The Jasmine Minks and
Biff Bang Pow, who themselves featured Creation Records guru Alan Mcgee.
Listening through this box set, its quite remarkable the mixture of songs and quality of the music of a period sometimes overlooked, from the start of disc 1, Mood Six Just Like A Dream, points the way to the changes from late New Romantic to a more cutting edge sound…
The Barracudas Watching The World Go By, is great, its indie pre indie… an unknown term just round the corner.
For many in the Music press , New Psychedelia didn’t have legs and got knocked by many however
this 3 cd proves them wrong, to me it was a wrong name given to a scene that deserved more, In fact was it a scene at all, perhaps a natural music progression at times where the charts were particularly poor.
More follows on CD2/3,
The Dream Factory and the Jet Set, Julian COPE himself and
The Purple Hearts who were associated with the Mod scene, it all goes to prove it was a time for new experimental pop with an edge.
Fortunate to see some of the bands from this set live during this period it’s a great reminder of a not forgotten period of underground music but one which pushed us into a better time, a truly interested and pleasurable listen.
Dean Leggett ]
CD 1.
01. The High Tide: Dancing In My Mind 4:21
02. Mood Six: Just Like A Dream 4:02
03. Miles Over Matter: Something's Happening Here 2:52
04. Robyn Hitchcock: It's A Mystic Trip 2:58
05. Barracudas: Watching The World Go By 4:35
06. Nick Nicely: 49 Cigars 2:40
07. The Times: I Helped Patrick McGoohan Escape (Single Version) 3:08
08. The Attractions: Slow Patience 2:16
09. The Earwigs: Keep Your Voice Down 3:31
10. Charlie Harper: Night Of The Jackal 2:42
11. The Marble Staircase: The Long Weekend 3:11
12. Blue Orchids: Work 4:02
13. The Silence: Love Letters 3:43
14. Knox: Gigolo Aunt 3:13
15. The Chicanes: Further Thoughts 3:44
16. The Vandells: I See Everything 2:54
17. Kimberley Rew: Stomping All Over The World 2:20
18. Delmontes: Don't Cry Your Tears 3:43
19. The Monochrome Set: On The Thirteenth Day 3:08
20. Future Daze: Connect 3:41
21. The Soft Boys: Only The Stones Remain 2:51
22. Firmament & the Elements: The Festival Of Frothy Muggament 3:24
23. The Von Trap Family: No Reflexes 6:14
CD 2.
01. Nick Nicely: Hilly Fields (1892) 3:32
02. The High Tide: Electric Blue 5:31
03. The Third Eye: Pass Myself 4:13
04. Miles Over Matter: Park My Car 3:03
05. Squire: No Time Tomorrow 3:56
06. The Marble Staircase: Still Dreaming 4:06
07. Barracudas: Inside Mind 3:30
08. Deep Freeze Mice: Red Light For The Greens 4:12
09. Paul Roland: Dr. Strange 2:57
10. Michael Moorcock's Deep Fix: Brothel In Rosenstrasse 3:44
11. Cleaners From Venus: Wivenhoe Bells II 4:24
12. Scarlet Party: 101 Dam-Nations 3:37
13. Le Mat: Waltz Of The Fool 3:34
14. The Dream Factory: The Haze 2:47
15. The Legendary Pink Dots: Waving At The Aeroplanes 3:09
16. Modern Art: Fiction & Literature 3:17
17. The Jetset: And We Dance On 4:14
18. The Heartbeats: Forever 4:36
19. Purple Hearts: Hazy Darkness... 2:49
20. Pink Umbrellas: Raspberry Rainbow 3:22
21. The TV Personalities: The Dream Inspires (Live) 2:58
CD 3.
01. The Revolving Paint Dream: Flowers In The Sky 2:27
02. Naz Nomad & The Nightmares: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) 2:50
03. Julian Cope: Sunspots 3:51
04. The Jasmine Minks: Mr. Magic 2:28
05. The Icicle Works: Nirvana 5:09
06. The Way Out: Do I Have To Be Here? 4:41
07. The Prisoners: Reaching My Head 2:54
08. Playn Jayn: In Your Eyes (Live) 4:58
09. The Primevals: Where Are You? 3:20
10. The Dentists: Strawberries Are Growing In My Garden (And It's Wintertime) 3:22
11. Doctor & The Medics: Barbara Can't Dance (Demo) 3:07
12. Biff Bang Pow!: A Day Out With Jeremy Chester 4:06
13. Mood Six: Plastic Flowers (Psycho Version) 4:05
14. Freight Train: Man's Laughter 3:29
15. The Onlookers: You Know Everything 3:26
16. Direct Hits: Doctor Ben 2:39
17. The Green Telescope: Two By Two 3:16
18. Magic Mushroom Band: Wide Eyed And Electrick 4:10
19. The Brainiac Five: Endless River 6:39
20. Captain Sensible: The 4 Marys Go Go Dance All Night At The Groovy Cellar 6:26
