Following up on last year's rather good "Man With the Biochopper" (also on FDM), Ellister is back with an excellent all covers E.P. First up (and most successfully) he tackles George Harrison's "Within You, Without You", removes most of the Indian instrumentation and in the process transforms it into something that sounds strangely like it would have sounded like if it'd been a Lennon "Pepper" tune, instead of that mystic Indian bloke. Marvelous.
He also tackles Mark Fry's "Song For Wilde", and Pink Floyd's "Flaming" in suitably adventurous fashion. MUCH more psychedelic than the "Biochopper" single so if that didn't float your boat, this is still well worth a listen.
Fuchsia super-fans Me & My Kites jumped at the chance to work with Tony Durant, and together they've given this old Fuchsia number a thorough seeing to in a fashion that bridges the more experimental qualities of their own recent debut (reviewed here), with the more structured songwriting of the new Fuchsia LP (which you can check out here). The B-Side is a completely different extended version of "Isis' Adventure" which leaves the album version for dead, with lots of extra vocal meanderings and general extended trippiness in the spirit of the times they wish that they came from.
Mellow Drunk's Leigh Gregory along with Ville and Jaakko Vilpponen follow up their debut full length with this intriguing little four tracker combining covers of Sabbath's uncharacteristically lovely acoustic numbers "Laguna Sunrise" and "Fluff", with a couple of their own numbers done in a similar style.
"Laguna Sunrise" stands up best to the covers process with some lovely swelling guitar work enhancing it's fragile melody, while the two originals are moodier, minor key affairs with "Death on a Pale Horse" in particular having a nice pastoral prog interlude flavor of it's own, along with a nice bit of Bonham boom-thwack.
The most contemporary sounding offering from this month's selection, "A Fairy Tale" is made up of three sixties covers, twisted into unfamiliar shapes with the help of fellow Honey Pot member Icarus Peel.
The Trogg's "Cousin Jane" is given a sparse, skeletal arrangement that hints at This Mortal Coil, while Second Hand's "A Fairytale" goes the rave-up route with lashings of organ, harpsichord, slashing guitars and I'm pretty sure I heard a kitchen sink somewhere in there too.
Best of all is "Play With Fire", transformed from it's already moody baroque-pop beginnings, into something even darker with a hypnotic, cascading guitar lick threatening to pull you down into a paranoid filled abyss. In the best possible way, of course.
Limited edition 7" vinyl only affairs as always - pre-order here or you're likely to miss out.
No comments:
Post a Comment