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Supernauts Supersister Surfers Gregg Suriano |
Švehlík Svenne & Lotta Sierra Swan |
Swan Lee Swans Matthew Sweet (& Susanna Hoffs) |
Sweet Vine Sweet 75 Swelter |
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Medicine & Love (2004, 37.59) **/T |
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| Last Headline Medicine & Love Maybe Everything Number Four Behavior in a Bottle Another Line Waiting All I Can Take |
Morning Spanish Castle Magic (live) |
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Supernauts, from Kansas, were a one-off alt.rock outfit of little apparent originality, going by what appears to be their lone album, 2004's Medicine & Love, at its least tedious on the energetic All I Can Take and the live version of Spanish Castle Magic rather gratuitously tacked onto the end, presumably in an attempt (failed) to make the album more interesting.
Patrick Warren does his usual Chamberlin thing, with a nicely upfront strings-and-cello part on the album's ballad, Morning, although it does little to improve the overall sense of ennui. Very poor.
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To the Highest Bidder (1971, 35.32/50.42) ****/TA Girl Named YouNo Tree Will Grow (on Too High a Mountain) Energy (Out of Future) Higher [CD adds: A Girl Named You (single version) Missing Link No Tree Will Grow (single edit) The Groupies of the Band] |
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Pudding en Gisteren (1972, 42.01/57.44) ***/½RadioSupersisterretsisrepus Psychopath Judy Goes on Holiday Pudding en Gisteren (Music for Ballet) [CD adds: Dead Dog Wow (live)] |
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7" (1972) ***½/T½ Radio Dead Dog |
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Supersister were one of the Dutch progressive scene's more unusual bands, sounding more like a stray Canterbury Scene act who'd taken a wrong turn and ended up across the North Sea in The Hague than any of their contemporaries. Their second album, 1971's To the Highest Bidder, is an excellent example of the style - far better than many genuine Canterbury acts, to be honest - from manic ten-minute opener A Girl Named You through the atmospheric No Tree Will Grow (On Too High A Mountain) to the particularly Canterbury-esque Energy (Out Of Future). Keys man Robert Jan Stips (later of Golden Earring and The Nits) plays what I take to be Hilversum Phonogram Studios' legendary M300 on two tracks, with background strings on A Girl Named You and strings and cellos on No Tree Will Grow; there may be other sounds used (clarinet? Organ bass?), but, assuming we're hearing that M300, it's hard to tell.
The following year's Pudding en Gisteren (Pudding & Yesterday) opens with its single, Radio, which lulls you into a false sense of security by wryly impersonating a cheesy little pop song until halfway through, when it suddenly turns into a bizarre, narrative-vs-male choir thing with a galloping backbeat. You can imagine perturbed DJs fading it as it heads off-piste... Ignoring the few-second reversed Supersisterretsisrepus (look closely at the title), Psychopath is another strange little song, before the more 'standard' prog moves of Judy Goes On Holiday - well, until it shifts into a bizarre doo-wop parody halfway through - and the side-long title track. It's that kind of album. Psychopath features a brief Mellotron section, with a string part towards the end from Stips, barely recognisable as such.
Radio was backed with the charmingly-titled Dead Dog, an atypically unjazzy slow instrumental, Stips adding Mellotron, with a string part (and possibly brass?) that sounds unM400-like enough to probably be that M300 again. You can now find the track on the expanded CD of Pudding..., although it sounds little like the rest of the album, for better or worse. Passable Mellotron work, but nothing you haven't heard many times before.
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Songs From the Pipe (1998, 43.52) **/TT |
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| Australia Never If Cause It's Me Going Not Your Slave Spill Alone By a Tree |
Hawaii Anything From You Two Gether |
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Led by champion surfer Kelly Slater, all three members of The Surfers really are surfers, beating The Beach Boys hands down, albeit only on that front. Songs From the Pipe (a surfing reference, obviously) was their sole album, but aside from the occasional nod to the early-'60s surf scene, notably Going and Not Your Slave, I think it would be fair to say that this record drips fake emotion like a surfboard drips water. It's as wet as the Pacific and as limp as a half-drowned surfer... OK, enough ludicrous surfing analogies already. The album does occasionally pick up the pace and closing acoustic guitar piece Two Gether is quite nice, but most of it is self-consciously 'modern rock', along the same lines as the horrible Matchbox Twenty and their ilk.
Patrick Warren does his usual Chamberlin session thing here; opener Australia is all Chamby strings, with flutes on Going and a beautifully upfront, cranky, slightly out of tune string solo section on Anything From You. It's the only thing that makes this half-arsed nonsense worth the effort, though, so don't go spending any money on this or anything. Incidentally, note how someone famous in a non-musical field can still release an album on Sony. Must've been his immense musical talent or something.
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Peace of the Rock (1978, 32.53) */T½Where Do You StandIt Must Be Love Until He Came Reason to Live (I'd Rather Have) Believed a Lie There's a Place Jesus Lifts Me Above the Rain The Last Days |
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I don't know what else Gregg Suriano might have done (hopefully nothing), but 1978's Peace of the Rock is a truly terrible late '70s Christian effort, played firmly in the über-mainstream US pop/rock style of the time, like an ultra-budget Steely Dan, without the wit or songwriting chops; England Dan & John Ford Coley, then. With Christian lyrics. I mean, closer The Last Days (a cheery exposition on the End Of The World) actually references 'the prince of darkness', which has to be worth a doom point or two, surely? Perhaps not. Worst track? Where do I start? It's all shite, frankly, so I don't know whether the upbeat likes of opener Where Do You Stand and Until He Came or the slushy Reason To Live and (I'd Rather Have) Believed a Lie are more vile. Hate them all equally and circumvent the problem.
Suriano and Frank Braile play Mellotron, with full-on flute, string and cello parts opening the balladic It Must Be Love plus a cello line running throughout and background strings on The Last Days. Listen to the first thirty seconds of the former and do your level best to avoid hearing any more of this pernicious crud. Shockingly, this is actually available on CD with bonus tracks, which I haven't heard, so their potential Mellotron usage will have to remain unknown.
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There's No Time (1995, 46.45) ***/THey YouKoleda Dokola Stranger There's No Time I Need You Hey You II, Another Way Katsi Vrz Schwarzwald |
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Prague's Švehlík originally existed between the late '70s and early '80s, reforming for a few years a decade later. Their avant-rock moves on 1995's There's No Time channel post-punk, contemporary hard rock and a plethora of other styles, the end result sounding, well, if not actually unique, certainly unusual, at its best on the angular title track and I Need You and its oddest on five-minute ambient closer Schwarzwald.
Producer Volkmar Miedtke (Dunaj, Klar) plays (his own?) Mellotron on Dokola, with a wavery flute part towards the end of the six-minute piece, becoming more audible as everything else drops out of the mix, until it's the sole sound source. Not a Mellotron Classic, exactly, but a surprisingly worthwhile release.
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2 (1975, 38.02) **½/T |
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| Bang en Boomerang When You Walk Into the Room Tell Laura I Love Her Oh Juicy It's My Party Roly-Poly Girl (Kära Gamla Sol) Dance (While the Music Still Goes on) Chapel of Love |
Dream Lover Changes Bang-a-Boomerang Glad All Over |
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Svenne Hedlund worked with future Abba-ist Benny Andersson in Sweden's most successful English-language group of the '60s, The Hep Stars, later marrying American singer Charlotte Walker, now styling herself Lotte/Lotta Hedlund. The duo worked together the following decade as Svenne & Lotta, recording two albums with pre-Abba Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, leading to the odd situation whereby the first two Svenne & Lotta albums don't appear to count in their discography, making 1975's 2 their fourth actual release. Consisting largely of rather anodyne and overly-familiar covers (not least Ricky Valance's Tell Laura I Love Her, Lesley's Gore's It's My Party and Bobby Darin's Dream Lover), it also contains their hopeful 1975 Eurovision entry and breakthrough hit, Björn and Benny's Bang En Boomerang/Bang-A-Boomerang (also to be found on the Abba album), a ludicrously catchy song in true Abba style. Overall, though, the album carries more than a whiff of second-rate '60s popdom, at its best, perhaps surprisingly, on Claes af Geijerstam's balladic Changes; well, at least it isn't another all-too-obvious cover...
Andersson plays Abba's M400 (presumably also Polar Studios' house Mellotron), with big chordal strings and a flute melody on Dance (While The Music Still Goes On), another Abba effort, this time from the previous year's Waterloo. These days, Svenne & Lotta are so far outside the public's consciousness that their catalogue, compilations aside, has never been reissued. File under 'cheery-yet-inessential-Europop'. A thought: with better lyrics, could Bang-A-Boomerang have been another Abba hit? Discuss.
See: Abba
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Ladyland (2006, 43.55) **½/T½ |
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| Copper Red Don't Say Get Down to it Dr. Loverboy The Ladder Ladyland Trouble is Lucky Scar |
Shakedown Just Tell Me Mother |
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Ex-Dollshead Sierra 'daughter of Billy' Swan recorded an unreleased album for Atlantic in 2001, produced by Linda Perry (4 Non Blondes, loads of production work, fairy godmother to Bigelf), who negotiated a deal with Interscope after Swan's departure from her original label. As a result, her first official solo album is 2006's Ladyland, an indie/singer-songwriter effort of the kind you'd expect Perry to be involved with, meaning if you're in any way a typical Planet Mellotron reader, you're pretty unlikely to get much out of it, however well it's done. Most of the tracks are unusual piano-driven ballads, although after the first few, it all becomes much of a muchness, a little too sickly-sweet for comfort, although how much of this is down to the songwriting and how much to the production is impossible to say.
Perry plays Mellotron, amongst other things, with high background strings on Dr. Loverboy, The Ladder and Trouble Is and strings and flutes on Lucky Scar and Shakedown. Pretty much all the parts are irritatingly buried in the mix, effected heavily enough that it's possible that any or all of these are actually something else, while there may be more Mellotron tracks scattered across the album. Overall, done well enough (he said, grudgingly), but it's unlikely to grab you any more than it has me, with no real worthwhile Mellotron to liven things up.
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Enter (2000, 44.04) ***/TT½ |
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| Flowers in the Wintertime Go on Enter Stay Tonight Walk With Me Tomorrow Never Dies You Cannot Hide Dream Away |
Stay When You Are Gone |
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Swan Lee (2001, 43.44) **½/½ |
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| Bring Me Back Love Will Keep You Warm I Don't Mind What is Love? What You Get...is What You See Don't Take My Love Find My Way Home Perfume |
In Your Life Lord Knows, I Can Be Strong Peace of Mind |
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Swan Lee (presumably named for the Syd Barrett song on his odds'n'ends collection Opel) were a Danish '60s-influenced pop group fronted by Pernille Rosendahl, then-girlfriend of major Mellotron user Tim Christensen. Enter is actually a pretty decent collection, mixing pre-psych influences with modern indie in a not entirely unpleasing fashion. Unsurprisingly, Christensen plays Mellotron on several tracks, with overt string parts on Stay Tonight and Tomorrow Never Dies, Christensen's unsuccessful attempt to write a Bond film theme. Lesser string parts on Walk With Me and Dream Away, although real strings are used in places, notably on Flowers In The Wintertime, Stay and When You are Gone.
To be honest, their eponymous second (and last) album really isn't a patch on their debut; the melancholic feel is largely gone, although some of the supposedly upbeat material has something of a wistful air about it. Very little of Christensen's Mellotrons this time round, with just background strings on I Don't Mind, with real strings on Lord Knows, I Can Be Strong. So; I'd strongly recommend Swan Lee's first album over their second, but that's just me. It's also by far the better Mellotron record of the pair and might actually not irritate the non-indie fan.
See: Tim Christensen
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Love of Life (1992, 51.34) ***½/T½ |
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| (-) Love of Life The Golden Boy That Was Swallowed By the Sea (-) (-) The Other Side of the World Her The Sound of Freedom (-) |
Amnesia Identity (-) In the Eyes of Nature She Crys (for Spider) God Loves America (-) |
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By 1992, Swans (no 'the'), former enfants terribles, had dropped the extreme volume and titles like Public Castration is a Good Idea and had settled into a slightly-nearer-mainstream old age, before their eventual split. Michael Gira's voice is still gut-wrenchingly deep on Love of Life and their sound still has disturbing aspects to it, but all in all, it's eminently listenable compared to their earlier work (in my humble opinion, of course).
Female keyboardist Jarboe's Mellotron only turns up on the title track and In The Eyes Of Nature, with fair helpings of strings, especially on the latter, which starts with an almost-symphonic burst of the good ol' three violins. I can't really recommend this to Mellotron fans, to be honest, but it's a good album, deserving of a wider audience. Gira's gone on to do his Angels of Light project, among other things. Oh and all those '(-)' tracks are essentially instrumental interludes, sometimes including found sounds or dialogue. And yes, I find the cover image quite disturbing, too.
See: Samples etc. | Angels of Light
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100% Fun (1995, 41.16) ****/T |
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| Sick of Myself Not When I Need it We're the Same Giving it Back Everything Changes Lost My Mind Come to Love Walk Out |
I Almost Forgot Super Baby Get Older Smog Moon |
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Blue Sky on Mars (1997, 36.40) ***½/T |
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| Come to California Back to You Where You Get Love Hollow Behind the Smile Until You Break Over it Heaven and Earth |
All Over My Head Into Your Drug Make Believe Missing Time |
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Under the Covers, Vol. 1 [as Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs] (2006, 48.50) ****/T |
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| I See the Rain And Your Bird Can Sing It's All Over Now, Baby Blue Who Knows Where the Time Goes? Cinnamon Girl Alone Again or The Warmth of the Sun Different Drum |
The Kids Are Alright Sunday Morning Everybody Knows This is Nowhere Care of Cell #44 Monday, Monday She May Call You Up Tonight Run to Me |
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Sunshine Lies (2008, 50.36) ***½/T |
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| Time Machine Room to Rock Byrdgirl Flying Feel Fear Let's Love Sunshine Lies Pleasure is Mine |
Daisychain Sunrise Eyes Around You Now Burn Through Love Back of My Mind |
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Under the Covers, Vol. 2 [as Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs] (2009, 64.00) ***/½ |
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| Sugar Magnolia Go All the Way Second Hand News Bell Bottom Blues All the Young Dudes You're So Vain Here Comes My Girl I've Seen All Good People |
Hello it's Me Willin' Back of a Car Couldn't I Just Tell You Gimme Some Truth Maggie May Everything I Own Beware of Darkness |
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Modern Art (2011, 42.00) ***½/T |
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| Oh, Oldendaze! Ivory Tower She Walks the Night When Love Lets Go I'm Falling Ladyfingers A Little Death Late Nights With the Power Pop Baltimore |
My Ass is Grass December Dark Modern Art Sleeping |
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Matthew Sweet is one of the quintessential practitioners of powerpop, not as in The Knack, but as in Big Star crossed with Jellyfish, or an American Badfinger. A glorious mixture of pop and rock, more Beatles than Cheap Trick, but in thrall to both, while sounding like neither. His commercial breakthrough came with his third album, 1991's Girlfriend, although his fifth, '95's 100% Fun, is apparently a rather darker proposition, named for a phrase from Kurt Cobain's suicide note, fact fans. There isn't a bad track here, to be honest, although some of you may not go for the smattering of more country-inclined numbers such as I Almost Forgot. Overall, we're talking powerpop heaven, which will doubtless only get better with repeated plays (one day, one day...). Credited Mellotron (from seemingly the Mellotron's lost advocate, producer Brendan O'Brien) on two tracks, with some lovely volume-pedalled strings on Lost My Mind, although whatever's being played on Super Baby is, sadly, inaudible.
Two years on, Blue Sky on Mars is also stuffed to the gills with excellent material, only... maybe a fraction less excellent than on its predecessor. Despite containing songs of the quality of the insanely short Over It, there seems to be rather less sonic variety than before; is that the problem? Dunno, but it's still a far better record than, ooh, 99.9% of Sweet's contemporaries produced that year, so I'm not sure what I'm complaining about. Two Mellotron tracks from Brendan O'Brien again, with a few string chords on Behind The Smile and some interesting pitchbend work on Into Your Drug.
In 2006, Sweet paired up with Susanna Hoffs of The Bangles to record an album of '60s covers, Under the Covers, Vol. 1 (oo-er, Matthew). Part of the fun with this kind of album is, without looking at the tracklisting, seeing how quickly you can spot each song, depending, of course, on how closely it sticks to the original. Not too many problems here; this isn't an album of reinterpretations, by and large, but one of two fans of the era recording accurate copies of some of their favourite songs, albeit with a little of their own personalities inserted. Amongst the artists tackled are Neil Young (Cinnamon Girl and Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, both from the same album), The Who (The Kids Are Alright), Sandy Denny (Who Knows Where The Time Goes?, also recorded by Fairport Convention during her tenure), Love (Alone Again Or), Dylan (It's All Over Now, Baby Blue), The Beatles (And Your Bird Can Sing) and The Mamas & the Papas (Monday Monday, rather than the more obvious choice). Notably, I didn't know several, including opener I See The Rain (The Marmalade), The Warmth Of The Sun (obviously The Beach Boys) and closer The Bee Gees' Run To Me. There really isn't a bad track here, but given a) the vast pool of suitable material and b) the collective talents of Sweet and Hoffs, nor should there be. Sweet plays Mellotron on Different Drum (Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys, apparently), with background string and flute parts, while the string part on The Zombies' Care Of Cell (#)44 accurately reproduces the original.
Sweet released his first album of new material for four years, Sunshine Lies, in 2008 and it's pretty much as if nothing's changed. Maybe it hasn't. Another (slightly overlong, admittedly) selection of powerpop mini-gems, particularly opener Time Machine, although there's few dips here. Full-on Mellotron strings on the aforementioned Time Machine from Sweet, although, sadly, that appears to be it on the Mellotron front.
2009 brought Sweet and Hoffs' second volume of covers, er, Under the Covers, Vol. 2, this time tackling the '70s. Will there be a Vol. 3 of '80s tracks? Let's hope not. I have to say, spotting the original artists is a lot tougher this time round, although this is the decade when I was first listening to the radio. It seems to me that '60s hits are pretty much '60s hits, whether in the UK or the States (within reason, naturally), Sweet and Hoffs both clearly being huge fans of what Americans refer to as the 'British Invasion'. In the following decade, however, the two countries' charts diverged wildly; Britain's early '70s glam explosion barely touching the States, while their 'canyon rock' west coast style left the UK largely unmoved. Theories: I shit 'em... Although I recognised Bell Bottom Blues, You're So Vain and Hello It's Me by their titles (Derek & the Dominoes, Carly Simon and Todd Rundgren, respectively), the first genuine 'I know that!' track here is Mott the Hoople's iconic All The Young Dudes (a gift from Bowie, obviously), plus Yes' I've Seen All Good People (can you imagine British artists including anything by Yes?), Rod Stewart's Maggie May and their countryish take on George Harrison's Beware Of Darkness that, frankly, I only really know from Spock's Beard's excellent version.
Other artists tackled include Little Feat (Willin'), Fleetwood Mac (Second Hand News), The Grateful Dead (opener Sugar Magnolia) and John Lennon (Gimme Some Truth), although all but a handful of tracks here were unfamiliar to this listener. Maybe it'll make more sense in its home market. To be brutally honest, this is a bit of a disappointment, especially after the excellence of its predecessor, which has nothing to do with the talents of Sweet and Hoffs and everything to do with the weakness of the source material. Sweet's Mellotron use isn't individually credited this time, but all I can hear is what sounds like church organ at the end of I've Seen All Good People; amusing, given that, despite Yes' reputation, there's no Mellotron on the original album.
Sweet's first originals album for three years, 2011's Modern Art, is exactly what you'd expect of a Matthew Sweet album, which is no bad thing. Take that, progression fiends. Pretty much everything except the title track is bright, breezy powerpop with the required melancholic edge, top tracks including the jangly, Byrds-esque She Walks The Night, Ladyfingers and the ironic Late Nights With The Power Pop, while Sweet's Mellotron only seems to be present on the piano-led title track, with a distant string part that enhances the song nicely.
So; if intelligent, well-written pop/rock sounds like it could be your thing, I think you need to hear Matthew Sweet. There are only two essential Mellotron tracks here (excluding the note-for-note Zombies cover), 100% Fun's Lost My Mind and Sunshine Lies' Time Machine, but that's really not why you'll buy these records.
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Sweet Vine (1997, 54.54) ***/½ |
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| Mountainside Candy for Fools Downside of Wonder Castles and Hovels All I Could Do Up to You Three Times Denied Evergreen |
Another Day Gone First Time Ever Made Love to Be |
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I can't tell you an awful lot about Sweet Vine (named for a Humble Pie song, apparently), other than that they were from Sacramento and released just the one, eponymous LP (on Columbia, no less). It fits (extremely) loosely into the late '90s niche market of retro groove-rock outfits like Cry of Love, although influenced chiefly by The Allmans, as against that outfit's Hendrix obsession, better tracks including the groovy Three Times Denied (what was I saying about not having a Hendrix influence?) and soulful closer Ever Made Love To Be, although I'm not sure why other online reviewers rave on about rather ordinary opener Mountainside. Downsides? Too much of a '60s r'n'b influence for my tastes, not enough '70s riffage.
Keys man Gary Frank Skaggs (clearly related to Ricky) plays Mellotron strings on Ever Made Love To Be, in a rare departure from the lovely, grinding Hammond he uses heavily elsewhere. Sweet Vine is a decent enough effort, although a mid-album lull and too many overlong tracks dock it a half star. Would you buy it for its Mellotron use, though? Not really, no.
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Sweet 75 (1997, 50.03) **½/T |
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| Fetch Lay Me Down Bite My Hand Red Dress La Vida Six Years Take Another Stab Poor Kitty |
Ode to Dolly Dogs Cantos de Pilon Nothing Japan Trees Oral Health |
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Sweet 75 were Krist Novoselic's first post-Nirvana project; sadly for him, they were rather less successful than Dave Grohl's 'why are they that popular?' Foo Fighters. Like Grohl, though, Novoselic switched to guitar, proving that most musicians actually want to be guitarists, falling back on other instruments because someone's got to play them. And I should know. Their one and only album, '97's Sweet 75, is best described as 'post grunge', I think, sounding not a million miles away from the aforementioned Foos, albeit clearly without their nebulous X factor. It sounds like a noisier variety of pop/rock to me, with a few nice moments (the Rush-ish guitar figure in Lay Me Down, a few guitar intros), but overall, a rather disappointing collection of so-so songs, sung by 'must be her real name' Yva Las Vegas, including the Spanish-language Cantos De Pilon, a brave experiment that doesn't quite work.
Producer Paul Fox plays Mellotron on a couple of tracks and Orchestron on another, sounding close enough to the Mellotron to be mistaken for it in poor light. String parts on both opener fetch and Red Dress, sounding pretty real and Orchestron strings on Lay Me Down, making you think (as so often) that it could've been used on a few more tracks and have fitted perfectly well. So; a rather ordinary record only (vaguely) notable for its Nirvana connection, not much Mellotron.
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Songs of Distance (2009, 39.23) **½/T |
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| Wait & See Still Not Won The Strain We're Under We Both Know Saddest Meal Refugee Something Worth Repeating You're in the Last Frame |
She Wants to Be a Mother Love is Not for Hypocrites Let Me Sleep |
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Swelter are a Dutch Americana-infused indie outfit, whose debut, 2009's Songs of Distance, sits on the dull side of acceptable pop/rock, probably at its best on the breezy Still Not Won, Love Is Not For Hypocrites and gentle closer Let Me Sleep.
Matthijs Herder plays his M400, with background strings on The Strain We're Under and flutes on We Both Know, pleasant enough, but rather inessential. A bit like this album, then.
