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Supermarket (2000, 42.37) ****½/TTT½GovernmentForest Woods Superman Wild Animals Powers (it All Comes to an End...) Route 66 Supermarket Oranges She's Full of Fears |
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One Fantastic Day (2001, 44.38) ****/TTT |
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| In a Blink Seatbelts Flowers Smell of Sweets One Fantastic Day Where the Byrds Fly President of Me Funny Paper/Money Maker |
Astronauts Automatic Man |
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President of Me (2001, 10.34) ***½/TPresident of MeSanjay Pop Song 89 (live) |
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For Fans Only! (2003, recorded 1997-2002, 70.26) ***/T |
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| Prelude How Does it Feel to Feel Eight Miles High Pop Song 89 Tomorrow Never Knows Strawberry Fields Forever Astronomy Domine Pinball Wizard Immigrant Song |
Song From the Sea Another Beginning One Side of an Egg Sanjay Oranges Forest Woods Funny Paper/Money Maker Astronauts ("tired" version) Rain |
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Memories of the Never Happened (2007, 53.33) ****/TTT½ |
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| Glued Half & Half Because of Damaging Words No Worries Old Village House Dear Truth Goes Around It Ain't Easy (When You're Gone) |
Young Believer Corridors Lady Jette |
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Goes Around (2007, 12.12) ***½/TT½Goes AroundThe Sound of Silence Sideburns Pursuit |
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Haolam Hamufla [a.k.a. The Wonderful World] (2010, 53.56) ***½/TTT½ |
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| Haolam Hamufla Seret Zar Ein Lach Elohim Gaviya Kadosh Degel Sheva Dakot Malaach Bayom Hahu |
Beilum Shem Manat Yeter Horef Israeli |
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For Fans Only 2 (2013, recorded 2007-13, 39.52) ***½/TTwenty Years AfterIsraeli Winter (acoustic) Hole in the Moon (acoustic) Arnold Layne The Sound of Silence Sunset Cliffs Sideburns Pursuit Still Believes |
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Country City (2020, 40.06) ****/T |
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| Urban Panic Closed Neighborhood From Bottom to Top Everything is Honey Ayalon City A White City, Living in Gray The Black City Ten Minutes |
Salon Tokyo Let the Sun Rise And Meanwhile in the City Halloween Until the Last Customer |
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Current availability:
Mellotrons used:
I must admit I thought 'Rockfour' was a clever-clever pun on rocquefort, with their slightly cheesy late-'60s sound, but I'm reliably informed it means 'four people who play rock music', which is slightly less interesting. Oh well. They're that rarest of things, an Israeli psych-prog outfit (!) who released three Hebrew-language albums before switching to English for 2000's Supermarket and the following year's One Fantastic Day, with a compilation with one extra track, Another Beginning, available worldwide. Although the band don't own a Mellotron, they've used Zohar Cohen's M400 and ex-Pink Floyd black MkII.
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Supermarket is absolutely excellent; great songwriting, with a sort-of updated early Floyd sound with other stuff thrown in. It's rare to hear any psych-influenced stuff these days that doesn't sound like pure pastiche, but Rockfour get the right balance between tribute and innovation, with a gift for memorable melodies that many (most?) bands would kill for. Of course, the instrumentation's spot-on, too, with a raft of Rickenbackers and various vintage guitars. And the Mellotrons. Noam Rapaport slaps female choirs and strings all over Government, with upfront flutes and strings on Superman and Wild Animals, while MkII brass mixed with M400 choirs boosts the title track, with heavily layered strings on closer She's Full Of Fears. Superb.
Their follow-up, One Fantastic Day, is almost as good as its predecessor and may well prove to be its equal given enough plays. Rapaport sticks plenty of Mellotron on again, with considerable quantities of strings and choir on several tracks, President Of Me being the album's Mellotronic highlight, closely followed by Automatic Man, although all highlighted tracks have enough to make them worth a listen. What am I saying? The whole album's excellent, Mellotron or no Mellotron. A compilation released worldwide, Another Beginning, is pretty good, although as with any similar release, good stuff's going to get left off. The title track is exclusive to the album and keeps up the quality, even if it's Mellotron-free. President Of Me was also released as a single, with an extra Mellotron track on the flip, Sanjay, with a rising string line.
2003's For Fans Only! is an excellent way to mop up a raft of hard-to-find b-sides and compilation appearances (many of them covers), spiced up with a handful of previously unreleased tracks. Highlights? A scrappy Eight Miles High, a ripping Pinball Wizard segueing into the end section of Tommy and One Side Of An Egg, perhaps, although too many selections have a whiff of second-rateness about them; such is the way of compilations, I suppose. Although its original release is listed above, this is the easiest way to find Sanjay.
2004's Nationwide is Mellotron-free, so we've had to wait until 2007 for another Rockfour Mellotron-fest. Memories of the Never Happened is as bloody brilliant as ever; how do they do it? Simply having the intelligence and taste not to follow trends isn't enough; I suppose it's that magic X-factor (not the appalling TV 'talent show', you fool). Listening to this really is like stumbling across a lost late-'60s gem, only with better production and less whimsy - OK, not that much less... Opener Glued is an atypical droning guitar piece, although the Mellotrons kick in quickly enough on Half & Half, with some very cool pitchbends that I suspect are from that Mark II again. Mellotrons are played by Yaki Gani and Noa Hegesh, mainly strings, with a particularly overt part at the end of Because Of Damaging Words and some flutes on Young Believer. Goes Around was the single, one of its two b-sides being a storming version of The Sound Of Silence, complete with major Mellotron string and flute parts.
2010's Haolam Hamufla [a.k.a. The Wonderful World) is either an album deliberately aimed at the band's domestic market, or a retreat into it; hopefully the former. Sung entirely in Hebrew, its songs work perfectly well, although those who insist on understanding the words may have a little trouble. Rockfour seem to have moved away from the bright psych/powerpop blend of their previous albums, to a rather more downbeat approach, better tracks including Degel and closer Horef Israeli, although the overall combination of darkish psych and indie doesn't seem to work as well as their previous style, at least to my ears. Plenty of Mellotron, presumably from Yaki Gani, with strings and choir all over the title track, strings on Seret Zar and Ein Lecha Elohim, choirs on Degel, flutes on Sheva Dakot, strings and choir on Malaach, choir on Bayom Hahu, strings and choir on Manat Yeter and choir on Horef Israeli, with other string and brass parts sounding like something more modern. 2013's For Fans Only 2 seems to be a download ('digital' to you)-only release, which might explain its crummy sleeve 'design'. Far shorter than its predecessor, its contents date from 2007 (the b-sides from the Goes Around EP) up to the year of release. At its best on opener Twenty Years After, their radical reworking of Arnold Layne and the aforementioned The Sound Of Silence, this the easiest place to source that track.
2020's Country City (like its song titles, a transliteration from the Hebrew) sees the band retreating further from the English-speaking world; a great shame, as the music's as good as ever, if not better, but few outside Israel are ever going to hear this. The album features their usual combination of '60s psych/pop, garage rock and folk, possibly at its best on synth-driven instrumental opener Urban Panic, Closed Neighborhood's manic energy, From Bottom To Top, A White City, Living In Gray... Pretty much every track, to be honest. Is it original? Is anything? There's something of the Whiter Shade of Pales about And Meanwhile In The City, but nothing else here obviously sounds like anything other than Rockfour. Only one credited Mellotron track, with strings (Zohar's MkII?) on elegiac instrumental closer Until The Last Customer from guitarist Baruch Ben Izhak, although Mellotronlike sounds turn up elsewhere, notably the choirs on From Bottom To Top.
I'm keen to hear the band's Hebrew albums, too (which translate as The Man Who Saw it All, Return to the Snail and Rockfour Live), although I get the impression that none of them have any Mellotron content. As for their English-language efforts, I can wholeheartedly recommend Supermarket, One Fantastic Day and Memories of the Never Happened, although you don't really need Another Beginning.
