May-June 2009 • Edited by Andy Morten WE ARE THE MOLES


A year ago MARCO ROSSI interviewed THE DUKES OF STRATOSPHEAR for Shindig! Now he gets to step inside the two albums they left behind and do it all over again.


THE DUKES OF STRATOSPHEAR 25 O’Clock Psonic Psunspot Ape CDs www.ape.uk.net


To the unenlightened dabbler, ingénue or Johnny-come-lately, it may appear that the construction of a convincingly psychedelic record simply involves slapping on generous quantities of phasing and backward guitar, and voila: Bob’s your uncle, Stefanie Powers is your Girl from UNCLE and Lord Kitchener’s Valet is your couturier. But


bunging a Paco Rabanne link dress on to a mannequin doesn’t transform it into Brigitte Bardot; and all the trimmings don’t make a roast dinner if the chef has forgotten to prepare the meat. Or nut cutlet. XTC understood this better than anyone


when they came to fully flex their latent paisley pop muscles under the guise of The Dukes Of Stratosphear in the mid-80s. This was no mere whim: Andy Partridge in particular had harboured the desire to “be in a band like Tomorrow or Pink Floyd” since his teens, and a circuitous combination of circumstances (the full story of which is contained in Shindig! volume 2, issue 4) led to the sudden and enigmatic appearance of the startling six-track 25 O’Clock EP, memorably released on April Fool’s Day 1985. The EP in question, and its remarkable full-length ’87 follow-up Psonic Psunspot, now reappear in vastly expanded format, packaged in profoundly lickable hardback book covers and each graced with 25 pages of notes, photos and memorabilia. So how do the Dukes sound


a quarter of a century down the line, near as dammit? Well, unutterably and headily magnificent, obviously: but the first thing that strikes you from this remove is the way in which these records have seamlessly become recognised psychedelic touchstones in their own right. The mystique and grand fiction of the Dukes initiative – “a fancy dress ball,” as Andy Partridge described it –worked so well, and proved so compelling, that you could in all probability take any of these songs and place them on a compilation alongside the best-loved and most distinguished popsike from the


’66-69 era, and no one would turn a hair or raise a dissenting voice. The second thing that strikes you is the


palpable enthusiasm beaming from the grooves. 25 O’Clock in particular is, audibly, the work of an energised band all too briefly freed from care. This playful indulgence, in which the studio is a toy box and the creative process is a fistful of crayons, is indicative of the band’s total immersion in the British psychedelic mindset and chimes beautifully with the childlike sense of wonder and unfettered imagination displayed by the compositions themselves. Did we just mention indulgence? I should


quickly quantify this by adding that the real beauty of the Dukes material is its concision. Nothing sprawls, nothing drags; what you get instead are tight, punchy vignettes haemorrhaging colour and simply crammed with knowing detail. When I spoke to Sir John Johns and Lord Cornelius Plum– or, out of bandsmen’s uniforms, Andy Partridge and Dave Gregory –for Shindig!’s Dukes article, Andy noted that “we’re from that school of specifically British psychedelic singles – you know, the refined, no spare flesh school of psychedelia. ‘See Emily Play’, ‘We Are The Moles’, ‘My White Bicycle’…” Accordingly, 25 O’Clock and Psonic


Psunspot find them compressing a universe of ideas into a series of vivid thumbnails –or gleefully smashing them into one another. Thereby, ‘My Love Explodes’ fuses The Yardbirds, The Who and The Pretty Things into a pop art apocalypse: the stoical


The fact that these myriad influences


are simultaneously integrated and effortlessly transcended says as much about the enduring worth of the songcraft exercised by Partridge and bassist Colin Moulding (The Red Curtain, in Dukes guise) as it does about the care taken in tightening the nuts and bolts. In this, the band were aided immeasurably with the presence of “the fifth Duke”, producer John Leckie –credited with due ceremony as Swami Anand Nagara. Leckie’s copper-bottomed psych credentials were forged in the crucible of creativity which was Abbey Road Studios in the late ’60s; and the ethos was evidently still in his blood. “He worked miracles,” remembers Dave Gregory. “Without even having to be asked, he knew exactly what we were trying to do, the sounds we were looking for.”


So what are the highlights on these


extraordinary records? I promise you, there are just too many to list: but from 25 O’Clock, ‘The Mole From The Ministry’ merits special honours for its inspired lyrical conceit and the gorgeous, blurry depth of its fixation on the soundworld of ’67-era Beatles: the way it kicks up a semitone after the choruses… the whinnying horse –so redolent of the ‘Penny Lane’ promo film –which magically appears in the middle eight… The weary Mellotron… the shimmering, perfectly judged cymbal smashes in the second bar of the outro, courtesy of E I E I Owen (Dave Gregory’s brother Ian, a drummer with an invaluable sense of swing)… As regards Psonic Psunspot,


‘Pale And Precious’ tops the billing by turning a Beach Boys homage into an oddly poignant reverie. If Brian Wilson had heard it at the time it would have unseated him so much that it would doubtless have sent him back to bed for a few more years; and Andy Partridge was savvy enough to up the emotional ante by singing it in the style of Carl Wilson, with that characteristic vocal wobble. Both albums come tricked


out with a clutch of demos and a promo video apiece: the ‘Walrus’-style garden japery of the ‘Mole’ video on 25 O’Clock and the vaudevillian puppetry of ‘You’re A Good Man Albert Brown’ on Psonic Psunspot. Of particular interest for completists are the extra recordings on 25 O’Clock: ‘Black Jewelled Serpent Of Sound’, a sinuous reimagining of the theme from the Fry’sTurkish Delight advert, ‘Open A Can Of Human Beans’ which previously appeared on an MS


uphill trudge of ‘Collideascope’ is John Lennon elbowing aside Roy Wood of The Move; ‘Have You Seen Jackie?’ superimposes Mark Wirtz on to the blithely creepy mark one Pink Floyd; and ‘Your Gold Dress’ plants a decorous Nicky Hopkins squarely into the middle of a bludgeoning riff face-off a la The Mickey Finn.


Society charity CD, and ‘Tin Toy Clockwork Train’, which would slot in nicely among the tracks on the first Idle Race album. What a joy it is to see these jewels of the


UK psych firmament finally and fittingly being presented in their own lovingly fashioned jewel boxes… Marco Rossi


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