Matt Berry And The Maypoles Live.

Matt Berry is a very busy chap; what with his writing and acting in the award winning comedy series Toast Of London, a part in the recent Vic and Bob sit-com, plus a successful recording carer, mod only knows how he finds the time to go on tour … but he does, and this album Matt Berry and The Maypoles Live, his fifth on Acid Jazz Records, is the proof.

Berry's studio albums are always interesting to say the very least, from the bedroom twiddly experimentation of Opium, the melodic tune-smithery of Witchazel, the Hammer Horror-esque folk of Kill The Wolf, to the frankly masterful prog-psych instrumental epic that was Music For Insomniacs; he has a large and varied catalogue from which to craft his live set.

Each album is represented here (except the brilliant Insomniacs concept album, not surprising considering the nature of the tracks). There are head-nodders, foot tappers, moog wig-out and virtuoso noodley bits, the rhythm section (featuring Mark Morriss of The Bluetones) is tight and vibrant and Berry hits all the right notes in all of the right places; impressive stuff to be sure.

Available in many formats including cassette, the delicious blue vinyl track listing runs like a greatest hits album:

Side A.

1.Innkeeper.
2. So low.
3. October Sun.
4. Take my Hand.
5. Sorry.
6. Solstice.

Side B.

7. Snuff Box.
8. Song For Rosie.
9. Medicine.
10. Devil Inside.
11. The Pheasant.

I believe there is a t-shirt available too.

Matt Berry - Kill The Wolf

We all love the folk-horror masterpiece that is The Wicker Man, not the atrocious 2006 remake starring Nicholas Cage obviously, but the 1973 original by Hammer Films; starring Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Ingrid Pitt and featuring what reputed to be Britt Ekland’s bare bottom.

The film’s soundtrack, largely composed by Paul Giovanni and performed by Magnet, is an essential component, creating atmosphere and suspense throughout the film, as well as containing a number of unique folk songs, the undeniable influence from which has rippled within the fabric of the British folk and psych scenes throughout the following decades; stand-out tracks being covered by artists as diverse as The Sneaker Pimps and Marked & Joff. 

Matt Berry likes The Wicker Man also, he likes it very much indeed, especially the soundtrack. His third album (the second on Acid Jazz Records), Kill The Wolf, explores this fondness for all things ‘Wicker’ (in fact the atrocious 2006 remake starring Nicholas Cage would have been ten times better if they’d waited for seven years and used  Kill The Wolf as the soundtrack).

It isn’t all ‘hey nonny’ and mandolins however, a creeping ‘prog’ subtext underpins the album, the serious musician sharpening his steel with lengthy and melodic instrumental passages that might win kudos with connoisseurs of Floyd or Yes.

His ear for a catchy tune, apparent on the preceding album Witchazel, is still in evidence; Medicine and The Signs are both songs with strong hooks and memorable choruses. But it is the overwhelming Englishness, the wicker-drenched harmony and detail that is undoubtedly this records strength, you can almost smell the henbane, taste the willow bark, lose yourself in a maze of bramble hedges and shadowy Kentish woods.  

Available in gate-fold as well as single vinyl formats, plus the obligatory compact disc, this album may prove to become a classic in its own right, a source for a new generation of hipsters to study and cover.   

Caution is advised, when listening, if the moon is full. 


 

Totally Wired 21

Compiled exclusively to co-inside with celebrations for the twenty-first anniversary of Acid Jazz Records, demand for this Ltd edition CD has lead to its re-issue, in anticipation of the labels forthcoming twenty fifth anniversary this year.

The last truly independent label has revisited the genre-defining and most popular of all compilation series, Totally Wired. Featuring previously unreleased dance floor killers with remixes of established Acid Jazz releases, plus some new boys and girls on the block.

Staying true to the winning formula of the historic series, Totally Wired 21 also offers the chance to discover some great oldies. Salvaged from original New York acetate, The Harmony Recorders perform the Exodus Theme to soulful perfection. As does Sharon Brown’s self penned Family Tree. Polygram in-house writer/ producer Graham Dee connects with The Fleur De Lys’ Tony Head for a pre-disco funk floor filler.

As for remixes, they live up to the high standard of the previous Totally Wired outings, as Paul Weller’s bassist Andy Lewis has his Loleatta Holloway dancer remixed by Tokyo’s finest, Latin aficionados Los Africanos get the Mondo Disco treatment and Grand Union’s folk masterpiece is ‘cut-up’ by DJ Smoove. Brasil’s Leleo meets electro-teers Twisted Tongue and Anthony Johnson’s dub classic is reworked by Brendan Lynch.

Newer tracks to complete the compilation are The Filthy Six’s record box rework of Roy Budd’s ‘Get Carter’ and Freefall effortlessly capture the timeless Acid Jazz sound on their debut recording while Canada’s Executive Sweet display their tastes in cool filmic arrangements.

The Get Go go R&B on their Hammond instrumental groover and The Elements  skillfully cover a rare sixties stomper.

Finally, Twisted Tongue conclude this eclectic selection with the masterful ‘You Want That Soul’, the lead track from their eponymous debut album. If that doesn’t get your head nodding then you haven’t actually played the CD.

Get it here!

Matt Berry - So Low

You've heard him on the radio, seen him on the telly, got his album, the single, seen him live and bought a t-shirt...probably.

Next from new-renaissance-man, Matt Berry, is a reworking of arguably his most popular song, So Low.

Worked around a dirty-hooky Fender Rhodes piano riff, the track funks like a gin-whore yet rocks out with the balls of her whiskey riddled dad. With lyrics that yearn for a life more ordinary, it re-writes the classic blues myth. An anthem for the ungrateified, unsatisfied or just plain bored.

With a different musical arrangement to that which features on the album Witchazel, the version was initially recorded for cult TV show The Old Grey Whistle Test, see below, the footage re-discovered only after the album was released.

Bundled together with the whimsical wiccan folk instrumental The Poacher the track is available as a download single from 26th Sept 2011.

Crazy.

Matt Berry - Take My Hand

Matt Berry is a bit of an enigma, a successful comedic actor whose distinctive voice graces a hundred radio adverts, who regularly appears on our television screens and who recently happened to release a critically acclaimed debut album.

Recorded almost entirely in his front room, ‘Witchazel’ is a collection of thirteen songs that hark back to the British psychedelic or 70’s folk eras, when beards were compulsory, school children smoked banana skins and teenagers stayed up late to watch ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test’.

Inspired partly by Richard Adam’s ‘Watership Down’, the sound of the countryside is apparent in much of the album, conjuring images of phallic maypoles, mystic rodents and drunken Morris men. However a definite psychedelic stream flows throughout. One such trippy tune is the current single, taken from the LP, the Nazz-tastic ‘Take My Hand,’ an uplifting heartfelt song, with warm analogue production, that sounds like it has always been a classic.

The flip side is a typically olde-worlde-folk-lore masterpiece called ‘Gather Up’, definitely one for the nu-foke-punk-pagans.

Babel

Mentioned in an earler blog, Babel, the outstanding folk, psych band from Bristol, were signed to People Tree Records in 2007.

They deserve more than a brief mention, so here they are again. 

Two videos from two albums.

Firstly, Pearl Street Raga, from the mini album of the same name.

Secondly, from the album Crooked Timbre is the single Make Your Bed.

Enjoy.

By hook or by crook, hunt them down.

Matt Berry

Seemingly inspired by such epic Hammer Horror soundtracks as The Wicca Man and Blood On Satan's Claw, 'Witchazel', Matt Berry's debut album, is a pagan voyage into the heart of the medieval countryside, where old croans cackle, ancient owls scrutinize and wizened sages quaff bitter beer in scary village public houses where strangers are not welcome.

This collection of thirteen songs will touch a central nerve with anyone with a fondness for nutmeg tea, exotic mushrooms or English psychedelic folk. 

Veering between spooked laments, 'Accident At A Harvest Festival’, whimsical tapestries,(the eight minute epic) ‘The Pheasant’, massed mellotroned prog-rock whig-outs,’ From The Manger To the Mortuary’, the Todd Rundgren-ish ‘Take My Hand’, the swampy grooved oddity 'So Low' and Donovan-esque ‘Look In My Book’, it’s a psych-folk-opus in the olde style that feels like a lost classic found amongst the dusty racks of your favorite second hand record shop.

 And yes, it is the same loud voiced actor, Matt Berry, from The IT Crowd.

No Joke !

People Tree Records

After a brief flirtation with the trendy bo-ho folk scene of the early noughties, culminating with the acclaimed compilation The New Testament Of Folk, Acid Jazz Records started the brilliant but short lived subsidiary label, named after a Mother Earth album, People Tree Records.

Just eight releases, but some of the most interesting, exciting and psychedelic music ever to have been called folk.

SEED01.      Various Artists- Welcome To The People Tree. 
SEED02.       Grand Union- Jane Jane E.P.
SEED03.       Grand Union- Through The Green Fuse.
SEED04.       Various Artists - The Crow Club.
SEED05.        Babel- Pearl Street Raga Mini Album.
SEED06D.     Various Artists - The Crow Club E.P.
SEEDCD07.   Babel - Crooked Timber.
SEED08S.      Babel - Make Your Bed.

Compelling compilations featuring,  John Martyn, Bert Jansch, The Eighteenth Day Of May, Wicca's World, Circulus, Matt Deighton, Linda Perhacs, Marked & Joff, Jade, Admirals Hard, Jaki Whitren, The Wiyos, Jake Flowers, Charlotte Greig and Roger Bunn (possibly the best psych-bongo-folk-trip out -tune ever recorded).

 

Only two bands were signed to the label, Grand Union, who later transferred over to Acid Jazz Records and the genius bearded Bristonian folk-niks, Babel.

Releasing just two albums and a single before splitting, with influences ranging from Led Zeplin, White Album period Beatles, Velvet Underground and Deep Purple, Babel were not the average folkers. A band who's live performances were guaranteed to raise the hair on the back of your neck, who managed to transfer that live energy into their recordings, something genuinely difficult to achieve.

It is a pity that Babel split, band leader Danny Coughlan was an outstanding songwriter and a great front man with a voice that matched. Fortunately the records stand testament to what a great band they were.

People Tree Records will be remembered by the quality of the music that they released, which was exceptional. 

Seek and ye' shall find. 

Mother Earth

In Early 1990,  Eddie Piller wanted to re-create the 'post-mod' sound, 'when the main movers of mod went rock', Humble Pie, The Faces, Free etc.

Originally formed around the 'non-musical musician', Bunny, a close friend of Piller, plus a collection of studio musician's, they set about creating a hypnotic blend of funk, psych, trip hop and blues rock. Bunny christened the project Mother Earth. Acid Jazz released the track on a comp, a solution to how to preform the project live was required.

The resulting band were ex- Wolfhound, Matt Deighton on guitar and vocals, Neil Corcoran on the bass guitar, Shauna Greene on backing vocals, Bryn Barklam on the Hammond organ & Chris White providing the beat on drums. Signing on the dotted line to Acid Jazz Records in 1991, after a few more compilation outings, their debut LP hit the shops in June ’92. Stoned Woman was a classic debut with the NME giving it a 10/10 review. 

But it was on the live circuit where the band began to establishe them-selves, Bunny having left to persue a DJ career, touring with artists such as Jamiroquai, Gil Scott Heron and Corduroy.
 
The tour hardened outfit slotted in studio time between gigs to record 1993’s album The People Tree. Mainly a vehicle for Deighton's song writing talents, the LP captured the group's tight rocky folk-funk sound beautifully.  

By ‘95 Mother Earth’s live reputation was as strong as ever, but on disc they were being overtaken by Brit pop bands. Their third album You Have Been Watching, despite receiving good reviews, just didn’t fall into Camden-ites shopping bags. Matters were not helped by Deighton’s growing involvement with Paul Weller’s live and studio work, whom he eventually joined as a full time guitarist. This in turn lead to him replacing Noel Gallagher in Oasis, (Gallagher famously walking out on the eve of their ‘Be Here Now’ U.S. tour). With his high level of session work and a side-project solo LP Villager (released in 1995), Deighton quit the band.

Matt Woodman came in to replace Deighton and the band recorded new material with UB40 at the controls, some of which featured on the ‘rarities’ album The Further Adventures Of Mother Earth.

Other collaborators on this final release and related session musician line-up live-work include Gregory Issacs, Tom Robinson, Paul Weller, Mike Bandoni, various members of Galliano, Graham Day from The Prisoners, Richard Searle from Corduroy, Simon Bartholomew of The Brand New Heavies and Kym Marsh of Coronation Street and Hearsay fame.

Dieghton still releases solo albums and currently plays for Chris Difford.

Barclam plays with Secret Affair.

White is working on new material.

Corcoran, now an Australian resident, sometimes visits family in the UK on which occasion the original line-up reform for one-off shows.

And word is they are playing this summer !

Grand Union

Grand Union’s debut album ‘Through The Green Fuse’ is a perfect slice of psych folk. 

Signing to the Acid Jazz label on the back of just one track, ‘Morning Brings The Light’, which featured on the label’s ‘New Testament Of Folk’ compilation, Grand Union delivered an exceptional and criminally overlooked debut album. 

With influences ranging from folk to hippy jazz, funk and through to gospel, Grand Union have been favourably compared to Pentangle, The 5th Dimension and Free Design.  

People Tree Records

 

 

Various band members have had an impressive and varied musical history having several records released with different projects in the past. Drummer Gerry Wood has supported The Rolling Stones and The Who and played on Ready Steady Go! whilst others have supported Bert Jansch. 

 

Not only that but there is talent in the families too - Bassist, Caspar’s (brother of actor Rufus Sewell) father Bill Sewell was responsible for the animation on ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ from the Beatles classic ‘Yellow Submarine’.

 From the driving acoustic pace of the flute-led, almost Jethro Tull inspired, ‘Jane Jane’, to the superb harmony arrangements of ‘Wonderful World’, this album is a masterpiece of song writing and vocal performance the likes of which other bands can only dream.

Initially this album was released on an Acid Jazz subsidiary label PEOPLE TREE RECORDS and then re-released some months later on Acid Jazz itself.

My advice, get both version’s, they might be collectable one day.