Two new albums, both well worth your time, the policy around here is still to only cover releases we think are worth your time

.

a.P.A.t.T. – We (Dur Et Doux) –  Before anything else, it is important to say this a.P.A.t.T. album very much flows as one thing, one whole body of a work, a proper album with a clear identity, it is important to say that and make it clear because the Liverpool band are all over the place in terms of the flavours they hit you with. A kind of magical mystery tour if you will, a very English affair that kind of takes us to France for a bit via a seaside treat or two that takes in bites of prog, pop, psychedelic strangeness, off-hinge lounge music, elements of Cardiacs, Gong, Zappa (without ever getting annoying in that was Zappa does). There’s some glorious pop music on here, the proper stuff you’d occasional catch on the radio, there’s even a slice or two of heavy doom metal at the end of the whole thing but don’t let any of this cloud your view, this is a glorious ride, a wonderful mystery tour and it does all make perfectly good sense.

a.P.A.t.T. are a clever band, a challenging band, never ever a difficult band, their awkward bits are very (very) user friendly,  they are excentric, possibly completely mad? They do go off and things, it does sound like there some kind of crazed tea party going on on that magical mystery tour couch, and then without any kind of warning, they hit you with a slice of sublime pop and take you up to the sky before that ask you to think of a mind in jar and take a photo and well, are you getting the picture?  We is an excellent album, an album that stands up to almost anything out there without ever needing to stand up to anything – these people do things their own way, they always have, this might be their best release yet  

More via Bandcamp or www.apatt.com or duretdoux.com

.

.

Pissabed Prophet – Pissabed Prophet (Antigen Records) – Melodious, at times delightfully chaotic, relaxed and at ease at others, rather psychedelic here and there in a very English Village Green kind of way, energetic, at times glorious, the strangely named Pissabed Prophet are a dandelion field of freshly cut goodness, we;re told this the “fruit of the fevered musical imaginations of Matty Simpkins (Rev Simpkins) and Ben Brown (Dingus Khan, SuperGlu)”.

They tell a tale the revolved around Pissabed Prophet was born in the resonance field of an MRI machine, as the Rev’d Matthew Simpkins tried to keep himself sane by mentally harmonising over the deafening noise of the medical scanner. Excited by the potential of the sounds, the Rev recruited Dingus Khan and SuperGlu frontman Ben Brown to help him turn these ideas into something. This is the debut album. Some of it is frantic, some of it maybe a little too polite for tastes around here, some of it really is gloriously joyous

“Working over the summer of 2022, the pair formed an immediate intense friendship and working relationship, and ideas quickly blossomed into an album’s worth of material, overspilling with joyous and ruminative songs, born of an emotionally turbulent time in which Matthew underwent unsuccessful immunotherapy for stage four cancer”.

There is a lot of soul here, a lot of emotion thrown in, that was obvious way before the press release was read. An album alive with spirit, warmth, joyous English pop that goes round and round and round and round, las la, la la la la…

“Their debut single Spooling, released in March 2023, was possibly the first song created by placing a vicar in a powerful electromagnet and passing radio waves through his head. Its strange provenance led to an unlikely premiere in Survivornet and propelled the band into the pages of the Church Times. It also generated coverage on BBC Look East, in which anchor Amelia Reynolds refused to utter the band’s name on teatime telly, despite the Rev’s assurances that the word ‘piss’ occurs eight times in the King James Version of the Bible”.

l’m not one for a bible, do like a Dandelion though, and a Dandelion clock, they do sound like Dandelion clocks, Pissabed is an old English name for a Dandelion of course…

“Second single Telling the Bees is a three-part psychedelic fugue, sung in the incomprehensible dialect of the Essex-Suffolk border folk, honouring the tradition of staving off ill fortune by informing bees of a recent death, so the hive can be put into mourning. It features guest vocals from Suffolk-born furniture restorer Ady Johnson and an introduction by the Reverend Canon Lionel Simpkins (Matthew’s dad)”.

It might just be that the sun is out and today and Summer is a coming in, Telling the Bees is wonderful, wonderfully English, (a certain Mr Smith would have loved this), rather liked this album the first time I played it, I must be on the twentieth play now, been of repeat since it got here this morning and it gets better with every play.  

“Pissabed Prophet the album is a riotous explosion of unfettered joy from the fevered musical imaginations of two of East Anglia’s most prodigious talents. It’s a tale of friendship and shared passion for melody and harmony; a testament to the power of creativity to turn dark times into an exuberant celebration of life”.

“The Rev’d Matthew Simpkins is priest-in-charge of St Leonard’s Church in Lexden, Essex. In 2019, he was diagnosed with a rare form of malignant melanoma. His illness inspired him to return to his original calling and in 2020 he released the critically acclaimed album Big Sea. He followed this in 2022 with Saltings, a meditation on the wilderness years of Covid and his regular pilgrimages to the Essex coast”.

More via Bandcamp

.