M U M M Y – The lead Of Saturn is Gold To The Wise (ATE) – There’s a delicious warmth to this, a dark chocolatey hum, like a whole bunch of love. Richly dark art pop and the voice (and more) of Jo Spratley, she of the band Spratleys and some of us might say the heart of Cardiacs in more recent times as she and Bic pulled together those beautiful beautiful Sing To Tim celebrations. This is an album made with Bic, or Christian Hayes to give him his real name, he of Cardiacs, Levitation and before that the rather excellent Ring.      

Hang on, here’s the credits – Jo Spratley – All voices, tenor recorder, bass, drums, percussion.  Bic Hayes – Guitars, keys, synths, bass, drums, production. 

This is running on atmosphere, no idle hands here, not just atmosphere though, far more than just the excellent atmosphere, not just that deliciously thick, deliciously dark vibe, those bits of dark dub and the where am I of it all? This is serious art, this is demanding inviting engaging warmth to get utterly lost in, it sounds almost gothy in a Batcave manner, that post punk art rock Siouxsie thing that you couldn’t pin down (and didn’t really want to try) either – and the thing about it is what it is – deep rivers from the dark towers of your heart or something like that. You know the feeling when… actually do you? Jo really is singing beautifully here, she sounding better than ever, she was sounding so good on those Sing To Tim dates last year, those performances that really made me want to delve far deeper into Spratleys and everything Jo and her band do a lot more than I have before (it was almost in danger of getting lost in the noise of other things there for a while and I didn’t see it until those shows, that night in Brighton). 

There’s an elegance here, an elegance there in the thick of it, where will she go? What will she do? I don’t really want to mention Cardiacs too much here, she deserves to swim in her own pond now, so does Bic, and Bic is really firing here, he’s painting pictures and I don’t really want to mention Cardiacs too much but Tim, whenever he got me in a corner or a quiet pub would go on and on about how much he loved Spratleys and that that was where he really wanted to go and what he wanted to see fly. But this is about far more than just people from the Cardiacs family making good music, Mummy should be heard by people who have no idea about all that (beautiful) Cardiacs history, this deserves a whole bunch of love all of its own, this is something both familiar and very different, this is for right now, everyone deserves to love this album, to get lost in it the rich depths of it all. a life preserver for those who need it.   

The lead Of Saturn is Gold To The Wise is a fine fine album, there’s lots to unpack here and I’m listening to the first times in the late Summer Friday afternoon sun, this feels like its is going to sound excellent in the dark of nights in the coming months – “I wanted to give voice and language to the spaces in-between the things that do not speak or cannot be heard – that which cannot be spoken out loud. This was the only aim.  The way to achieve this was to completely surrender, take your hands off the wheel and accept anything. We went into the studio with no preconception of outcome – only knowing that all is welcome. Bic would establish a beat, line or hook. Eventually my mouth would open and all these words would fall out” –  It sounds like a series of paintings, it sounds like the two of them have painted these pieces, I have no idea what she’s singing about, I don’t really want to try and work it out, there could well be some kind of Goddess thing to it, it feels special.   

– “Truly the only reason to get it out in the ether now – or indeed at all – is to complete a cycle and move the hell on. I truly don’t expect anyone to like this album. In fact I struggle to call it ‘music’. I don’t know what it is” – 

This is nothing short of brilliant music. This is warm, honest, real, this is lush, inviting, this is what I was seeing and hearing at those concerts, this is just what I needed today or just what I’ve been needing for weeks, (months). Yes, move the hell on, but don’t leave this behind, do this again, take this with you as the start of it all, this is what Jo Spratley and Bic Hayes should have been doing, this is what they should be doing more of, this is what they deserve to be doing next and I for one want the next album as soon as it feels right for them to make it please. This is something too good to just drown in, I like this pond, I like it in here, I like it lots, this oh delicate lung flung stuff, elegant, elegant, elegant, there in the thick of it.  What will they do, where will they go?  

One day I shall sit down and write a proper review, this is just a first set of listens, a raw reaction while I’m trying to paint and the things you see (or say) just don’t make sense. But this all makes sense, well in a beautiful way of not making any sense (which makes perfect sense). 

Some of this is just brilliantly rich (goth) pop, and yes, that is a lazy lazy thing to say, but it is and when pop is good, pop is brilliant,  pop eats itself. Excellent artwork as well. Some of it is classic English post punk, Idiot Milk is a perfect example, some of it (most of ) is darkly rich and almost psychedelic but not in that tired obvious almost tedious way of all those so called psychedelic bands, these are rich colours, new blacks and purples and dark dark reds and this is what you do, its what you do, this is natural, close your eyes, silently count, deeply it shines, like a bunch of love, I love this album, I keep hearing different bits that I think are my favourite bit, lots of bits are going to be my favourite bit… (sw)   

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And this is what Bic and Jo put together last year…

ORGAN THING: Seaside Treats indeed, Cardiacs Family, Brighton Concord, October 2024 – More celebrations, happiness and joy, it felt like this should go on and on, that there should be…

ORGAN THING: Singing Cardiacs songs for him, the Sing For Tim celebration at the Garage, London, of course it was wonderful, of course it was…   

And for those of you arriving late (and who maybe like to call the shots now), this is where a lot of it began in the festival fields and the here and now of those days when we made tapes and fanzines and things went off and things…

ORGAN THING: Ring’s legendary first tape album re-issued at long last. Back in the day Ring were the only other band really going off and things alongside those Cardiacs…