An Organ piece in three parts. Part Two, a second take on the album, this time from Sean Worrall…

Cardiacs – LSD (Alphabet) –  Whoever you are and however well you might think you knew him as both an artist and a person, I suspect no one could ever make the album Tim Smith would have made. You could maybe try and do what you think Tim would have done, bit that’s the thing, there was always something you’d never ever expect in there when he delivered new music. Now this just can’t be just another album review, there’s way too much water flown under way too many bridges, this one needed to take a little longer, it needed a little more than just another of those thrown out there album reviews, we needed to let the dust settle a little. I did write this about a week after the album’s release… 

Back in early November 2007 (was it really that long ago? Almost eighteen years?! That’s ridiculous!) we released what we didn’t know at the time would be Cardiacs last ever new material during the lifetime of their leader of the Starry Skies.  That Ditzy Scene single was to be the first of three singles on our then Organ-powered record label ORG. Three singles before the release of what was then to be a new, still being worked on, album called LSD, an album that would come out straight after the/our singles on Cardiacs own Alphabet label. And from what I hear on this only now this week, some eighteen long years later, finally released album and from what I recall from the many (many) e.mails and conversations from and with Tim Smith at the time about all kinds of things including talk of hares with boxing paws out in the fields as he rode his bike and such, I’m guessing the second single would have been what has now become Volob. 

The way it worked back there is we would book the mastering studio, Tim would turn up with the tracks for the single and we’d spend the day mastering, well Tim and the engineer would, I’d just sit there drawing, listening and sometimes offering an opinion when asked (and then afterwards we’d head to the pub). We never asked Tim for details before hand, we never picked the tracks or insist on knowing anything about the music we were about to release like we would have done with any ‘ordinary’ band. We trusted Tim completely even when he did hit us with that brilliant start to Ditzy Scene (how the hell were we going to get radio play for that Tim!?). 

Tim Smith was someone we had been closely working with since the early 80s, a relationship that really properly started with that animated film that first got Cardiacs on the telly (or on the whole world window as Tim put it) and even before that, a relationship that involved several Organ interviews and many many reviews and then later the releasing a number of records; singles, the Affectionate Friends album that Tim put together for us, a number of compilation tapes and CDs that we’re proud to say so many people tell us were there first encounters with Cardiacs. All that as well as putting on a couple of dozen Cardiacs shows when no one else really wanted to. I remember one particular gig at a sold out Garage in London where pretty much every penny made was handed over, not even the price of a bus home left, but we walked home more than happy. Some might say we were suckers, the then booking agent certainly thought so! His contracts really did take the piss. No one did us any favours over those Cardiacs gigs we put on back there, we loved doing them though, it seem to matter to so many, especially Tim…

Where was I? So Ditzy Scene came out (Tim’s own art in the black square by the way), the tour in late 2007 happened, we could see Tim wasn’t quite right on that tour, but it all happened. We left things for a while, waiting for that phone call to say he was ready for the next single – the call from Tim eventually came a few months later, the studio was booked, we were almost ready for the mastering session on the second single, Tim had that booked mastering date as a deadline, we were all just waiting for the day to arrive – and yes we are guessing now from the conversions at the time that it was to be a then untitled Volob. And then, well, we all know what happened next, Tim Smith went and had his stupid heart attack thing and well, the second single (and absolutely everything else) was put on hold. The single was never mastered, I’m not sure if the tracks were ever made ready for the mastering session, I assume not. Tim still had time to do all that when you know what happened (the booked date was still weeks away at that point, I imagine his plan was to get into his studio and get it all ready for the date we had booked. I got the idea he let things cook for ages and then ran right up against the pressure of a deadline before he was forced by that deadline to finish things) 

Of course we had talked about the album, about ideas, about how it was going, how Tim saw it, where he thought he might take it, mostly chats in the pub after mastering sessions or before other people’s gigs – some of it is hazy now, although Tim’s talk back there of the album being called LSD was always translated as the Pounds, Shillings and Pence symbols and a play on old money – £sd – that’s how I at least understood it back there, I rather liked that idea when it was the money thing. Pretty sure Tim said it was Kavus who had come up with it or at least the LSD aspect? 

Anyway, Tim had his awful thing happen and other that a phone call From a rather upset Jim Smith about a rather disrespectfully annoying jokey headline on the NME website once the news of his brother Tim had become public and did we know anyone who could do anything about it? (thankfully we did and the NME, to their credit for once, did quickly change the headline once they got the full picture and realised how serious it all was). That phone call from Jim was our last real dealing with Cardiacs or Alphabet. It was also the one and only time ever that anyone other than Tim or James (The Consultant) or Mr. Warmsley (long-term manager back in the 90s who we enjoyed working rather a lot on a number of things and who, from where we stood, put in so so much into Cardiacs back there) ever spoke to us about anything on the business side of Cardiacs. The second and third of the three singles were never mentioned again and neither was anything else. We’ve had no dealings with anyone really, not since that phone call from Jim and everything being put on hold, no one from Alphabet has properly spoken to us since that phone call from Jim about the NME…               

I haven’t read the sleeve notes about the making of the album yet. I doubt I ever will, I somehow doubt there’s an acknowledgement of the original Ditzy Scene single and the other two tracks from that release that are now on the album in there and really I’m not sure how much of what I am reading on line and such I actually believe or agree with in terms of quite a few things that are now being said… 

So the finally completed LSD album came out last Friday, we didn’t get an advance review copy so no upfront review from us.  We were just going to leave it, quietly go buy our copy and listen to it in our own time and space, just privately explore it and hopefully just enjoy it without publishing a review. We were rather happy with just keeping our thoughts to ourselves, there’s a lot of emotion in this album, it is almost a relief not to constantly have to write about bands and people we’ve cared so so much about for so long. Our coverage and support isn’t really needed now and that’s rather good when you actually think about after all that time when it really really was needed – about bloody time! Brilliant that the coverage from others is finally there now, where have you all been?! Seems like everyone and their dog has been falling over themselves to tell us how they’ve always been lifelong fans; music journalists, who, with a couple of notable exceptions, once wouldn’t give them the time of day are now tripping up in their rush to tell us all how they’ve always loved “The Cardiacs”. Radio DJs who would never dare risk playing a track for fear of whatever they were in fear of (“I love the single but I don’t dare play it” said one of Cardiacs now more vocal supporters back when we handed him a copy of Bellyeye). We’re a long long way away from that time in the late 90s when then Cardiacs member Jon Poole told Earzone fanzine that without Organ Cardiacs probably wouldn’t still exist. We rather like that we don’t need to write Cardiacs reviews any more, we rather like that there’s plenty of other voices now (not sure how many of those voices really actually get it). We like that there’s so many voices now that ours are really are no longer needed, brilliant! Seems our work is done here, never thought we’d see the day! 

But people have been asking, people have been reading things into the lack of an Organ review of this new album. If I was asked once at last Saturday’s Art Car Boot Fair I was asked a couple of dozen times. “Do you hate it so much that you’re just going ignore it?” asked one familiar old Cardiacs face from the days of Wardour Street when I bumped into him at someone else’s gig last week. I’m on a fifth listen now and no, of course I don’t hate it! I don’t want to over play it, I don’t want to listen too many times, it really is just too good to over play it. Of course this new album had to be something special, these are Tim Smith pieces for heaven’s sake! Of course I don’t hate it! I might not like some of what’s been going on around it, some of the things being said about the making of it, but then what has any of that really got to do with me now? Nothing. I can just sit back and just try to enjoy Tim Smith’s music without the rest of it.            

So what of the album? First of all, before anything else, and as someone else already said, sorry I forget who said it, but as someone very rightly said, without those wonderful Sing To Tim gigs last year that Jo Spratley and Bic Hayes so gracefully put on, and especially that final seaside treat in Brighton last Autumn, without those very special gigs I suspect listening to this album would have been a far far harder thing to do. Without that coming together and the outpouring of emotion on those very special nights, without all that celebration, without those nights this new album would have been a much tougher listen. Those gigs were wonderful and once again, thank you so so much for all that went into all that Jo and Bic (and Jon Poole, Jon fronted it so so well, Jon deserves a thanks as well).   

And so the album, and I really don’t want to have to write this, I really really don’t want to have to write about it. I really would rather get off this ride now please. Walking away at the end of the night in Brighton felt just right, quietly walking away and hearing it fade into the waves on Brighton seafront. Saying a quiet goodbye and just catching the train home rather than hanging around felt right. I’d rather just privately listen to this album and Tim’s music in my own space and time (and I really have absolutely no interest in those just announced gigs and seeing that line up calling itself Cardiacs performing all those songs). I’d really just leave it all and privately pull this album off the shelf and just enjoy it when I feel the need to. I’d really prefer not to write a thing about it (if only us quietly not saying something wasn’t being taken as us loudly saying something negative about the album. Of course we don’t hate it, what a fine thing it is!).   

The album then. I didn’t quite know what to make of it first time around, certainly maximalist, certainly kind of where I thought it might have been heading but then again maybe not? And once again let me repeat, what the hell does it matter what I think as I explore all that wonder of that “I surrender” line at the start of the whole very big thing once again. I’ve listened to it three times now, this will be the fourth. Actually this is a different day now, in different clothes, I like this clothes you wear, this is the fifth play, couldn’t get through the fourth one last night, it is still tough and it just didn’t sit right with me last night. And of course it is full of Tim Smith, so so so full of Tim’s heart and whatever may or may not have happened with this version of the album and who ever might have done what with what they’ve done with these recordings, whatever has happened, these are so obviously Tim Smith songs and mostly his words, or words written with him still around. Yes this is very much a Cardiacs album. Actually this is far far more a Cardiacs thing than those very fine gigs last year were.

No, I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not first time around and still this fourth time, I was still not entirely sure and now on the fifth play I just got to Ditzy Scene again and I’m back to Tim’s big shit-eating grin in the pub after the mastering session when I said how the hell am I going to get that on the radio with that start and he just smiles and says something I’ll keep for myself (not everything needs to be written down). And yes it is emotional and yes we are still thinking about someone we’ve all lost (especially Jim) and yes all the rest of it is so insignificant when compared to the loss of Tim. I am starting to feel a little more comfortable with this version of Ditzy Scene now (I loved the sparse space of the original, the dry drama of that start). I’m starting to love some of this album now. And right now, right this minute I am loving this version of Ditzy Scene, ask me again next week and I might tell you something different. Right here in this beautiful Autumn sunshine, right now, here, no one else in the room, music on loud, very very loud, here early on the Wednesday afternoon in the week after the album came out, here in this Autumn light, this is just brilliant. Right now listening to this is another Cardiacs moment to forever treasure, there have been so many…  

Yes, for what any of this is worth, I think some of LSD is brilliant, actually almost all of it is, I keep catching lines and lyrics and yes those are Tim’s, or now and again Jo’s or bits others wrote with Tim still with us rather than after the fact. Mostly they are sound like Tim’s own lyrics or musical lines. And Tim never liked being obvious, he hated it, he never wanted to explain his lyrics, he would say he didn’t like bands with obvious lyrics, he would never directly answer when you asked him outright about a line or a meaning, he loved that everyone had a different take, who’s to say who is right he’d say. There would be a hint of a grin if you maybe got close but he would never say.

Can you have too many layers? Can you overwork something, does some of this album sound like a painting that wasn’t quite finished, that someone thought they might (how ever well intended and however much done with love) try to finish and in doing so did they pushed it too far? Overworked it? It is so so easy to overwork a painting. Will someone at some point have to come in and strip it all back to the bones, a painting restorer carefully painstakingly taking off the layers to find the raw bones of the original? And will we ever know if this is what Tim really would have done? We are hearing so many conflicting tales and I must admit, I was expecting more female voices, I do recall Tim saying (more than once) that he wanted more female voices and does some of this kind of feel a touch too much like ‘the lads’ have done most of it? And is some of this recent revision of old Cardiacs history that we’re now reading just a little bit, well… 

But then what the hell do I know? It really isn’t my place to say and those are surely very much lyrics only Tim would have come up with (besides Jo’s bits and the lyrics for Ditzy Scene and that beautiful beautiful closing track and Emily’s lyrics that really are something very very very special). And yes, these are tunes that only Tim could have laid down the bones of and yes, now I’m getting over the shock of some of it and the Happy Jack of that bit there, I really am getting to like it. Made All Up sounds wonderful here (and the Who of it all). Some of the vocals don’t do it for me, not yet, they just don’t sit quite right, maybe they just need time? Maybe the vocals are trying too hard to be Tim? Maybe? Time will tell. Whoever is singling, it is an almost impossible task and of course there will always be questions and well, these are pretty good versions of rather excellent songs (and some of it is so damn catchy, earworms all over it). You can’t ape Tim, it isn’t just the way he sings, not just the syntax, the phrasing, it’s that thing, that bit of magic in his voice, in his heart, that sometimes mischievous thing he put into the singing his lyrics that can’t be done by anyone else however well intended an attempt is – and this is not meant as criticism of those singing on this album, it just can’t be done, this is probably as close as anyone can get? I maybe would have liked more of Rose Kemp’s take on things? 

And no, for the record, and once again, not that it matters one jot what I think, but no I don’t think Vermin Mangle should be here, it maybe should have been if Tim had still been with us but no, this is the right ending. Pet Fezant is beautiful, Pet Fezant is just right and nothing will take away from the listening to it. This is the perfect ending to an album that will never feel perfect, an album that will always leave us with lots of questions alongside so many positives. Pet Fezant really is very very special, something beautiful, dare I say  Pet Fezant is as perfect a way to end this version of the album as there could possibly have been.        

Hey look, I didn’t want to be doing this, surely I don’t need to be writing this? There are some beautiful details, especially when it does stop for breath, but then it picks up and starts racing again and do I want it to race quite so much as it does? Nah, I’ll come back later… Well that’s what I said half way through the fourth time before I turned it off and went to do something that avoided all music, art and everything else (these are my fractured thoughts here, put together from several listens and several attempts to write something) 

There are bits here that sound like they could have come from almost any Cardiacs album, I wonder who put them there? Which bits were there already? I’ve not really liked some of the things I’ve been reading, some of the headlines, some of the “we couldn’t have finished the album if Tim was still here” stuff, the “we’re doing it a different way now” stuff and well, if I am honest, I didn’t really like the way the Mr Vennart announced himself as new singer within what seemed like no time whatsoever on the day the first track from this album was released when we all really really (really!) needed time and space to just digest that first taste of the album (he surely could have waited just a couple of days more before announcing himself as the “new singer”?) and I really don’t like some of the other things that are being said and now, here I am at the end of the fifth play (well about a dozen plays now) and the sad thing is you know there was so so much more to come from Tim Smith as a composer, that he was really only at the start of things and no one can really revise all that history that’s all right there for us all to see and to hear in his back catalogue of music (and everything else).  

No, this album isn’t perfect, and yes there are things that I really don’t think Tim would have done or maybe even liked, but this, as flawed as it was always going to be, is a wonderful wonderful album. It certainly isn’t a posthumous album as some have said it is, it is an album made now. It is where this group of people who have only relatively recently finished this album are at right now, it is them, this new line up, working with what they had or have, the posthumous album would surely be the untouched unfinished raw Tim Smith version of LSD.  This is Jim’s version now and after all Jim has been through, all the looking after his little brother and a lot lot more besides, good luck and all good things to him, to the long suffering Jim who probably did hold a lot of it together while his brother created so much in that unique way of his.   

Sure, it takes more than a couple of listens to get to a point of comfort with this album and yes, on some days it just doesn’t work (I’ve listened quite a few more than just the five times now) but it is, on most days, a glorious album. And yes, this is very much a Cardiacs album, probably the last one. Whether this band that exists now, the one intent on moving forward, playing more gigs, making more albums, whether that new band is Cardiacs is a very different question, (I kind of liked the respectful way Ruts DC did things back there) 

LSD is an excellent piece of work, and yes, I am repeating myself now. I really really like Skating, that is kind of where I was expecting more of it to go maybe? The album is an excellent piece of work, an impossible for anyone to get anywhere near perfectly right piece of work and this is probably where I do get off this mostly wonderful forty year Cardiacs ride I’ve been privileged to be on. May all those who choose to journey on with what now is a rather different Cardiacs thing enjoy it as much as I have, as we have. I really would have liked to not have had to write anything about LSD but the silence around here was being taken negatively as our noise, it was all being taken the wrong way, taken as us not liking the what is a fine fine album.   

LSD is a fine fine album, I don’t like all of it, I more than love some of it, it feels different with every listen. Rose Kemp’s performance on Volob is special, Volob is extra special, Mike Vennart compliments her well on that recording of an exceptional piece of music. I would have liked more of Rose Kemp on the album, I suspect she really got both it and Tim more than most. I really would have liked a lot more Jo Spratley, I do wonder why there isn’t more Jo? I do wonder where Jon Poole was for that matter? yes, I know he’s not part of the line up now but I do think Jon got Tim and the way he worked more than most did as well. Oh look, I really like almost everything on this album, I adore Volob and Pet Fezant is just very very special and Ditzy Scene does make me smile so much, I’m starting to really (really) like this version of Ditzy Scene now.  

This is a beautiful album, a flawed thing, Tim Smith was a beautifully (flawed) man, of course I like the album. (sw) 

Also

ORGAN: A Cardiacs piece in three parts. Part One, exploring the album…

ORGAN: An Organ piece in three parts. Part three, ten of the many moments spent working with Cardiacs…

Previously

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…

Thank you Tim.