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┌────────┐
────┤ Info ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
└────────┘
Artist | Michael Head & The Strands
Title | The Magical World Of The Strands
Genre | Indie Format | Album
Source | CDDA Time | 57:58
Label | Megaphone Music Store | 2015
Catalog | CDMEGA24 Rip | 2015
Bitrate | 235 kbps Size | 102.71 MB
Freq | 44.1 kHz Encoder | Lame 3.98.4
┌────────┐
────┤ Tracks ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
└────────┘
01. Queen Matilda 3:59
02. Something Like You 3:46
03. And Lunda 5:01
04. X Hits The Spot 3:54
05. The Prize 4:41
06. Undecided (Reprise) 4:11
07. Glynys And Jaqui 4:48
08. It's Harvest Time 4:19
09. Loaded Man 7:32
10. Hocken's Hey 3:23
11. Fontilan 5:42
12. Green Velvet Jacket 2:37
13. Queen Matilda (Demo) 4:05
┌────────┐
────┤ Notes ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
└────────┘
Michael Head, former frontman of the Pale Fountains and current co-leader
along with his brother John - who is also a Strand - of Brit pop outfit
Shack, turns in a stellar chamber pop performance with "Magical World Of
The Strands". Head, who is no stranger to either classy, baroque pop or
neo-psychedelia, has composed an album of gorgeously illustrated songs that
are lushly orchestrated by a standard rock quartet augmented by a flutist
(Leslie Roberts) and a string quartet. The result is an album that, while
little known, is a classic, a masterpiece of modern chamber pop. Released
in 1997, this disc walks the line between the deep, darkly expressionistic
chamber work of the Tindersticks to the airy, classically augmented
breeze-laden pop of Nick Drake a la Five Leaves Left - long before the
millennium obsession with Drake's work began anew because of a Volkswagen
commercial.
The disc's two openers, "Queen Matilda" and "Something Like You," are so
striking in their seductive, tenderness. The ghost of Drake is everywhere,
floating in and hovering with the string section. In the refrain to
"Something Like You," one can even hear his voice in Head's phrasing. The
difference is in how Head composes a lyric, more economical and more
expressive; he gets to the essence of the very image he's trying to write
about and leaves the listener to fill in the blanks with the musical
arrangements. In many ways this music could have been recorded in the early
'70s, but with its economic line and outrageously large harmonic terrains -
between the strings and the guitars - it could have only been written and
recorded when it was. The feeling in this music is timeless; it's a pop
music that has never been made by Americans, though more than a few have
aspired.
What reverberates through it on every track - from the direct lyrical
reverie of "X Hits The Spot", with its jangling guitars and subtle
backbeat, to "It's Harvest Time", which calls in the spirit of Dave Cousins
and Strawbs with open, ringing 12 strings, and piping, echoplexed flute, to
the electric-acoustic guitar tradeoff between Michael and James in
"Fontilan", with its melancholic theme and spacious mix that has the
strings swelling underneath the guitars - is musical savvy, compositional
classiness, and an aesthetic sensibility that is at once completely,
utterly artful, while being completely accessible to anyone with an
interest in well-written, -played, -produced, and -sung pop.
Recorded from 1993 to 1995 in Liverpool and Sheffield at studios Avid,
Oceanic and Fon. 2015 Megaphone reissue with two bonus tracks.
┌────────┐
────┤ Group ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
└────────┘