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Thursday 24 February 2022

The Ophelias - Bare Bodkin (By Mick Dillingham)


The Ophelias were a San Francisco based Psychedelic Rock band of great melodic beauty and mind twisting depths. Built around the unmistakable creative talents of Leslie Medford with his confoundingly fabulous voice and strange and majestic songs to dazzle and delight. 

Add to this, by the second album, the fully unleashed guitar genius of David Immergluck dancing truly unfettered in the remarkable musical playground Medford presented. No wonder the band were much cherished in the vibrant local scene at that time. 

Three essential albums and they were gone, fading into the mists of time, cherished and adored only by the very few lucky enough to stumble across the genius music left so carelessly behind. Medford disappeared and with their albums all long deleted and never reissued they became one of the truly great lost bands of that long gone era.  




But then a few years back, out of nowhere, Medford returned in his new role as curator to the band’s precious musical legacy. After all these years, The Ophelias, who we had started to think were just this perfect imaginary band we had made up, became real once more.  With a Bandcamp page overflowing with all of their released output and a whole lot of rare and unreleased treasures from the archives to delight us all.  

Bare Bodkin is the first physical release of this joyous return and what a delightful release it is.   A fifteen track compendium enhanced with a sprinkling of previously unheard gems It is released on Bruce Licher’s above and beyond, California based Independent Project Records label. 

The collection comes housed in a stunning fold out 4x5 cover along with a lovely history of booklet and postcards.  It’s a prestigious and superbly crafted item that more than does justice to the almost mythical music contained within. Highly recommended! .........................

You kind find out more about Bare Bodkin and buy the album here. You can find out more about the Independent Project Records label here. You can listen to and buy The Ophelias Back Catalogue here.

You can also read Mick's big piece on The Ophelias from 2018 here. In that article, Lesley Medford gives his reasoning behind the Bare Bodkin release.


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