There are a number of things to celebrate with this release. Firstly, it would be the magnificence of Mr Curvey. We have delighted in the growth and recognition of his current adventures with Custard Flux, but it was The Luck Of Eden Hall that led us there for a period of over 25 years.
Secondly, we can acknowledge the wonderful Fruits De Mer label and its ability to release albums that are consistently more than interesting. This year saw the introduction of the An Introduction To series starting with Us And Them, followed by this and Bevis Frond are soon to follow.
Finally, it is a personal thing for me. For all the types and genres of music that I listen to, my first love is Psych Pop and many think that the genre is just one thing, I am here to assure you that it isn't. There are elements that lean heavily to Pop such as Toytown and the likes of Orgone Box.
There are others in the middle, Cotton Mather being a great example and there are those that lean more towards Psych and The Luck Of Eden Hall are probably the best exponents of this groove. The band had an ability to veer off into spellbinding territory instrumentally, but keep things in an even keel with melodic vocals.
This collection covers appearances on the FdeM label. It is predominantly covers, but these covers have a unique stamp on them. There are songs that you will obviously be aware of such as Something In The Air, SF Sorrow Is Born and Stop Stop Stop.
But there are also great selections that you may not of amongst songs from the likes of The Count Five and The Association. There is even a Beatles cover which of course is not what you would expect ant everyday band to choose.
The centrepiece is a cover of Yes's Starship Trooper. It all starts pretty faithful until the closing Steve Howe riff and then just explodes into Psych, Rock and Prog racking up just under 19 minutes of sheer wonder that you simply do not want to end.
This is a fine place to start with The Luck Of Eden Hall, but you really should investigate their album discography to get the full flavour of what an outstanding band they were. Fortunately we still have Custard Flux, but would we be there without the excellence of this Chicago outfit?
As with all Fruits De Mer albums this is a physical release, only available on CD. FdeM have unexpectedly sold out but copies are still available from The Luck Of Eden Hall site here.
I don't often return to albums after I have reviewed them. But I've been listening a lot to Phosphorous again recently after its release as a Double LP. Released in September of last year, it is a wondrous listen. It was No 12 in IDHAS's Best Of 2022, an amazing result for a Progressive album on what is essentially a Guitar Pop dominated site.
People ask me how I can be such a lover of Pop Rock in the window of I Don't Hear A Single and yet at home be such a massive Psych and Prog fan. It really is rather easy if you have the patience. Through Secondary School, in fact smack bang in the middle around 1976 there was a lull.
Glam Rock had virtually ended and Punk had not properly started and that coincided with the time when albums came to my fore and all the seemingly greatest albums were Prog and you had a golden previous period to listen to and learn. Pop albums were still largely singles and load of "will this do" filler.
Through all my musical crystallising and genre hoping, I always returned to Prog and Psych, complex albums, but you could just let them wash over you. So new albums don't usually appear on IDHAS, because that's not what the audience necessarily appreciates. But there are artists who can be from either of those genres and still be accessible to a wider, dare I say it, Pop Rock audience?
This is where Gregory Curvey comes in, through both his The Luck Of Eden Hall and more recently, Custard Flux adventures. Curvey and Custard Flux compare to a band like Big Big Train, not as chorus led, but willing to take more chances. Both cross over and you would be surprised how many Pop Rock fans I know that are fans of Curvey.
Vocal wise, he comes in as very Peter Gabriel pre Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, say 1972 or 1973. However, he is a gobsmackingly great Guitarist. He can be plank spank with the best of them, but be equally understated or complex, riff driven at times. He is also an incredible arranger.
Phosphorous is the third Custard Flux album and it is typically Prog as a double album. At almost 81 minutes, it is a long, but completely worthwhile listen. The variety holds your attention as do the moods. Two of the instrumentals add Sax and that instrument lights up The Gardener, which isn't an instrumental. Well done Mars Williams!
Likewise, Jay Tausig's flute on The Face Of Mankind is superb on a song that sounds so much like Big Big Train. Orbital Transport shows another side to Custard Flux, Acoustic Guitar led, almost classical and Roses And Wine gets as near to a Pop Song as could be, but still sounds very Adrian Belew.
What thrills me the most though are always the riff led songs that take on different avenues but rest on that riff and repetition both vocally and instrumentally. Station is a great example, but the tour de force is the opener The Pretender / Memory Ends. I could have spent the whole review extolling the wonders of this song.
Nine minutes in length and as expected with the title, two part, it is mesmerising without a wasted second. The Pretender is so damn melodic, you find yourself singing the hypnotic chorus. It is as urgent as Curvey has ever been. There is also a wig out Guitar Solo and before you know it, Memory Ends has begun.
This second part is very very Genesis 1973 and it could be Peter Gabriel himself, a complete change of pace, wonderfully so. My hope with the embedded songs is to attempt ro bring newcomers in. Everyone is welcome! Oh and the sleeve notes are written by our very own Mick Dillingham.
You can listen to and buy the album on Vinyl, CD or as a download here.
Mark Lofgren has a splendid history. Founder of The Luck Of Eden Hall and member of The Thin Cherries. both excellent affairs. The latter specialised in Psych Pop with a heavy hint of Prog, the latter are far more 80s in feel, particularly with the added keyboards.
So you'd think that a Lofgren solo album might fall somewhere between the two and at times it does. Red Giant vs Red Dwarf is very keyboard led and close to The Thin Cherries, but Black Moon Book II is much more in the Pop Rock territory that IDHAS followers know and love.
Lofgren's mellow vocals are ideally suited to this type of material. He sounds like a cross between Ian Broudie and Rick Corcoran and this is ideal for jangly We Don't Leave The Yard. Proceed Home is very early 90s Dance Rock and yet New Ice Age Better is a wonderful fragile ballad.
Plastic Candles is like a dream sequence with a Power Pop riff and the melody just oozes out of the album. More restrained than you'd expect from someone with Lofgren's history, but splendidly so. I am reminded of Orgone Box a lot without the big choruses. A great listen!
Oxygen the third album by Curvey’s Custard Flux project has arrived and as with everything the great man releases, there’s no need to worry here. The stars turn in the heavens above and everything is as it should be in the wonderful world of Curvey. Oxygen is full to the brim with marvellous heart felt songs smothered in sensational and adventurous musicianship and blessed with yet another beautiful kaleidoscopic production.
Such is the assured consistency of his creativity that I can confidently buff up yet another five star award and slot it into place even before hearing Oxygen for the first time, knowing full well those five stars will be effortlessly deserved. As a listener, it’s a great position to find yourself in, to be so very sure that what is about to be delivered into our heart and mind will not disappoint.
Then comes the first listen and…and….hell let's not even pretend this is a cliff hanger because we all know how this turns out. It turns out right. The three Custard Flux albums are like three beautiful sisters, unmistakably sisters at all times, but each with a individual personality that makes each of them unique unto themselves. Oh hold on here’s Curvey passing by my windows right now, let me grab him and get some background on the latest platter.
What’s going on with you good sir?
“First off, I’d like to say thank you to everyone who supported Echo and helped make it such a successful release. I sincerely appreciate the DJs, bloggers, magazines and fans who keep this little train rolling.”
So Echo sold really well?
“It’s a mystery to me what makes one album sell better than the next. When we released The Luck of Eden Hall’s Victoria Moon, Clearspot, my distributor in the Netherlands, sold 250 copies in the first five days. But that didn’t happen with the next album, The Acceleration of Time, which got more coverage and better reviews and in my opinion was a better album. When I recorded the first Custard Flux album, Helium, I couldn’t get any label support, so I decided to have them manufactured here in the states, at Smashed Plastic in Chicago, who did a fantastic job with the printing and pressing. But it turned out to be a foolish decision on my part, because most of my sales are in Europe and shipping a box of 80 LPs to the Netherlands cost a lot of money. It was actually three boxes.
The album didn’t sell as much as I’d hoped, in part because of shipping costs and also probably due to my releasing a CD box set of the same music one year earlier. I’d chosen to do CDs first because it was less expensive, but had a ton of requests for an LP version, so I went for it. I did sell enough copies to pay for my investment, but I still have a couple boxes of Helium LPs in stock, which I’d really like to get sold off.
When I was going to release Echo, I approached Keith at Fruits de Mer Records and he kindly offered me a Friends of the Fish release. I was ecstatic, because it meant extra promotional support and some guaranteed sales. I’m now down to my last thirteen copies of the Echo LP and those good sales put enough extra money in the coffers to cover most of the manufacturing costs of Oxygen, but it’s certainly no guarantee that Oxygen will sell as well as Echo. So, here I sit. Eyes closed, fingers crossed, preparing to spin the roulette wheel once again.”
So tell us about the recording of Oxygen.
“Some of the Oxygen tracks were already in their embryonic stages when we recorded the songs for the bonus CD that’s included in each Echo LP. I Feed The Fire did make it on to that release, but Vito Greco has since recorded a new solo for the ending and I remixed the track, to great improvement in my opinion.
The bulk of the recording took place during the first few weeks of mandatory quarantine. I’m incredibly fortunate to have my own recording studio and used the lockdown time to my advantage. I initially set down to record all the parts myself, being as I had no choice, but then I remembered Vito had recording gear and we started sharing tracks. I knew the Psychedelic Furs Tour, like all tours, had been cancelled, so I reached out to Mars Williams, who’d played on a track for The Luck of Eden Hall and he was happy to help.
I’d been hearing a saxophone part in my head that I wanted recorded and when Mars agreed, I wanted to utilize his playing for the solos on Gelatinous Mass, to introduce another sound other than guitar. Then Tim and Walt Prettyman got what they needed to do some home recording, by mail order and that was sorted. I knew I wanted to call the next album Oxygen since the wrapping up of Echo and had already chosen the perfect image for the cover, painted by Gregory Chamberlin.
It was only after all the songs were completed, as I sat listening to the full album, that I realized how much the project had been influenced by the virus and it’s effects on us all. I’d like to dedicate Oxygen to the folks that lost their lives to the virus.”
Any chance of a track by track guide to Oxygen?
Oxygen.
"I’d been messing around with this guitar part in 5/4, but it took me a while to find the right melody to sing over it, especially one that I could sing while playing guitar. The lyrics are about meditation. My daughter had been having a bit of trouble with anxiety and I’d recently shared the gift of meditation with her."
Gelatinous Mass.
"When I just can’t find the right vocal melody, it’s instrumental time. I figured the soloing would be covered by my Flying V on this track, but I really like to try to stick to my “no electricity” rule if possible and was ecstatic about Mars playing sax on it. Heavy electricity free Prog."
You Can’t Get Away.
"I like this song. It’s written about killing time while under quarantine. I’d had the structure worked out for months, but when it was all recorded it didn’t feel quite right. Actually, after all nine songs were finished, the album had a problem with continuity. The sounds were kind of all over the place. Sax solos, violin solos, acoustic and electric guitar solos. So I decided to break my rule and stitch the tunes together by doubling parts with my Flying V. I hope you don’t mind."
Quarantyne.
"I picked up the guitar and this song fell out. It’s morbid. I live in the Detroit metro area. Lots of people were and still are, dying. I was reading horrible stories about people being left alone in rooms to die. I chose it for the single and artist Shane Swank created a beautiful music video for it. Vito plays a really cool Brazilian instrument on this track, too."
Monster Island.
"I was a monster fiend in my youth. I loved to read magazines like Creepy, Eerie, Famous Monsters of Filmland, and Weird Tales. The Ghoul was a television personality that hosted monster movies every Saturday night and I always tried to stay up late and watch his show. Creature Feature ruled too, with all of the Japanese monster films. Monster Island is a place in the movie Godzilla’s Revenge."
I Feed The Fire.
"I absolutely love where Vito’s guitar part took this track. I knew I wanted the song to start with a train whistle and found a wooden one on EBay. The lyrics are about humanity, blasting forward, laying everything to waste to achieve light speed and the acknowledgement that I am part of humanity.
She Opens Her Eyes.
"This is one of those tracks where the original sketch and the final mix sound completely different. After laying down the drum part, I deconstructed the song and reworked the bass, guitar riffs and vocal melody, until I enjoyed listening to the song again. I figure if I don’t want to listen to the song, why would anyone else want to?
Vito plays the Brazilian guitar again on this track and I liked the sound of it so much that I made a special mix which is included as a digital bonus track. I had bought a bow meant for using on acoustic guitar and used it on Quarantyne to great effect, so I tried it on this song as well. Walt’s fabulous violin solo was the last thing added. The lyrics are a metaphor for lady liberty and my hope for a more liberal and sane direction in our next election."
Innocence and Peppermints.
"Yes, the title is an homage to the Strawberry Alarm Clock hit. I was writing about my daughter again. She’d just had a bad break up with her closest friend and confidant and was taking it kind of hard. It’s hard being a parent and watching your child experience pain.
This was the last track to be completed on the album. I wrote it on guitar, but Tim and Walt’s parts, along with the Harpsichord, took it to a different place. The recorder was a last minute addition and makes me think of Donovan."
Capacity Overload.
"Ahh, the piece de resistance. My favorite on the record. Vito suggested we do electric solos on this one and who was I to disagree? Being in quarantine gave me time to figure out how to use iMovie, so I made my first music video using footage I’d shot driving into the city of Chicago, along with footage I’d shot driving in the Welsh countryside. There’s an image in the video of half my face with streaks of horizontal lines that I didn’t create.
I’d used my phone to shoot a short movie of my computer screen whilst I fiddled with Photoshop, which worked fine, but when I did some colour editing of the movie on my phone, that half face video just magically appeared in my photo files. A gift from the cyber gods."
I’m Feeling So Much Better (Bonus Track).
"On March 7th, my wife rushed me to the hospital because I was experiencing severe pains in my lower abdomen. While there, I was dosed with Ketamine and experienced bad hallucinations. This song is about that experience. Turns out it was a kidney stone, that I passed while I was at the hospital, so they sent me home. We got to the hospital at 6pm and left at 6am.”
You can pre-order the vinyl release, buy the download and listen to Oxygen here.
Welcome to the Fifth of our week long Audio Extravaganza Live Session Specials. Today we have exclusive sessions from Curvey of Custard Flux, Blaine Campbell and Blake Jones And The Trike Shop. If that isn’t enough excitement for you, we also have two exclusive recordings from I Don’t Hear A Single Favourites.
We begin with a song from Nick Frater. Who leads the way in bringing Power Pop to a new audience. His fourth album, Full Fathom Freight Train from last year was marked high up in many critics Best Of Year Charts. It was in the I Don’t Hear A Single Top 10.
Frater has already recorded a new album, Fast And Loose which will be released in the Autumn, marking his debut for the Big Stir label. He also is currently involved in a ground breaking Instagram project, called 59 Viganettes in which he releases a track each day, each being under 59 seconds. Today he provides a wonderful cover of Gilbert O’ Sullivan’s Alone Again Naturally.
For the past 30 years or so, Detroit’s Curvey has been the driving force behind the magnificent Luck Of Eden Hall. The band’s mixture of Psych and Prog with big hints of Pop has been a revelation. Custard Flux is Curvey’s largely electricity free project utilising traditional instruments.
The first two albums, Helium and Echo were in Prog Magazines Top 10 End Of Year Chart in 2018 and 2019 respectively. Both albums reveal the breadth of the man’s inventiveness. A third album, Oxygen has just been recorded and will be released on the 5th July.
This outstanding solo session reveals both the range of music that I Don’t Hear A Single covers and the talent that Curvey has.
Los Angeles’s Blaine Campbell released his fourth album, Under The Tidal Wave in December of last year. Campbell is known for exceptional harmony driven melodic songs. I suppose you could frame it as Beach Boys Pop.
However Under The Tidal Wave reaches out far further encompassing many different styles in songs that beautifully arranged and sung. The album gently Rocks. Here’s a four song session that Blaine recorded for us pre-lockdown.
Bristol and Bath quartet Ulysses are a revelation with their mixture of Glam and Chorus led Rock. There is a real joy and wit that they bring to their singalong songs. Without ever taking themselves too seriously, their four albums offer up real earworms that are immaculately produced.
A breath of fresh air in what has become a po faced musical climate, the quality of the songwriting is overlooked in all the fun. The band’s latest album, On Safari was second in I Don’t Hear A Single’s Top 10 albums of 2019. Here they perform an exclusive Acoustic Version of a new song, Supply And Demand.
Fresno’s Blake Jones And The Trike Shop have been around since 1993, this five piece since 2005. Their fifth album, Make, is a joyous Art Pop listen. Indie in the truest sense of the word, they offer up great pop songs with unusual arrangements.
Imagine a Psych band playing songs that should be in the Top 40 and you’d not be far away. Highly original and now part of the Big Stir stable, the band play four songs recorded pre lockdown. Three are from previous albums, including Soft Rock Girlfriend from Make and Shake Your Dress is exclusively new.
Thanks as always to Jim Moody for his technical excellence. The details of our fourth special are below:
01 Nick Frater Intro
02 Alone Again Naturally
03 Curvey Intro
04 Extraordinary Man
05 Magazines
06 Custard Raga
07 Helium
08 Blaine Campbell Intro
09 Someday You'll Be Mine
10 Happy Faces
11 Shoutin' Dont Count
12 Surrender
13 Ulysses Intro
14 Supply And Demand (Acoustic)
15 Blake Jones Intro
16 Soft Rock Girlfriend
17 Shake Your Dress
18 Forestiere Gardens
19 Sun Up
You can still listen to Monday's Caper Clowns Session here.
You can still listen to Tuesday's Sessions by Spygenius and Chris Church here.
You can listen to Wednesday's Sessions by Nick Piunti, The Vapour Trails and Dolph Chaney here.
You can listen to Thursday's Sessions featuring Ex Norwegian and John Howard here.
You can listen and buy Nick Frater's albums here. You can find more about him on his website here .
You can listen and buy Custard Flux albums here. You can listen and buy Luck Of Eden Hall albums here.
You can listen and buy Blaine Campbell's albums here.
You can listen and buy Ulysses's albums here. You can find more about the band on their website here.
You can listen and buy Blake Jones And The Trike Shop's albums here. You can find out more about the bandhere.
Curvey is back with a second instalment of Custard Flux goodness. Mick Dillingham catches up with the great man to find out all about it and he gives us a track by track breakdown of Echo.
Another glorious Custard Flux album is upon us and like everything Eden Hall’s Gregory Curvey unleashes it’s a psychedelic treasure chest of wonderful songs, masterfully played and beautifully produced. Let us sit down with the great man and find out all about Echo. So straight off, why Echo?
"I initially intended to name the album after one of the elements, like Helium, and already had permission to use an entirely different painting by Gregory Chamberlin for the cover, but that Echo knob on the cover of the Helium Box Set wouldn’t let me be. The box did have enough room for another CD, so I went with the idea of making Echo an annex to the Helium Box Set."
This time you brought some other players on board for the sessions.
"Having Tim Prettyman play double bass on the album definitely added a new dimension to the sound. The acoustic bass I played on the Helium tracks sounded pretty close to an electric bass, even though I didn’t use an amplifier.
America happened to be the first track we recorded the double bass on for this project, and as soon as we finished laying it down, I couldn’t believe how the sound was spatially altered. You can almost feel the double bass in the room on the whole record. Tim’s son Walt received a degree in classical violin and toured with a gypsy jazz band for a few years. He’s a phenomenal player, and I’m extremely pleased with his contributions to this record."
A handy song by song break down of Echo might be called for about now, don’t you think?
Supernatural :
"Originally titled Supernatural Disaster, but that seemed a bit too negative and the world is desperately in need of positivity. It’s about my day to day struggling with the USA’s current political retardation, but I kept the lyrics vague. The riff was one of the good ones I’d saved on my phone and I had the verse parts for a few weeks before the chorus finally came to me. Funny how that works. I love Walt’s violin playing on this track."
Echo :
I was in my basement, working on the space where my stereo and records will one day be removed from their storage boxes and properly set up. I was listening to U2’s Boy album on my iPhone and reminiscing about that period in my life when new wave was fresh. Later that night, I was playing my guitar, while putting my daughter to bed and out popped the initial parts for Echo. The original bones of the song got buried in some pretty distracting flesh."
America :
"Originally titled Babylon. I had all the melodies and parts worked out, but couldn’t come up with any lyrics for weeks. When they did come, I was in my studio and they just rolled out. The first verse was about baseball, so I wrote the second about apple pie, both have lots of hidden meanings. I think America has some of my better lyrics.
Cirque d’Enfants :
"I wrote this song thirteen years ago, and just weeks after my daughter was born. It didn’t fit with the tracks on the The Luck Of Eden Hall album I was working on at the time, and I tried to pull it out for a subsequent albums, but it never made it. Not to say it’s a b-song, I really like it. It just never worked until now."
Extraordinary Man :
"My good friend Tim Ferguson (The Red Plastic Buddha) came to Detroit for a visit and we had some fun in my studio. I took the best one that we did that day, and turned it into Extraordinary Man, which is written about one of my good friends that is transitioning from a man to a woman. Love everyone folks. Don’t judge."
Pink Indians :
"The folks that pre-ordered a copy of the Helium Double LP directly from me, got a chance to hear all the songs on Echo in various stages of creation as a bonus for their endearing support. Pink Indians definitely went through a transition.
The original version was a bit too poppy and the song came really close to getting cut, but I stripped it down and reworked the rhythm section with a progressive beat and added vocal tracks. The lyrics are made up, but based on real experiences, including losing my girlfriend in India for a spell. I thought of those times when your child is briefly missing and you’re beating down the fears of all the possible bad scenarios and then suddenly there they are, smiling and safe."
Gold :
"Originally titled Silver and Gold, but I just went with the element. Last summer I was repairing a rotted window sill on the second floor of my house when this song came to me. I’d go up and down the ladder singing “heading to the mountains...and living off the land...”. I wrote two complete songs around that stanza, both with different ideas, and couldn’t stand either version, until I started splicing them together, which altered the meaning of the lyric to my liking."
Suns And Daughters :
"Another good riff I’d saved on my phone. My friend Steven turned me on to My Friend The Sun, a really great old song by Family. I took my existing riff, sat down and wrote under the influence of the Family tune and this was the result.
My daughter went to Montessori School for a few years and on a child’s birthday,the teacher used to have them carry a little planet Earth in a circle, around a candle in a sun shaped candle holder on the floor. I thought that was a cool ritual and was thinking of it when I wrote this song. The facts are true. We are travelling around sixteen hundred thousand miles per hour through space.
Echo is a magnificent, well worth your attention. You can listen to and buy the album here.
2018 has been a fantastic year for the type of music that we like. It's been difficult to get these choices down to 100. I'm also not a believer in saying one album is better than another. Most of the time you are comparing Apples To Oranges. I'm not a Top 10 person, I just think what's the point.
However, for the first time last year, I did a Top 50, normally I just say what my favourite album of the year is. I've simply done it again, because those five posts of last year were so popular and the aim of this Blog is to get exposure (and Sales) for the artists.
As I said the standard this year is incredibly high, so much so that I've extended the choice to 100 albums. There is no meaning or judgement on an album that is Number 1, Number 100 or not on the list. Anything that I review on here, mention on Social Media or play on the Radio Show is as highly recommended.
For each album, I've posted a song from it and a link to the IDHAS Review if applicable.
No 31 : Mike Viola - The American Egypt
No 32 : The Orange Peels - Trespassing
No 33 : Gretchen's Wheel - Black Box Theory IDHAS Review here.
It's about high time that we had another Mick Dillingham Interviews feature. This is a hectic time for Mick with another couple of interviews coming up in the near future. Here at IDHAS, we are big admirers of the magnificent Psych Pop purveyors, Luck Of Eden Hall. We also love Curvey's latest project, Custard Flux. So we thought it was about time that we caught up with the great man. Mick found out all about Custard Flux, including a track by track breakdown of the Helium album and much more.
Mick: So you moved from Chicago to Detroit. That must have been quite an upheaval for you both physically and emotionally.
Curvey: Yes. I really had no desire to leave Chicago, and my house that I’d been pouring my heart and soul into for ten years. But my wife was really burned out from working for the City of Chicago for twenty years and she was receiving job offers from all around the country.
So we decided to make the move for her career. I thought I could handle it, but it has really taken a toll on me psychologically. Detroit has a great music history, but I haven’t had much luck finding local musicians to play with and it’s been quite depressing.
Mick: So how did the Custard Flux project first germinate in your mind?
Curvey: My friend Lee Klawans, a great photographer and man of many talents, was managing an estate sale in Chicago, where they were selling an old harmonium, or pump organ. He told me that I should see it and that I’d fall in love with it, so I rented a trailer and drove from Detroit to Chicago to have a look.
Jim Licka had one in his keyboard emporium that I used to play on and I’d been wanting one of my own, so I bought the harmonium and brought it back to Detroit. I played on it for about a week before it started to fall apart. First, one of the old straps that work the bellows ripped, so I replaced both of them. Then the mechanism that allows you to play an octave higher without touching the keys broke.
So I ended up taking the Harmonium apart and gave it a thorough cleaning and replaced all of the felt pads and cloth hinges. Once I had it all back together, it was just about as good as new. My fantasy was, or is, to set up in the park and play progressive psych pop without any amps or p.a. A green dream, if you will, to share with the kiddies.
Mick: How did the recording process and musical approach taken differ from Eden Hall, what challenges did you encounter and what lessons did you learn from setting yourself this goal?
Curvey: On this project I wanted every instrument to be recorded with microphones, not plugged in directly, to give the songs a true acoustic feel. I don’t own an acoustic bass, so I had to borrow one from my friend Steven Chamberlin and it sounded fantastic when recorded. I never mic the bass when I’m tracking songs for The Luck Of Eden Hall. I always use amp software for that and occasionally for my guitar sounds too.
Another big difference is that I didn’t use a click track for most of the songs this time. My studio’s in the basement and my piano is on the first floor, so I had to run mic cables through a hole where radiator pipes pass through the floor to be able to record the piano. My headphones wouldn’t cover the distance, so I had to track the piano first and use it as a guide for recording the drums and the rest of the tracks.
That really helped give the songs a different feeling. I basically approached mixing the songs the same way I do with Eden Hall. As far as panning, I just limited the effects used to reverb and delay. I did learn a lot about blending acoustic sounds on this project, but it’s basically the same as mixing electrified noise.
Mick: In your mind did the songwriting process differ in anyway from what you’d done before….were you conscious of writing Custard Flux songs rather than Eden Hall songs or did you just write songs as normal and then let the creative approach turn them into something else?
Curvey: I wanted Custard Flux to be more progressive than it turned out, but pop songs flow out of me like slag. I had written a slew of tracks that were starting to lose their appeal and then The Hit Parade happened. I really liked the different time signatures in that song and tried to write more songs that way to break out of the typical pop mould.
Songs usually come to me eighty percent complete, and yes, I was very conscious of writing acoustic songs for this project. I knew I wanted to include a few instrumental tracks, but most of the ideas I had required electric guitar and echoplex. I saved a few to flush out for the second release.
Mick: If you had to sit down and re-record any of the tracks as Eden Hall versions how different do you think they would be. Are there tracks on the Flux album that you couldn’t fathom how to do an Eden Hall version?
Curvey: Oh, I think they’d all work as The Luck Of Eden Hall songs. Some of the tracks would be much heavier and psychedelically blown out, to be sure. I actually had a hard time not putting down more electric guitar solos on these songs, because I hear them in my head that way. There’s no sustain when using an acoustic guitar, so I really had to practice my scales, which has really improved my skills.
Mick: How about a track by track breakdown of the album.
Curvey: The Hit Parade. This track was written around the beginning phrase and the “I feel better” chorus. I liked the sound of the riff being doubled on piano and guitar. The lyrics are all about the high you get when you create something new artistically that’s well received by critics and the public.
Forevermore. I wrote this on the harmonium, but was really pleased the first time I heard the piano and harmonium parts together. It created a real dreamy circus feeling. The lyrics are about the current dingbat U.S. president and his administration.
Empyrean House. I wrote this track for a collaboration I did with Icarus Peel. I’d finger picked the guitar on the version he released, which was beautiful and mellow and I decided to rework the song for this project after playing it on my Harmonium. The lyrics are about experiences I’ve had in the wild, on mountains and in India, how man is really out of balance with nature.
Tiger. I really liked this riff. I record melodies on my phone for later use and it was one I’d thrown down. The chorus lyrics are from a Buddhist saying. My friend Gregory Chamberlin, who let me use his art for this project, is Buddhist and I wrote it for him, but it’s really about me.
The Shire Of Gingin. The name of an Australian town I’d passed while on vacation. Actually my wife was asked to speak at a conference in Perth and I was her baggage boy. I thought it would make a good song title, so I logged it into my handy dandy iBrain phone. The lick felt like dark magic and I had to learn a completely different set of scales to be able to riff on top of it, which was fun. I imagined the shire swirling with magic and genies.
Sleepy. This was written on the piano and is one of my favourites on the album. I really like the riff, which got a little buried in the final mix. I recorded most of the piano tracks on this album with the sostenuto pedal pressed, letting the piano strings ring. The song is about being lonely.
La Mort. I had this happy riff and couldn’t seem to turn it into a lyrical song, so I played solos over it and let an ominous blanket of dark harmonium engulf the end. The drums were added last. I was picturing a happy child blindly running through a field of daisies and tripping into an old well. I hope that doesn’t ruin it for you.
Out Of Phase. This is a track that was left over from The Acceleration Of Time sessions. I liked how it sounded on the piano, so I rearranged it and added the trippy ending. It’s all about relationships.
Golden Opportunity. I wrote this while on tour in England. I’d played at Kozfest and saw Soft Machine, who blew me away, and it rained the entire weekend. The mud was thick and hungry for wellies. I had a great time.
Tiger Reprise. Believe it or not, all the parts in this song were recorded as part of the Tiger track, but I decided to strip Tiger down for the final mix. I liked my solos and the drum part, so I mixed this version without vocals.
Helium. Written on piano. The Floydian bass line brought it home for me. I’d nearly scrapped it for being too pop, but I really liked the lyrics. Dreaming about the queen of psych. I was originally going to title the album Harmonium Chrysanthemum, but decided it was a little misleading and one of Gregory’s paintings reminded me of a helium balloon, so I made this the title track.
Bonus Disc. All of the original songs on the bonus disk, except for Innermission, were early songs I’d written for Custard Flux that fell out of favour. I’d grown tired of them. It’s usually a sign for me that I shouldn’t release the song if that starts to happen, but I remixed them and added parts that made them more interesting to me again.
Sweetened Hallowed. I premiered this song last summer at the Halfmoon in Putney. It’s a made up story about a beautiful, nice lady who gives money to children for candy.
The Feline Hallucination. Written on guitar, and a little more jazzy. Another fictitious story, this time about a guy who’s lost his mind. Me.
Innermission. Written on piano. One of my favourite instrumental tracks and I was very happy to get artist Shane Swank to create a music video for the song. You can check it out on YouTube.
Ascending Stories. The music for this was written on guitar after returning from tour a couple years ago, but I finished up the lyrics for this project. It’s about fighting depression.
Mick: So you put together a live band, how did that go?
Curvey: Well, I wish that were true, but I haven’t put together a live band. I’d really like to find some local like-minded musicians, but the Detroit scene is about electronica, Jazz, or hard and heavy rock. Everyone’s already in three bands, or committed to another group. I really wish I lived in England!
Mick: How has the response to the album been so far?
Curvey: Fantastic! The first review was out of Moscow, and blew me away. Shindig and Record Collector magazines have agreed to review it and I’m working on getting more. I’m so behind in my promoting. I’ll tell you I’m really happy to be talking to you again!
Mick: As ever you’ve come up with another dazzling limited special edition CD version. How was putting all that together?
Curvey: I wanted Custard Flux to look different than my usual releases and was extremely thrilled when my friend Gregory Chamberlin agreed to to let me use his paintings for the album art. That too was a lot of pressure off me from coming up with artwork. About four years ago, my wife and I backed the production of Glowforge, a laser cutting machine, because we could get one for half price.
It took three years for them to get the bugs in their design worked out and our unit arrived last year. I knew I couldn’t hand cut anything out with exacto blades anymore, because of the pain it causes in my hands. A laser cutter seemed perfect for one of my CD projects or possibly an etched vinyl edition.
I looked into pressing vinyl locally, but the cost was way too much, so I decided on a CD Box Set. The laser can etch images beautifully into wood. As I started pricing out the supplies needed for each Box Set, including wood, hinges, CDs, a booklet and postcards. I ran across some boxes for wedding DVDs that were already assembled with hinges and a latch.
They were one third of the price that it was going to cost me to make each box, so I ordered ten to test how they worked under the laser and was pretty pleased with the result. I had the CDs manufactured at Diskfaktory, where I’ve had CDs made since Subterrene’s release. Had 100 of each postcard printed by a place I found online.
The 16 page booklets were printed locally, and I saved money by assembling and stapling each one myself. Then I put the printed pieces in a paper envelope and sealed it with a wax stamp. The positive feedback that I’ve received from customers has been rewarding.
Mick: You say something about the CD version being edited?
Curvey: Yes, what I mean by that is some of the songs fade into one another. If you download the songs from the Custard Flux Bandcamp page, each one is completely separate.
Mick: Will there ever be a second flux album at some point or is this a one off.
Curvey: Oh yes. Number two is already starting to form in the ether.
Mick: Future plans?
Curvey: I’ve just finished up a recording session with Tim Ferguson from The Red Plastic Buddha and the three songs we tracked need to be released. Keith at Fruits de Mer Records has asked me to piece together songs The Luck Of Eden Hall has previously released on the label, plus a couple new cover tracks, including one recorded with members of Sendelica, for a new compilation LP.
Mark Lofgren and I will be getting together this winter to start on a new album for The Luck Of Eden Hall. I’ve been asked to record drum tracks for a project Andy Budge is working on and I need to finish up my work on a live album recorded in Glastonbury with The Cary Grace Band and Andy Thompson. That should keep me busy!
You can listen to and buy the Custard Flux album, Helium, as a download, CD or Deluxe CD Set (as mentioned above), here. You can find more about the delights of The Luck Of Eden Hall here.
Whilst I ponce around in suit, tie and waistcoat pretending to be a Pop Empresario, I'm a little behind on reviews which will arrive here over the next few days. In the meantime my great friend Mick Dillingham has been utilised to review the current Luck Of Eden Hall album. Mick covered the band in greater detail here in our early days. When Anything Should Happen began over 8 years ago, my main compardre was Mick. We shared similar tasted and both of us were really excited about bands who didn't get enough attention, past and present.
There are bands that I cherish and confidently know, even without even hearing a single note that any new album is going to be yet another ten out of ten classic of creative splendour. The Luck of Eden Hall's latest platter upon us and the same rules apply.
The Acceleration of Time was never going to be better than or not quite as good as what has gone before because what has gone before has always perfection You can absolutely guarantee any new release by the band is going to be equally magnificent. As of course it is just that, because with The Luck of Eden Hall it always is.
There are a lot of excellent psychedelic bands to enjoy these days but this lot are effortlessly and without doubt in my mind the finest of the lot. Brilliant songs, adventurous, masterful production and dazzling musical skills are the benchmarks here.
All this is combined with an absolute love for what they are creating and this makes the band a constant joy to behold. So what have they rolled out so resplendently for us this time you ask? Fifteen tracks of excellent acid tinged creativity opening with the guitar driven, mellotron soaked, hook laden pop perfection of Slow. It bursts out of the speakers in breathless pandemonium.
Greg Curvey and Mark Lofgren seem to have a bottomless well of melodies to call upon and as always there’s not a single moment of weakness or filler in the song department. While the band never shirk from the psychedelic riches that we love them for.
There is a progressive detail to the musicianship that subtly grows with each album as they challenge themselves to complex detailed playing of the highest order. What a wonderful listen this brilliant album is from start to finish. The Luck of Eden Hall are a truly classic combo to take to your heart and never let go.
You can listen to and buy the album here. It is also available on CD and a Special Edition Pop Up CD. Sadly both double LP Vinyl Editions are sold out now.
My Psych Pop fascination has never left me and since the late 80's there's been some great bands. Most have come and gone, often leaving just one great "lost" album. Others have adapted their sound to a more commercial format, mainly out of necessity. One band who have been consistently brilliant are The Luck Of Eden Hall and thankfully they are still with us and get better and better. To coincide with the excellent Megadodo Singles Club release of The End Of The Lane 7 Inch Single, I asked my great friend, Mick Dillingham, to write a piece on the band.
Chicago’s psychedelic combo The Luck Of Eden Hall were first formed way back in the early nineties, the era of endless tiny done on a shoestring indie labels and ultimately doomed, often hopeless, indie bands. Eden Hall played lots of small gigs, put out a couple of cheaply recorded cassette singles and recorded an obscure album. The latter being in a small studio that, with little control over the finished product, sounds totally of its time, place and unfortunate circumstance.
More garage that psychedelia in production and though the budding talent is obvious even then, it’s all a bit noisy and straight forward to my ears. However, it has become highly rated by those enthusiasts who like that particular era and that particular sound.
An attempt at a second album was so disastrous that the band and the producer agreed to wipe the master tapes rather than let anyone else hear them. The band limped on a while longer and then drifted apart and got on with their lives. Its an all too familiar story and generally that would be the end of it.
But then a decade later, home recording techniques and equipment had improved beyond recognition and this heralded in a new era of true creative freedom for hundreds of gifted songwriters and musicians. They hold down day jobs and when they can they head down to their home studio basement to indulge in what they truly love.
In 2002 Greg Curvey got his own home recording set up and bringing in his old bandmate and fellow songwriter (very much the Moulding to his Partridge) Mark Lofgren and The Luck Of Eden Hall were reborn in spectacular style. Now they could do whatever they wanted creatively without any interference and boy does it show.
Since then it’s been one breathtakingly brilliant album after another, magnificent psych pop glory built around great songs and riffs, masterful playing and perfectly realised production. The new album, The Acceleration of Time, effortlessly continues the golden creative highs of the last decade that have made the band one to love. I certainly love The Luck Of Eden Hall but I am always aware of the one person that loves them more than anyone else ever could and that is Curvey himself.
Lets face the fact that in this day and age, a brilliant Psychedelic Power Pop band is only going to be of interest to a few thousand active listeners at most. How many albums does even Jason Falkner sell in reality? Ninety nine percent of musicians do not make a living out of playing their own music.
Curvey knows that and embraces the realistic opportunities that his abundant talents give him firmly with both hands. He records, writes and plays his music with unbridled passion for endless hours with no real financial incentives to make him do so. He also, designs, prints and puts the beautiful covers together, late into the night, with as much love care and attention as he lavishes on his music. He also does intricate special edition covers, the one for the new album is ridiculously intricate and quite wonderful.
On top of this, he’s always on Facebook talking about, music and justice and all sorts of things with such interest and enthusiasm and insight. He really is a down to earth Renaissance man of our times, quietly and modestly, being creative and interested whenever the opportunity allows.
The European label Headspin have taken to releasing beautiful vinyl editions of the last couple of albums and everybody’s beloved psychedelic vinyl label Fruits de Mer have put out various singles, compilation tracks and the like.
You just know that whenever the packages turn up at his house with the latest vinyl release that Curvey will be grinning like child let loose in a Sweet Shop as he tears them open to see what wonders reside within. He always delights in the various adventures now afforded to him with obvious joy in his heart.
A couple of low key crowd funded trips to the UK to play to small but appreciative audiences in small venues are treated like a dream come true to the man. Just last week he came over for some solo shows, built around his appearance at the Fruit de Mer showcase in Wales. As ever he’s cherishing every minute, another wonderful adventure to look back on with fond memories.
To be honest Curvey is living the creative dream I’d be happy to live and not some rock n’ roll treadmill nightmare that is the fate of so many musicians. Free of the industry and all its various and dubious restraints Curvey, like many unknown gifted musicians, is able to let his creativity bloom at its very finest. It is us discerning listeners that reap the abundant rewards of this freedom by receiving such wonderful music for our listening pleasure.
The two tracks that are posted here are from the extremely limited 7 Inch Release of The End Of The Lane. Released on the magnificent Megadodo label. I'll be doing an extended piece on the label in the near future, but in the meantime, you can buy the single and discover other Megadodo delightshere. You can discover the delights of The Luck Of Eden Hall (and they are many) here. Mick Dillingham's excellent Blog Art Into Dust can be found here.
