Dukes of Stratosphear
(Ape House)
The early 1980s were tough times for XTC. Andy Partridge had a public breakdown on stage in Paris in 1982, paralyzed by the stage fright that would turn the band from a normal touring outfit into the studio-only ensemble of later years. After 1983's Mummer, the band's long-time drummer, Terry Chambers, quit to move to Australia. Although work began on XTC's landmark album Skylarking in 1985, sessions with Todd Rundgren turned combative in 1985, with Partridge resenting the loss of control.
All in all, you can't blame them - particularly Partridge - for looking for an escape route. With the Dukes of Stratosphear, the whole band went down the psychedelic rabbit hole, donning paisley shirts and bell-bottom corduroys, and churning raga rock drones and wiggy music hall whimsies. Partridge, along with XTC founder Colin Moulding, guitarist Dave Gregory and his brother Ian Gregory at drums, recorded two period-perfect collections of 1960s psychedelia under the Dukes pseudonym, the EP 25 O'Clock in 1985 and the full-length Psionic Sunspot in 1987. Liner notes to 1986's Skylarking thanked the Dukes for their loan of guitars, and XTC albums from that point on (particularly Oranges and Lemons) reflected a bit of the offshoot's day-glo aura.
Of the two, 25 O'Clock is darker, rawer and more guitar-centric. From the Syd-reminiscent ticking and bells at the opening of the title track, through the careening Eastern guitar drones of wonderful "My Love Explodes" through the tilted, tipsy, effects-filtered quirkiness of "Mole in the Ministry", the EP is a gleeful lark, a headlong rush into everything that's wonderful about late 1960s Beatles, Kinks, Pretty Things and Pink Floyd. Psionic Sunspot, two years later, has a more premeditated air, its songs more closely worked and delicate, its production cleaner and more complicated. "Vanishing Girl" opens in a jangle of guitar and tambourine, soars on tight, swooning vocal flourishes, while "Have You Seen Jackie" upends both gender and genre expectations with its Doppler souring harmonies and uneasy pop jauntiness. Bad tripping "Collideascope" looks at the world from a backwards telescope, fish drowning in seas and girl's splitting into true and false halves. "Pale and Precious" pays homage to Pet Sounds with its swooping, sweeping bursts of vocal counterparts. A young girl's voice provides snippets of Narnia-style magical narrative between tracks, and there are lots of field recordings - people laughing, birds singing, fog horns, etc. - embedded in the mix.
Each reissue includes six demo versions of the original songs, as well as a video, "The Mole From the Ministry" from 25 O'Clock and "You're a Good Man Albert Brown" from Psionic Sunspot. Psionic Sunspot adds in "Open a Can of Human Beans," a song written in 2003 by a briefly reunited Dukes, as well as previously unreleased "Tin Toy Clockwork Train." This additional material will interest hard core fans, but may, for casual listeners, only dull the magic with repetition.
Yet magic it is, a 1960s time capsule from the Thatcher years, as blessed a release for listeners as it must have been to industry-besieged XTC. It's a fling, a diversion, a wild stab at artistic liberty, this Dukes of Stratosphear project, as perversely enjoyable as a day skipping school.
Standout Tracks: "25 O'Clock" "Vanishing Girl" "You're My Drug" JENNIFER KELLY
