The Wellgreen: Wellgreens (The Barne Society)
Inspiration is a gossamer thing. Honing and recording it is hard graft. Consequently it’s very rarely that an artist’s recorded work breathes and exhales the fresh air and exuberance that inspired it. From the Smile-era Beach Boys choral harmonies of the opening title track to the closing, timeless ‘Circle’, The Wellgreen are so tuneful it’s swoonful.
Feel flows through the short, playful ‘Store Keys’ which sounds like Pink Floyd jamming with Ivor Cutler on harmonium and in the way the McCartney-esque ‘Happy Enough’ leads via effortlessly superb drumming into ‘Wellgreen’d’ (these boys’ points of reference extend far and wide and back home again). The drums are played by Stuart Kidd (sticksman to the likes of BMX Bandits and St Deluxe). Kidd and Marco Rea wrote, played and recorded everything on this tour de force. And, boy, can they sing. Vocally, the gentle melodic meditation ‘Forever And A Day’ (“Faraway couldn’t get much closer, close enough but still so far away”) is a killer. On an album where every single note is impeccably intoned the intertwining vocals of Rea and Kidd are especially sublime here. Marching beats and military drums subtly weave into the mix along with the rubbery bass that makes the cream of 70s powerpop such a delight. In the same vogue, ‘Going Home’ kicks off like Bram Tchaikovsky’s classic ‘Girl Of My Dreams’ and proceeds to nag the ears with delicious familiarity on first hearing, in a manner akin to the cream of Teenage Fanclub’s golden repertoire.
Maybe geography’s the key to the Wellgreen’s store. The charms Clydebank has to offer are a somewhat mixed bag, but it’s a significant step out of the urban jungle. Like those melodic sons of Largs, Gallacher and Lyle before them, maybe it’s the pleasures of the Clyde coast that so beautifully inform ‘Maybe It’s The Pressure Of The City’. As Marco & Stuart sing “Over the hills through the night to the sea” the music ascends and subtly suspends and relaxes here and there, sharing some quality time with a George Harrison guitar solo.
Every sound emanating from Rea’s studio in Clydebank, The Barne, is life-affirming, sending good air billowing through its dusty mellotrons and vintage sound paraphernalia. It’s hard to believe that the entire album wasn’t conceived, recorded and mixed in a Quaker clean, muesli-fuelled, log-walled cabin, near a crystal fountain, the clear country light illuminating the wonderful land outside. ‘Why Today’ and ‘Don’t Give My Number Away’ are soft-rock in its most organic form, while ‘Mr. No-One’ demonstrates a strutting confidence and a pumping bass underpinning climbing piano modulations, the like of which were probably illegal till the early 70s when the likes of The Raspberries expanded the post-psychedelic envelope and power pop came to be. The legacy of Badfinger is in good hands.
‘December Child’ makes it easy to imagine the snow softly falling outside as Rea and Kidd croon “Winter is ours just for today”. Romantic, yet never twee, even as the angelic chorus chimes in: “Snowflakes falling on the ground for you and me”. If Phil Spector had ever felt content with his lot and captured some angst-less bliss on Gold Star studio tape it would have sounded like this. Equally, Paul McCartney and Todd Rundgren could conceivably be the masters behind the fresh masters of ‘Sand’, ‘Secret Footprints’ and ‘Keeping Me Alive’, paeans to the twin utopias of love and the elements: “The sun is in the skies but it’s the warmth that’s in your eyes that’s keeping me alive.” ‘Looking Through The Window At The World’ reiterates the bliss: “It’s amazing just to be alive when the day’s so beautiful outside”. Its Beach Boys feel and gorgeous production compensate for a rare occasion when the words maybe err a little on the hippy dippy side. All is redeemed by an outro that could have been piloted in by Roger McGuinn from the great Notorious Byrd Brothers album.
While there are occasional deviations from the tone poem this record weaves so beautifully (‘Into The Red Light’ steps back the best part of a decade from a clear 70s country day to a frenetic city night club), each moment The Wellgreen choose to share with us holds its own on a plangent, almost perfect album.
isthismusic? December, 2010
Inspiration is a gossamer thing. Honing and recording it is hard graft. Consequently it’s very rarely that an artist’s recorded work breathes and exhales the fresh air and exuberance that inspired it. From the Smile-era Beach Boys choral harmonies of the opening title track to the closing, timeless ‘Circle’, The Wellgreen are so tuneful it’s swoonful.
Feel flows through the short, playful ‘Store Keys’ which sounds like Pink Floyd jamming with Ivor Cutler on harmonium and in the way the McCartney-esque ‘Happy Enough’ leads via effortlessly superb drumming into ‘Wellgreen’d’ (these boys’ points of reference extend far and wide and back home again). The drums are played by Stuart Kidd (sticksman to the likes of BMX Bandits and St Deluxe). Kidd and Marco Rea wrote, played and recorded everything on this tour de force. And, boy, can they sing. Vocally, the gentle melodic meditation ‘Forever And A Day’ (“Faraway couldn’t get much closer, close enough but still so far away”) is a killer. On an album where every single note is impeccably intoned the intertwining vocals of Rea and Kidd are especially sublime here. Marching beats and military drums subtly weave into the mix along with the rubbery bass that makes the cream of 70s powerpop such a delight. In the same vogue, ‘Going Home’ kicks off like Bram Tchaikovsky’s classic ‘Girl Of My Dreams’ and proceeds to nag the ears with delicious familiarity on first hearing, in a manner akin to the cream of Teenage Fanclub’s golden repertoire.
Maybe geography’s the key to the Wellgreen’s store. The charms Clydebank has to offer are a somewhat mixed bag, but it’s a significant step out of the urban jungle. Like those melodic sons of Largs, Gallacher and Lyle before them, maybe it’s the pleasures of the Clyde coast that so beautifully inform ‘Maybe It’s The Pressure Of The City’. As Marco & Stuart sing “Over the hills through the night to the sea” the music ascends and subtly suspends and relaxes here and there, sharing some quality time with a George Harrison guitar solo.
Every sound emanating from Rea’s studio in Clydebank, The Barne, is life-affirming, sending good air billowing through its dusty mellotrons and vintage sound paraphernalia. It’s hard to believe that the entire album wasn’t conceived, recorded and mixed in a Quaker clean, muesli-fuelled, log-walled cabin, near a crystal fountain, the clear country light illuminating the wonderful land outside. ‘Why Today’ and ‘Don’t Give My Number Away’ are soft-rock in its most organic form, while ‘Mr. No-One’ demonstrates a strutting confidence and a pumping bass underpinning climbing piano modulations, the like of which were probably illegal till the early 70s when the likes of The Raspberries expanded the post-psychedelic envelope and power pop came to be. The legacy of Badfinger is in good hands.
‘December Child’ makes it easy to imagine the snow softly falling outside as Rea and Kidd croon “Winter is ours just for today”. Romantic, yet never twee, even as the angelic chorus chimes in: “Snowflakes falling on the ground for you and me”. If Phil Spector had ever felt content with his lot and captured some angst-less bliss on Gold Star studio tape it would have sounded like this. Equally, Paul McCartney and Todd Rundgren could conceivably be the masters behind the fresh masters of ‘Sand’, ‘Secret Footprints’ and ‘Keeping Me Alive’, paeans to the twin utopias of love and the elements: “The sun is in the skies but it’s the warmth that’s in your eyes that’s keeping me alive.” ‘Looking Through The Window At The World’ reiterates the bliss: “It’s amazing just to be alive when the day’s so beautiful outside”. Its Beach Boys feel and gorgeous production compensate for a rare occasion when the words maybe err a little on the hippy dippy side. All is redeemed by an outro that could have been piloted in by Roger McGuinn from the great Notorious Byrd Brothers album.
While there are occasional deviations from the tone poem this record weaves so beautifully (‘Into The Red Light’ steps back the best part of a decade from a clear 70s country day to a frenetic city night club), each moment The Wellgreen choose to share with us holds its own on a plangent, almost perfect album.
isthismusic? December, 2010
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