Saturday, 4 November 2017

Yesterdays Dreams: Baker Street Philharmonic - Pye Special 1971

I've commented previously on the dangers of judging a record by its sleeve.* Whilst that still holds good as a rule of thumb, it doesn't take into account those situations where a record seems to go out of its way to set up an expectation for the casual buyer that they're almost encouraged to take on face value and in good faith? Like this one for example - what do we have here? A soft focus summer shot of a woman looking wistful in a field, a title (with no apostrophe) that screams 'nostalgia' and maybe 'regret' and the promise of a Philharmonic orchestra to deliver it. I know what I was expecting anyway, but then the music on this fails to live up to those expectations on almost every single level. 

For a start, despite that 'Philharmonic' credit, you can forget a full orchestra experience. Yes there are strings and stuff to found here, but no more than you'd find backing any contemporary pop or rock track. Rather, this presents a more straight ahead band affair with drums, guitars and bass. So I wasn't expecting that. Secondly, most of the tracks are presented with a split down the middle with the first half of them played as an organ led (pipe rather than Hammond) instrumental before changing gear at about the halfway point and becoming a full band and vocal version. The effect bad cop then even badder cop and is not unlike being slapped in the face just as you're dropping off to sleep.

Thirdly, despite the warm glow of that cover image and wistful title, there's nothing delicate about most of this. In fact, it's downright rowdy in parts with the biggest sucker punch surprise coming at the end of side one in the form of a version of The Rattles (German proto krautrockers) 1970 single 'The Witch' (misleadingly listed as 'Time Switch' on the back cover).  I mean, fair play, they go for it gangbusters with freaky fuzzbox guitar and Hammer horror screams but it's as relaxing as finding a spider in your bed. Just what the hell it's doing here is anyone's guess, but it's the wildest card in a fairly wild pack.

'Do You Know The Way To San Jose', 'Theme From Love Story', 'Here, There And Everywhere' - all fair enough in context I suppose, but a version of McCartney's 'Singalong Junk' seems bloody mindedly obscure for the sake of being bloody mindedly obscure, and 'Woodstock' and 'Theme From Who's Afraid Of Virginia Wolfe' aren't exactly easy listening staples either. Throw in two faceless Mike Vickers originals to close and you have a truly random bag of broken biscuits - tasteless, dry and well past their sell by date. Through all the time I spent listening to this I never knew quite where it was going and, when it ended, I didn't know where it had been. As I said at the start, it's not what I was expecting at all and I can't say the surprise was a pleasant one. Not at all.


* You can't really tell from the picture above, but that woman's dress is see through and she's not wearing a bra. The cynic in me sees this as a purposely pitched subliminal selling point designed to shift more copies of an album that would probably otherwise be nailed to the shelves, but then maybe I'm giving the people behind this a bit too much credit.

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