Orgone Box: Centaur (Sugarbush Records)
Tracks: 10, Label Website: www.sugarbushrecords.com
Once upon a time, way back when, there was a band called Orange whose 1994 single Judy Over the Rainbow routinely crops up as a stone soul lost classic of its time. The band was a vehicle for the songs of one Rick Corcoran, a son of Sheffield castaway in Bournemouth via London, and although its personnel had previously been incarnated as Green Tambourines, the songs that got them signed were all Rick on his own. Throw a major label A&R department, the post-Grunge/pre-Britpop/Cool Britannia brouhaha and major league producers including Gus Dudgeon and Dave Eringa into the mix and it was only going to end one way. Ugly.
But still there were these songs. Damned good ones at that.
By hook, crook and a crafty look they got heard by a tiny label in Japan, traced back to Rick via a slice of space age Orbison-esque falsetto dream pop he’d written called Find The One and an album was made, titled Confectionery and credited to The Orgone Box. That was 1996 and the few ears that were touched by its presence never forgot what they heard – psychedelic power pop with a peppermint twist, heavy on the upbeat, broadly optimistic with a well placed minor chord when the mood decreed it.
The record business being what it is though The Orgone Box sank without trace, only to be resurrected once more by another label and given an eponymous release in 2001. And that was that.
Until now…
Rick has re-recorded, re-dubbed and re-mastered the entire album, written a new song (the time slip reflection of Wethouse), reconnected with Tim and Tam from Green Tambourines, roped in Maria on backing vocals and called the record Centaur. Dropping the definite article, it is released as Orgone Box and is the definitive version of songs that are still far too good to go unheard. They have been brewing for 20 years, but the weird thing is the time involved seems irrelevant now. If anything, it has given us further perspective to realise that the ingredients for pop music greatness have remained pretty much unchanged for 50-odd years and these songs still have them in spades.
Judy Over the Rainbow is finally delivered as Rick first heard it – much less frantic than before, it allows the story to come to the fore and serves as a yardstick for the record as a whole. Guitar riffs chime, announcing vocal lines that stick in the mind, melodies that matter and lyrics that involve the listener in the tales that they tell.
As for influences, take your pick. Chances are you’ll hear nearly all of your favourite things in here if you want to – or none at all. Centaur sounds like everything and nothing, before or since. It is the product of a psychedelic mind and it’s bloody marvellous. BUY HERE!
Nick Churchill
Web Link:
www.nickchurchill.org.uk
