Although initially afforded a certain amount of cred by dint of being key founder members of The Fall, Martin Bramah and Una Baines quickly proved that they weren't merely disposable bit-players in Mark.E.Smith's autocratic scheme when Rough Trade signed their new project The Blue Orchids early in 1980.
Now sensibly included in this expanded re-issue, both the band's crucial early singles "Disney Boys"/ "The Flood" and "Work"/ "The House That Faded Out" are included here and immediately show why t'Orchids were viewed as an equally vivid, exciting and surreal proposition as their initial employer.
Trebly, tentative and trippy, these early songs have come to define the 'Blue Orchids sound' - especially the weirdly catchy "Work", with those great Frankenstein keyboards from Baines and Bramah's lyrical questing ("we'll be the salmon swimming against the tide of life") considerably more spiritually obsessed than Mark.E would ever be. Don't forget The Fall were taking on the viscerally grimy dramas of the classic "Slates" during this particularly creative time.
Bramah's metaphysical pop bent would continue with The Blue Orchids' classic debut album, the sarcastically-titled "The Greatest Hit(Money Mountain)", recorded over a brief two-week spell in a Manchester 8-track studio in the spring of 1981. The studio may have been basic, but the band - also including bassist Rick Goldstraw and drummer Toby at this stage - were well-rehearsed and clicked beautifully to produce an album that's still haunting and full of presence two decades on.
Of the resulting ten tracks, nine are utterly excellent. The album opens with the mellifluous existantialism of the pretty "Sun Connection", with Bramah very much concerned with the plight of his soul ( lyrical examples: "hole in my pocket belongs to the State" and "Think I'll go out and buy myself a soul, the greatest hit in the world"). Like several of the ensuing tunes (not least the spacy "A Year With No Head" and "Low Profile"), the song exudes a strong lysergic undertow and a kind of proto-slacker ethos years ahead of its' time.
Elsewhere, Bramah and co. prove they're equally adept at producing enduring pop gems. Baines' delicious keyboards wrap "Wait" in honey, while with "Hanging Man" and "No Looking Back", Bramah's stinging, trebly guitar instils a disciplined funk and an attractive, dislocated feel. "Dumb Magician", meanwhile, shows they could do strident and urgent convincingly and the wry "Bad Education" still rings as true as ever.Indeed, Aztec Camera's Roddy Frame was rightly impressed enough to cover it on the B-side of AC's 1987 hit "Deep & Wide & Tall."
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Throw in Una Baines' wonkily insistent instrumental "Tighten My Belt" - where the band play with the clipped insistency of a zonked-out Manc Booker T - and you've got something heading towards true greatness. It's just a shame they blot their copybook by taking on WB Yeats' "Mad As The Mist And Snow" to close the album as it just sounds clumsy, overwrought and not at all in spirit with the rest of the record. Oh well.
Still, "The Greatest Hit" remains a fantastic album, and this new version is strengthened further by the inclusion of the 1982 "Agents Of Change" EP, which showcases a growing maturity and noir-ish minimalism seeping in; no doubt the influence of working as Nico's backing group on an ad hoc basis for a sizeable chunk of 1981. And talking of which, the album closes with a real treat: Nico's graceful, Martin Hannett-produced updating of Velvets' classic "All Tomorrow's Parties" featuring Toby and Rick Goldstraw from the Orchids. Hearing this makes you crave for the full-scale studio collaboration between Nico and the Orchids that sadly never was.
Nonetheless, having "The Greatest Hit" back and its' fragile mind once again happily intact is cause enough for celebration. And it gets better: there's a new Blue Orchids album due in 2004. Our cup runneth over and no mistake.
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