- Label: 'Think Like A Key Music'
- Genre: 'Seventies'
- Release Date: '24.4.26.'- Catalogue No: 'TLAK1233'
Our Rating:
This is the 55th Anniversary re-issue of Heavy Petting the second album by Irish Freak Folk band Dr Strangely Strange who came out of The Orphanage that also produced Phil Lynott and Gary Moore. This is one of 5 albums being re-issued today on April 24th to feature Gary Moore. The album was recorded and produced by Joe Boyd with assistance from Roger Mayer at Sound Techniques and at Eamonn Andrews studios at the four provinces ballroom in Dublin. Dr Strangely Strange were Tim Goulding, Ivan Pawle and Tim Booth who were joined by Dave Mattacks, Jay Myrdal, Johnny Moynihan, Gary Moore, Brendan The Brush Sheils, Neil Hopwood. The bonus material is alternate takes along with the bands BBC Top Gear and Sounds of The Seventies live at the Paris studios on Lower Regent Street. Along with the first official release of some songs recorded live at the legendary Les Cousins folk club
The album opens with Ballad Of The Wasps a folk psyche tale of things going wrong at lovers leap, with a love that apparently beats the band, keyboards sound more player piano or cimbalom than piano, while they all wake up thinking they are wasps, to say this is a bit weird is putting things mildly.
Summer Breeze isn't that Summer Breeze, but a freak folk song claiming that his new love won't control or console him, no matter how lost he is in winter. Gary Moore's guitar flourishes seem to signal some sort of resolution.
Kilmanoyadd Stomp is weird in an Incredible String Band kind of way, this is drenched in acid, across the frozen wastes to lust after your cousin too, with the harmonium adding an interesting twist as does the penny whistle solo.
I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes is a folk hymnal worshipping the natural world. Sign On My Mind has some gentle mandolin and the thoughts of what the signs they have seen might mean to them, in the acid influenced state they are functioning in, gently bucolic with a long winding guitar solo.
Gave My Love An Apple and apparently that was enough for his sweetheart to abandon him on this sad heartbroken folk rocker. Jove Was At Home apparently and in love with singing Hosanna In Excelsis.
When Adam Delved he could be found strumming an acoustic guitar and playing recorder, while sounding like he was deep in the woods.
Ashling is a questioning folk tale of the magical wizard like Ashling who has transfixed them from across the fields.
Mary Malone Of Moscow is about getting so high you wonder if you'll ever come down again, it has properly freaky, paranoid keyboard and weird lyrics, detailing how bizarre the hallucinations have become. It ends with a chant of I went so high I never came down again. The album originally closed with Goodnight My Friends with a similar feel to David Bowies Memories Of A Free Festival while taking them back to singing Gloria Hosannah in Excelsis.
The first of the bonus songs is Lady Of The Glen (single edit 1970 Mix) who may be someone they are in love with and she has affected them while they watch her in the glen. The first outtake Sweet Red Rape is not about horrific sex crimes, but about growing Rapeseed and their connection to godliness, how you should ignore manifestos and feed your canary with that Sweet Red Rape.
Good Evening Mr Woods it appears you are lost in space, on this gentle strummed acoustic folk song that may accuse Mr Woods of being some king or Wizzard performing a disappearing act. Horse of A Different Hue is the most rocking tune yet, this is part Graham Bond organ driven blues, part spoken word folk blues for turning water into wine, with great harmony backing vocals on a songs I feel like I've heard over the years played on the radio a proper Hippy anthem.
Cock A Doodle Doo is a very Mungo Jerry style folk blues with whistling for your one big chance at life. Lady Of The Glen (Full Version 2007 remix) feels fuller and very crisply told folk tale, recorders and mandolins taking us deep in the forest.
The Top Gear performance opens with John Peel introducing Jove Is At Home played as a string folk tale, that ends in their bands beloved Gloria Hosanna in Excelsis from the church as Peel puts it. The trio then perform Ashling like a medieval folk ballad, from the lady who wishes to spend sometimes with you from across the fields. The session ends with Mary Malone Of Moscow that has some organ psyched out, blues folk impressions, getting higher and higher as times get heavy again, freak folk banner flown high.
The Sounds Of The Seventies live from the Paris Studios on Lower Regent Street set opens with Frosty Mornings a chilly harmony folk tale of those cold times, with washboard percussion, skiffle folk excursion.
Horse With A Different Hue has a lovely loping beat and interesting vocal interchanges, accenting the different parts to where love has taken them, on a fast-riding intense guitar solo and piano breakdown into the gospel blues, turning water into wine once more. John Peel then tells a typically awful joke while introducing On The West Cork Hack about an incident with the police in West Cork, over church organ Farfisa style freakery, with vocal harmony conclusion to the tale.
John Peel then introduces the band and what they play and then the band introduce Ballad Of The Wasps about waking up by the banks of a river while tripping out, psychedelic folk choral freakery, thinking they can fly, no matter what the weather may be. John Peel then gives the disclaimer before Sweet Red Rape making clear it is bird seed rather than a communist takeover, the song has a good piano riff detailing the manifesto you should ignore, which is still solid advice, they take us down to Ballymullen and make some inquires for who will feed his canary when he's dead and gone.
We then go to the legendary Les Cousins folk club on Greek Street in Soho, for the official version of this much bootlegged show, opening with When Adam Delved and the patrons coughed along to the recorder and acoustic guitar, a cool intro to the set. On The West Coast Hack is a slow organ led take on the misadventures in west cork with that police Sargeant.
Ballad Of The Wasps uses its double entendres well, on a street with many a game to be played while out of your mind, the honkytonk breakdown is great fun, with harmonies leading into the part of the trip when they really fly high. The album concludes with Give Me An Apple (Take 1) that builds some nice swagger, almost Little feat style, but with folksy interludes and a very hot Gary Moore guitar solo this really cooks.
Find out more at https://www.thinklikeakey.com/format/1904102-heavy-petting-55th-anniversary-edition https://drstrangelystrange.bandcamp.com/album/heavy-petting-55th-anniversary-edition https://www.facebook.com/DrStrangelyStrange
