The Strange Blue Dreams. Simple Machine. Holy Smokes Records

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Having survived the pandemic by hunkering down in one of their favourite spaces, The Twilight Zone, Glasgow’s Strange Blue Dreams emerge with a second album which is infused with glorious retro sounds and an unbridled sense of delight in being able to twang again. When Blabber’n’Smoke wrote about their first album we said that they celebrated “the worlds of Larry Parnes, Barry Gray and Joe Meek along with a touch of exotica garnered from the likes of Martin Denny along with Eastern and Balkan music” and it’s fair to say that on Simple Machine they remain true to that vision.

A five piece band, led by singer and chief songwriter David Addison, The Strange Blue Dreams swing, sashay and sway with some aplomb through the ten songs on display here. Kicking off with the title song which wanders in with an insouciant nonchalance, we are faced with a simple lamentation as sung by a hapless gizmo, the sort we were promised would serve all our needs by programmes like Tomorrow’s World back in the day – emphasized by the retro robot toy on the album artwork. Swathed in a retro blue velvet shimmer it’s a grand start to the disc. Strange Paradise takes this promised future to more exotic climes, a Tiki reminiscence of a holiday in Butlins perhaps, while For My Sins adds some eastern mystique to the mix with the song sounding as if it has been unearthed from a compilation of late sixties Turkish psychedelia. With some wicked and deliciously reverbed guitar twanging soaring throughout, it’s bound to become a favourite.

Whether crooning and then soaring into Tin Pan Alley territory as on the melodramatic It Sounded Like A Song or battering into big band sounds with the horn laden Wine And Circuses, time and again the band take time honoured song styles and sprinkle their unique take all over them. Gold In The Mountain is a wonderful blend of reverential Presley allied to a Staple Singers like vibe and the album closes with a sprinkle of stardust on the initially dream like Knock Three Times which rises to a wonderfully skewed crescendo, somewhat akin to a beauty queen wiping away her tears as she ascends to her throne. However, it’s not bathetic, instead, it shows that The Strange Blue Dreams have their finger on the pulse of the dynamics much loved by rock’n’roll pioneers of past times. Joe Meek would have loved this song and Gene Pitney could have sung it.

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Tenement & Temple. Tenement & Temple. Thrum Recordings

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a0680655913_16It’s been a while in the coming but this debut album from Tenement & Temple, the latest incarnation of Glasgow’s Monica Queen and Johnny Smillie, has been well worth the wait. Queen, in case anyone reading this doesn’t already know, has a voice to die for. There’s a compelling sense of innocence in her crystal clear delivery and it’s always tempting to describe her singing as angelic although she can belt out a rocker as evidenced on her and Smillie’s earlier recordings as Thrum. Smillie meanwhile, aside from being a superb guitarist, is a maestro in the studio as his lengthy list of production and arrangement credits will attest to.

While the pair have continued to buckle on the Les Paul’s and deliver the pulverising Crazy Horse like sturm und drang of Thrum on occasions,  it’s been the subtler (and quieter) acoustic duo format which has been the mainstay of their live appearances over the past few years. Blabber’n’Smoke witnessed an early incarnation when the pair opened for Steve Earle in what was the first of the Summer Nights shows in Kelvingrove around five years ago and then a proper Tenement & Temple gig at Perth’s Southern Fried Festival in 2016.  Superb as these shows were, they didn’t prepare one for the delights to be found within this disc.

Although it’s tempting to describe the album as mellow, there’s so much more to it than that. Gathering elements of country, classic sixties orchestral pop and swooning tin pan alley, it’s a gorgeous listen. Smillie keeps to acoustic guitar for the most part while Queen’s majestic vocals are occasionally enveloped in ethereal harmonies while the songs are wafted on a pillow of outstanding arrangements, some dreamlike, many evocative while remaining firmly within the Temple & Tenement universe, such is their unique calling card.

The album opens with the plaintive lament of Loving Arms with Queen summoning something of the spirit of the McGarrigle sisters over Smillie’s teardrop guitars. I Know adds some keening electric guitar to the mix as Queen’s spoken words counterpoint the angst fuelled desperation in her spiralling vocals on a song which comes across like an intense French torch song. Meanwhile, Your Sweet Face  is a hypnotic swirl of cartoon Disney like innocence replete with shimmering guitars and star spangled percussion and It’s Been A While Lord is a shimmering song of devotion. Smillie’s skills are all too evident on the short but effective 10 More Years which marries Nashville misery and French chanson alongside a whiff of lee Hazlewood while the excellent Ripa finds the duo in a Latin mood transporting the listener to sunnier climes.

They close the album with a magnificent triple whammy. One Room House is an archetypal tear jerker with Queen doing a Tammy Wynette like spoken word part as Smillie works his wonders on the arrangement which is quite sublime. Where The Wild Roses Grow allows Queen the opportunity to wallow magnificently in the depths of Appalachian doom and gloom before they close the disc on a collaboration with Glasgow’s Strange Blue Dreams on what is possibly the best ever rendition of Blue Moon that we have heard. Taking Presley’s version as a template they usher the song into a twilight zone of phantom guitars as Queen’s voice quivers oh so brilliantly. If David Lynch were to hear this, he’d probably have an orgasm.

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The Strange Blue Dreams. The Strange Blue Dreams. Holy Smokes Records

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a4106934099_16Back in March 2016 Blabber’n’Smoke raved slightly over an EP from The Strange Blue Dreams, a Glasgow based combo who played songs which seemed to have been gathered from some Twilight Zone littered with rock’n’roll relics. Unlike many retro rockers, The Strange Blue Dreams pilfered from the past with some finesse, their songs, written by their crooning front man, David Addison, celebrating the worlds of Larry Parnes, Barry Gray and Joe Meek while the band delivered dreamily reverbed swoons along with a touch of exotica garnered from the likes of Martin Denny along with Eastern and Balkan music.

This debut album truly fulfils the promise of the earlier EP as its eleven songs shimmer and shake like jelly on a bone. They delve into a truly strange universe on songs such as Electricity and (yes) Twilight Zone while others swing delightfully in a manner reminiscent of such luminaries as Dan Hicks and Leon Redbone. It’s a heady mixture but it all hangs together with some style and a magnificent sense of cool which just exudes from the speakers.

With a very brief sound effect of sparks fizzing from a plug the album soars into being with the scintillating romance of Electricity which speeds along with a hint of Mink Deville’s Spanish Stroll in the harmonies as the guitars clash and clatter wonderfully. Reverberatin’ Love follows and as we said when we first heard it, it’s reverb set to stun, attitude to cool. If anyone asks you to sum up the band just play them this one. Twilight Zone dials down the frenzy as Addison croons wonderfully while the band lay down a Hawaiian backdrop replete with some fine mandolin from David Rae, it sounds as if Ry Cooder was zoning in from another universe. The Ballad Of The Sun And The Moon features Addison at his best, his unhurried voice clear above some frenetic fretwork as he sings of a tale of cosmic rivalry. Staying with celestial bodies, Up To The Stars is the first song to feature the band’s Eastern sympathies as they break into a Klezmer like rhythm, a style they revisit on the frenetic closing song, Anyway, a song which is bound to have audiences on their feet in a live setting with its cinematic evocations of films as diverse as Fiddler On The Roof and Cabaret.

Jungle Drums is a wonderful melange of surf music and Cotton Club like tribal drumming as popularised in the forties by Duke Ellington and others and there’s a nod to Buddy Holly on Towards The Warm Place although it’s the Buddy Holly from Mars, not Lubbock, that the band resurrect here. Meanwhile Lyrebird has a touch of Dan Hicks’ Hot Licks around it as it skitters along with some brio while Pretending Everything follows in a similar manner with the melody and delivery filtered through a fine production which suggests that the song again belongs to another dimension, one where Van Dyke Parks collaborated with the Sopwith Camel instead of The Beach Boys. Finally there’s the icing on the cake which is (That’s The Place) I’m Falling. Here the band pull in influences from Flamenco and Mariachi, Morricone and Tom Waits for a truly dramatic number.

The Strange Blue Dreams release the album with a launch gig at Cottiers Theatre in Glasgow this Friday. In the meantime check out their video channel, Tuned To The Moon, for a fine peek into their  weird rock’n’roll universe.

 

The Strange Blue Dreams EP. Holy Smokes Records

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Glasgow audiences have always had a soft spot for some retro rock so it should be no surprise that there’s a buzz about The Strange Blue Dreams, a quintet who, judging by this debut EP, have been supping at the well of Sun Records with dollops of Gene Pitney, Chris Isaak, Richard Hawley and mondo surf movie soundtracks to follow. Released at the beginning of March the lead song on the EP, Reverberating Love, has been play listed on Radio Scotland, Vic Galloway and Roddy Hart are fans and the band were invited to play at the closing event of the Glasgow Film Festival, fitting perhaps as the video for Reverberating Love is a work of art in itself. The band plugging into an elegant yesteryear, the monochrome perfectly capturing a film noir effect, all Fritz Lang and Orson Welles, shadows and light and all.

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The band are not gung ho retro rockabilly fiends. There’s an element of sophistication in the songs, a skip that Orson Welles might not recognise in his role as Hank Quinlan in Touch Of Evil but would surely have relished as the twinkle eyed Harry Lime in The Third Man, dark but tantalising with an almost vaudevillian touch. This is most evident on Up To The Stars, the third song here, merrily dancing along with a Gypsy tipsiness, an Eastern romance with a circus touch, a kaleidoscopic merry go round.

The Sun And The Moon is another song with a skip in its step, its jauntiness a Richard Hawley like song with a big smile on its face, the guitars scooping up happiness as singer Dave Addison tells a tale of cosmic rivalry twixt the two orbs amidst some great whistling. Shadows and light again.

Reverberating Moon, the lead track, is the jewel in the crown here. Reverb set to stun, attitude to cool, they strut excellently through this vibrant slice of shimmying and shivering rock’n’roll recalling elements of Barry Gray’s theme song for Fireball XL5 and the work of Joe Meek.

The band are appearing at the Glasgow edition of Country To Country and will be playing the EP and other songs at Hereford (Mar 18), London (Mar 19) and Dundee (Apr 9).

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