Cranium Pie ‘baby you’re a rich man’ (fruits de mer). Typical isn’t – you hear nothing from one of your favourite labels for such a concerning age (that just between you and me we were seriously considering placing a lost and found ad in the Times as well as getting those fine guardians of criminal justice Crimewatch to conduct a missing persons spot) then along come six of the blighters all be-decked in flowery beads, tie dye flares and dizzy on the bleached concoction of one to many herbal cocktails and much merriment at gaily skipping around the village fayre maypole. First up (we are reckoning that the others will appear here and there like impish mystical hiding and seeking fairies at play during the course of this and no doubt next all singing, all jeering and all partying missive) are the quite frankly barking Cranium Pie. These mind fried love children of the 60’s sound hail from the West Country, well Bath to be precise, follow in the footsteps sound wise of Soft Hearted Scientists suffering from an Ozrics overdose, number in five and Julian, Rob, Tim, Dan and Steve are their names. There may or may not be an EP out and about worrying record world by the name of ’the Geometry of Thistles’ for which we have issued from our querying quill and well worded missive which goes ’give me the record or else’. other than that the information runs cold. Facial hair may be involved. Anyway they do a neat line in misty fairy folk fused with a wired and psych prog dusting. We think they are wizards. At the very they are possessed. Anyway this single follows the acclaimed footsteps left by the labels previous three releases – by Sway, Alison O’Donnell / Head South by Weaving and Schizo Fun Addict just in case you’d forgotten – the remit of these limited seven inch releases being that the invited artist covers a nugget hatched originally in the 60’s sends it sharpish by unicorn to the Fruits de Mer magic cottage who then weave said tokin tunes onto circles of coloured wax – this one apparently set upon ’money grass weed green vinyl. Cranium Pie choose as their favoured obsession the Beatles and the criminally overlooked Dantalian’s Chariot. Their instrumental take of ’baby you’re a rich man’ is dutifully dippy and kooky, draped as it is in all manner of Hammond key lilts, sounds well smoked and seductively soulful a bit like a fried and flirty Procol Harum blissing out with Booker T and the MG’s and the Graham Bond Quartet after a hard days shopping amid the fashionable boutique stalls of the periods hip and trendy Carnaby Street. That said it’s the flip that alone proves its weight in gold and worthy of the entrance fee on its own, a sterling cover of Dantalian’s Chariots legendary ’madman running through the fields’ – absolutely freakishly fried, replete with hallucinogenic mirages so vivid you literally get high just being in earshot of it, freebases on some weird and out of it proggy moments while nailed down with lashings upon lashings of mind expanding backward loops and has a tendency to go wonderfully wandering off at tangents while sounding to these ears not unlike a seriously caned Stanshall fronted Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. Priceless stuff , goes without saying ruddy essential. www.fruitsdemerrecords.com
first published – 20th July, 2009
the sunday experience 