Smell Of Incense (Norway) - 1994 - All Mimsy Were The Borogoves
Tracks : 1 Intro 2 Alice 3 Faerie Emerald 4 Fancy 5 Christopher's Journey 6 (The Smell Of) Interstellar Overdrive 7 Witch's Hat 8 Shrine 9 Outro
Bumble B. - viola, voc Ernie Chung - g, b, voc Han Solo - b, org, mell Cool Kat - dr Lumpy Davy - g, sitar, voc
Some info~from Planet Mellotron Until
I heard them, I was under the impression that The Smell of Incense were
'just another Scandinavian prog band'. Not a bit of it. They
mix'n'match influences from all over, but are most easily described as
'psychedelic', whatever you take that to mean. Some of the members had
known each other since the mid-'70s, unbelievably, and after putting
out various odd releases in the '80s as Famlende Forsøk, they put the
SoI together in the mid-'80s with a remit to be as 'psychedelic' as
possible, with the intention of recording an album of '60s psych
classics.
Somewhere along the line, however, they started
writing their own material, ending up with the compromise that is All
Mimsy Were the Borogoves (Lewis Carroll's 'Jabberwocky', of course). Of
the seven tracks on board, they ended up with three covers (The Kinks'
Fancy, The Incredible String Band's Witch's Hat and a heavily
customised version of Pink Floyd's Interstellar Overdrive), plus
another three where they put their music to someone else's lyrics
(Faerie Emerald, from Edmund Spenser's 'Faerie Queen', Christopher's
Journey from A.A.Milne's 'Winnie the Pooh' and a late-'60s Peter
Hammill poem, Shrine, previously not set to music).
The band
obviously refuse to use any equipment produced later than, say, 1972,
with the end result being a marvellously 'authentic' late-'60s album.
Well, nearly. Mellotron choirs didn't exist until 1972, but who's
arguing when they sound this good? Their only wholly 'in-house' number,
Alice, has some very background 'Tron strings, but the flute melody and
strings on Faerie Emerald are right at the front of the mix, with
background choirs. More choirs on Christopher's Journey and Shrine,
although Interstellar Overdrive is more of a trippy organ jam,
different enough from the original to justify the band's collective
co-writing credit. Incidentally, the 'Tron (it seems they own one) was
played by 'Han Solo', one of several nom-de-plumes used by the band,
for reasons best known to themselves.
The band have released a
handful of singles, in various formats, all of which consist of covers
of obscure psych classics. 1994 brought their version of the West Coast
Pop Art Experimental Band's The Smell of Incense (wondered where they'd
got their name), backed with HMS Bounty's A Visit With Ashiya ('67 and
'69 respectively). As I've heard neither track in its original version,
comparisons are not so much pointless as impossible, but they both
sound pretty damn' good here, with some 'Tron strings and a smattering
of choirs on the 'b'.
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