Robyn Hitchcock
(Yep Roc)
Apparently, some crazy diamonds do shine on, if pop eccentric Robyn Hitchcock's long, strange trip from those first Soft Boys records to his latest efforts with the Venus 3 is any indication. Hitchcock's latest box set celebrates the early output of his first post-Soft Boys project, the Egyptians, which conveniently enough included two key members of the Soft Boys (Andy Metcalfe, Morris Windsor). It's a straight repackaging - with bonus tracks but sadly, no attempt to shed new light on what you're hearing - of his first three albums with the group (Fegmania!, the live and loopy Gotta Let This Hen Out! and the stunning, exclamation mark-deficient Element of Light) with two additional CDs of rarities and outtakes.
That makes this a treasure trove for fans of fractured psychedelic pop, beginning with Fegmania, whose highlights range from Hitchcock's cryptic Lewis Carroll-worthy portrait of what happens when a girl who loves Egyptian cream finds out she's pregnant (naturally, thousands of fingers grow out of the sands) to the oddly touching "My Wife & My Dead Wife," where he plays a man whose marriage suffers when he's haunted by his dead wife ("And I can't decide which one I love the most," he frets. "The flesh and blood or the pale, smiling ghost"). Bonus tracks include a strangely faithful cover of "The Bells of Rhymney" by the Byrds, the Beatlesque "Some Body" and an inessential instrumental version of another of the album's strongest song, "The Man With the Lightbulb Head."
The second disc is surprisingly solid for a live recording of a band that hadn't been together long enough to have a proper second album out. It starts off strong with a leering performance of "Sometimes I Wish I Was a Pretty Girl" and finds him reaching back for highlights of the Soft Boys years ("Kingdom of Love"). But for the second time that year, the strongest track is "My Wife & My Dead Wife."
Element of Light is probably the most consistently engaging album of the set, making the most of his Beatlesque pop sensibilities, from "If You Were A Priest" to the whimsical kinks - or is it Kinks-like whimsy? - of the endearingly playful "Ted, Woody and Junior" (who, we learn, "were disappointments to their father but they had a way with lather, and they covered each other in soap"). And this time out, the bonus tracks are often just as brilliant, from the driving psychedelia of "The Crawling" (in which Hitchcock memorably sneers, "You think you've got her and you're a lucky guy but can you hold a fish?") to a really strong contender for the greatest Nuggets knockoff ever, the spirited "Tell Me About You Drugs."
The two discs of outtakes and rarities, packaged together as Bad Case of History, may be spotty by nature, but they're well worth digging through to find the buried treasures, from the surprisingly jagged post-punk ode to dysfunctional families, "Hanging Out With Dad," to "The Wreck of the Arthur Lee," a heartfelt salute to the leader of Love.
Standout Tracks: "My Wife & My Dead Wife," "Ted, Woody and Junior" A. WATT
