Spygenius frontman and songwriter Peter Watts got his start in the 80s as the lead singer with the Murrumbidgee Whalers, whose jangle-pop classic "Giving Way to Trains" has recently been re-released on the Cherry Red C88 compilation. The 21st century saw the Watts moving on to create Spygenius, a classic British four piece pop-combo based in Canterbury and South London, who have built upon and extended that musical legacy. Ruth Rogers (bass), Matt Byrne (keys) and Alan Cannings (drums) complete the line-up - and everybody sings. Their music has echoes of all those classic 60s ‘B’ bands – Beatles, Byrds, Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield, Bonzos. But it equally resonates with college-radio darlings of later generations like XTC, The Smiths, Robyn Hitchcock, R.E.M. There’s a lot of musical bric-a-brac in there too – souvenirs from surf and psych, folk and exotica, lounge and blues, rock and roll. The songs are carefully crafted: memorable melodies, heavenly harmonies, gorgeous guitars, perfect percussion, bitchin’ bass and kinky keyboards abound.
Man On The Sea, the band's double-LP fifth album for 2020, is at once a summation and retrenching for the Spygenius. It follows the four albums the bad has released in the UK since their 2008 formation. Each has been noted for blending sophisticated melodies and harmonies with complex lyrics, as intelligent as they are emotionally charged: sometimes witty, sometimes painful, sometimes insightful, sometimes just nonsensical – always delightful and engaging. A US release of their previous album – the highly praised ‘Pacéphale – began the band's tenure on Big Stir Records, and was followed by a Digital Single release ("If You Go A-Roving"), all leading up the release of their double LP magnum opus Man On The Sea in 2020. For the last couple of years Spygenius have been working with the Burbank based Big Stir Collective, and have organized a number of Big Stir Britannia events in the UK. The band is also noted for their visual collaborations with artist and honorary fifth Spygenius, Champniss of London, which has resulted in a book and a number of animated music videos which perfectly encapsulate the surreal whimsy of their music.
The new double LP from SPYGENIUS in a lavishly illustrated gatefold package.
The new double-length album from SPYGENIUS in a lavishly illustrated single CD package,
TRACK LIST: 1. Shall I Show You in My Mirror? 2. Back Door Son of Man 3. Heathen 4. The Friendly Stars That Glow 5. (Rock and Roll Is An) Old Man's Game 6. Eucalyptus and Cigarettes 7. Get over Yourself! 8. You and Me and Jiminy C 9. Godfearing 10. S.O.B. 11. Solness 12. Ill Fitting Suit 13. And Her Snakes Were Decked with Smiles
Opus three from Spygenius HQ, and it’s “loads of fun for everyone” (Powerpopaholic). This disc offers a shedload of fan faves including ‘California Sunshine’ (which is about growing up in South London, bizarrely…), Autoclave (check out the cool animated video!) and the Spygenius version of the Murrumbidgee Whalers’ classic ‘Giving Way to Trains’.
The sophomore platter from Spygenius, which the guys at Not Lame described as “hypnotic, intoxicating and wonderfully disconnected … Very Highly Recommended”. They also said that “Spygenius come from a committed creative space few artists have the disposition, balls and gumption to explore”, which was nice of them! The album features frequent live set opener ‘Digdens Rise’, Spygenius signature pop tune, ‘The Girl Who’s Everywhere’, and the slightly bewildering ‘First Do No Harm’.
Songs From the Devil’s Typist: Spygenius’s debut offering, described by Powerpopaholic as “an outstanding album that is sure to hook you in and keep you humming”. Highlights include perennial live favourites/albatrosses (delete as required) ‘Pineapple Drive’ and ‘The Ballad of Dr T F Bundy and his Hirsute Sweetheart’, and (from the ridiculous to the sublime) the haunting ’13 Years (May Song)’.
Track List:
1) Spygenius, “If You Go A-Roving” 2) Joe Normal & the Anytown'rs, “Don't Hurt Me” 3) Clifford Ulrich, “I'm Going to Miss Her” 4) In Deed, “Don't Need, Don't Care” 5) The Kariannes, “This Song Is a Cure” 6) The Living Dolls, “Everything That Happened” 7) Charms Against the Evil Eye, “Where Are the Living?” 8) The Ex Teens, “Good News (For Shut-Ins)” 9) Popdudes, “Chains” 10) Kenny (Anton Barbeau), “My Adelphi Twin” 11) The Armoires, “(How Did You Make) A Mistake Like Me?” 12) Amoeba Teen, “Suit & Tie” 13) Spygenius, “Let Me In” 14) Joe Normal & the Anytown'rs, “Anytown” 15) Clifford Ulrich, “Like a River Glorious” 16) In Deed, “Marry Myself (Single Version)” 17) The Kariannes, “Every Word Means No” 18) The Living Dolls, “Happy Manors” 19) Charms Against the Evil Eye, “Oscar” 20) The Ex Teens, “The New Victorians” 21) Popdudes, “Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream?” 22) Giacomo & Carolina (Anton Barbeau), “Jah Rosie, The Dainty Beast” 23) The Armoires, “Not a Good Man” 24) Amoeba Teen, “Caught in the Middle”
BIG STIR SINGLES: THE SECOND WAVE continues Big Stir Records' ongoing CD collections of the A-sides and B-sides from the label's celebrated weekly Digital Singles Series. Featuring twelve pairs of tunes from the global pop scene (with the US, UK, and Sweden represented this time around) and liner notes from Goldmine Magazine's JOHN M. BORACK (author of the recent Shake Some Action 2.0 guidebook to the best in power pop from 1970-2017), the second compilation easily lives up to THE FIRST WAVE and is perhaps the best distillation yet of the “Big Stir Sound” and the community-building efforts of label founders Christina Bulbenko and Rex Broome. It's available now on CD and Digital Download.
As with the first collection, THE SECOND WAVE is anything but a garden variety “label sampler” (although this time around four artists from the BSR roster, including Bulbenko and Broome's own band THE ARMOIRES, do appear). Rather, these are artists from across the broader global pop scene literally bringing their A- (and B-) game with top flight offerings which have already received ample airplay and glowing reviews as they've been issued in the course of the series. It's once again a diary of several months in the life of the guitar-pop zeitgeist, covering January through April of 2019 and showcasing a bumper crop of brand-new and often exclusive tracks.
Opening with the characteristic sparkling jangle of Canterbury's SPYGENIUS, diving straight into the impassioned working man's rock of JOE NORMAL & THE ANYTOWN'RS and the Gene Clark-esque electric folk pop of ARMOIRES bassist CLIFFORD ULRICH, this new set plays like an alternate version of a Sunset Strip gig circa 1967 or a lost playlist from the heyday of '80s college rock. The soaring “Don't Need, Don't Care” from Sweden's IN DEED, the keenly awaited debut of the multinational super-girl-group THE KARIANNES, and Christina's Motown-flavored showcase on THE ARMOIRES' “(How Did You Make) A Mistake Like Me” reaffirm BSR's affinity for the undersung female heroes of power pop.
Psychedelia informs the excellent offerings from Oxford's CHARMS AGAINST THE EVIL EYE and ANTON BARBEAU (appearing here with obscuritanist aplomb under the guises of both KENNY and GIACOMO & CAROLINA. Mainstays of the LA guitar-pop scene THE EX TEENS and THE LIVING DOLLS bring some serious glam vibes to the party while liner notes scribe JOHN BORACK's own POPDUDES (here featuring Singles Series vets MICHAEL SIMMONS and ADDISON LOVE along with Love's father TIM) demonstrate what “retro-rock” really should be, and BSR's newest signings AMOEBA TEEN (of Stourbridge, England) lay into the Jam-like lead single from their new record as well as an exclusive B-side companion piece that's as essential as anything here.
The B-sides are in fact, as always, part of the charm: where else would BARBEAU offer up a synth-dub ode to his cat, or THE ARMOIRES deploy a Meat-Loaf-via-X duet, or ULRICH deliver an honest-to-God hymn with Byrdsy grace? It takes two sides to show off what these bands can do, as in THE KARIANNE's ace cover of LET'S ACTIVE's “Every Word Means No”, sung by KAREN BASSETT as the flip to MARYANNE WINDOW's original on the A, or THE LIVING DOLLS' Ray Davies-inspired shuffle “Happy Manors” as a counter to their hard-rocking lead track. SPYGENIUS get funky on the monstrous exclusive “Let Me In”, TIM LOVE's vocal on ROY ORBISON's “Dream Baby” is uncannily moving, and CHARMS' “Oscar” captures the eerie drive of Barrett-era Pink Floyd while JOE NORMAL meshes New Wave with Springsteen to rousing effect. In short, these are no castoffs or failed experiments... the B's are a quirky treasure trove in their own right.
The preceding volume BIG STIR SINGLES: THE FIRST WAVE (featuring SIMMONS, LOVE, KAI DANZBERG, KARLA KANE, PLASTICSOUL and more) is still available from the label's website, and the Digital Series is well into its third wave, starring PAULA CARINO, DAVID BROOKINGS, LA legends BLOW-UP and more; it'll be anthologized in the Fall of 2019 to complete the first trilogy of compilations.
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Canterbury, England's SPYGENIUS returns with a new double album, MAN ON THE SEA, to be released May 8 on Big Stir Records as a two-vinyl-LP gatefold set, double-length CD, and digital download. It's available for pre-order at www.bigstirrecords.com/store and at most online retailers now. Featuring 17 brand new tracks and lavish design work from the group's visual arts collaborator Joseph Champniss, the album showcases one of Britain's finest purveyors of literate psychedelic pop at the height of their melodic and genre-defying powers.
The ambitious new recording is at once sprawling and focused, dazzling and intimate, and continues exploring the themes of their previous album 'Pacéphale. The four sides are balanced between the intricate, sparkling, harmony-adorned jangle-pop for which the band is renowned and more contemplative explorations of loss and middle-aged regret, often expressed in the nautical imagery suggested by the collection's title. Befitting a band whose roots tap deeply into both the folk-psych sixties and the heyday of '80s college rock, Man On The Sea can be heard as Quadrophenia-by-way-of-Automatic For The People, with its stylistic diversions adding up to a questioning but ultimately exhilarating whole.
Man On The Sea is the fifth album from Spygenius, whose lineup – singer/guitarist/chief songwriter PETER WATTS, bassist/vocalist RUTH ROGERS, keyboardist/vocalist MATT BYRNE and drummer/vocalist ALAN CANNINGS – has developed an unmistakable vocal and instrumental chemistry since their 2008 debut and through near-constant gigging and touring in the UK and abroad. Their watershed 2017 album 'Pacéphale (released internationally by Big Stir Records) inaugurated the band's close partnership with visual artist and animator Champniss, whose strikingly whimsical videos and illustrations, combined with the record's sophisticated and beguiling songcraft, gained the band a wider global audience and set the stage for the new record's kaleidoscopic sweep.
Preceded by a trio of wry but musically exuberant singles – “Another True Story”, “If You Go A-Roving”, and the Rogers-penned-and-sung “Spite”, all bracingly immediate jangle-rock gems that received strong international airplay and reviews – Man On The Sea contains much that will scratch the same itch for expectant listeners. The lilting “Café Emery Hill”, the spritely-but-cautious “Salaud Days”, and the Beatles-esque “Watch Your Back” are all cut from the same cloth of catchy and very British pop perfection. They are, however, part of a deeper dive into troubled waters: the urgent drive of postpunk raveups like the R.E.M.-tinged “New Street”, the driving “In A Garden” and the genuinely harrowing “Don't Blame It On Your Mother” practically writhe with nervous energy.
The album's more reflective tunes likewise veer between the disquieting (the darkly humorous “Man Overboard” and the howling “Green Eyed Monster”) and the tentatively redemptive. The conciliatory likes of “Midnight Bandola” and the closing “Remember Me When I Was Good”, a pair of melancholy shuffles, offer the solace of a good drink with an old friend and a cautious celebration of “all the stuff that makes life worth the bother” respectively. Elsewhere jazz, dark folk, and delicately building psychedelia inform “Albion”, “Dolphinarium 1986” and “Windy” in turn, with all of them hinting at the yearning that's perhaps most palpable on the lush “Tomorrowland”: nostalgia for a future that never quite came to be.
That the seafaring voyage of Man On The Sea spans not only oceans, but decades as well, is no accident. “The Spygenius project has always been about not only writing new material, but also about realising quite a substantial back catalogue of tunes amassed over the years,” explains Watts. “I’ve actually found this quite fruitful artistically, because it creates a sort of de facto conversation between my older and younger selves, which is existentially revealing.”
It's thus that tunes dating back to Peter's early days in the appropriately-named Murrumbidgee Whalers (and songs ruminating on earlier times still) rub shoulders with the kind of arch commentary that could only reflect the grim realities of post-Brexit England, or the complicated grief of the passing of his mother on the closing “Remember Me”. “For me it’s almost era defining,” Watts offers. “Some of the songs were from before, everything else now on is from after, which is as yet largely uncharted waters… back to the ocean references.”
In its themes and by synthesizing the band's influences into a coherent amalgam of the exuberant, the urgent, and the bittersweet, Man On The Sea is at once a summation and a clearing of the deck for Spygenius. And as always, there's ample musical playfulness leavening the depths and darkness of the crossing. One can only marvel at the sturdiness and grace of the Good Ship Spygenius as she navigates these most treacherous of waters... long may she sail.
Expected release: May 8, 2020
The Lucky 13th BIG STIR DIGITAL SINGLE belongs to Big Stir Britannia's leading lights and one of our favo(u)rite bands anywhere, the one and only SPYGENIUS of Canterbury, England! Sporting brand new and characteristically brilliant cover art from their enigmatic visual collaborator CHAMPNISS OF LONDON, "If You Go A-Roving" b/w "Let Me In" will see release Friday, 19 January and is available now for preorder!
Shortly after unleashing their acclaimed fourth album ‘Pacéphale to an unsuspecting world, SPYGENIUS (Peter, Ruth, Alan and Matt, as ever) retired to their musical shed somewhere in the south east of England to begin work on the follow up, given the intriguing provisional title of ‘Spygenius Album #5’. These two tracks come from those still ongoing sessions. The A side – "If You Go A-Roving" – explores what happens if you stick a melody loosely influenced by English folk music on top of a jangle pop backing (and features on the latest International Pop Overthrow compilation). The B side – "Let Me In" – is a monster themed bit of funky old nonsense that the Spygeniants knocked together for Christina and Rex’s Hallowen Specials on their recently concluded radio programme, but hasn’t seen a formal release before. It was supposed to sound like the Hoodoo Gurus, but it doesn’t, really.
Definitely at the ‘and more’ end of the ‘power pop and more’ spectrum, Spygenius formed in the mid-2000s with the aim of writing, recording and performing original songs for as long as they could get away with it. Classic melodic pop is their baseline, but they are known for their cheeky eclecticism and will often embellish or deviate from their basic live line-up of guitar, bass, drums, keys and four vocals in their recordings. So, catchy tunes, lyrics to listen to, lush harmonies - think Beatles 66-68, think Byrds, think Buffalo Springfield and Bonzo Dog Band – but just as much think Squeeze, Elvis Costello, Robyn Hitchcock, Rain Parade, early R.E.M., and XTC (shhh, don’t tell Ruth!). Then stop thinking that and listen to the tracks instead.
As well as regular gigging around the UK, they are veterans of the International Pop Overthrow festivals - in Liverpool, London and occasionally Los Angeles – and for the last couple of years have taken a central role in organising the BIG STIR BRITANNIA events in Croydon the U.K. Spygenius Album #5 is slated for release later in 2019, on Big Stir Records – and in the meantime all four previous releases can be found on the Big Stir Records website alongside the new single.
