A funny thing happened to English pop acts when they embraced LSD in the 1960s. Whereas the original Californian musical tripsters suddenly started emphasising the cosmic nature of reality – think of The Byrds’s beautiful ‘5D’ – the English discovered a weird pastoral idyll, a Looking Glass world of village life through the lens of psilocybin. From The Kinks – who, admittedly, were halfway there already – to Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd, whimsy and teapots and butterflies and bicycles were where it was at. In the 1980s, there was a strain of wilfully obscure indie that aimed again for this childlike rustic-psychedelic retro-vision – The TV Personalities, The Cleaners From Venus, The Chrysanthemums, The Deep Freeze Mice, groups with fanatical but utterly miniscule followings. Speedvark light out for similar territory.
Pete Flatt and Ben Raudnitz, middle-class commuter belt boys from the heartland of conservative Hertfordshire, formed as a metal band, hence the name, and were very much the talk of the town for about five minutes at the turn of the century. It didn’t happen, though, and this eponymous, small-scale release is only their second album – the comeback, as it were.
Upon occasion it borders on the twee, and it’s not one for those who like their music polished to a sheen. However, at its best, it’s likeably immediate and spirited, pleasing in an age when too many aspire to an opaque sonic sheen. The Spartan strum of “Would You Do That At Home” boasts the career end fragility of Syd Barrett’s last solo work, while elsewhere Speedvark dabble in frothy tropical pop on the lilting “Sweet Nothing”. The opening “Golden Myvanwe” and closing “April Ashby’s Brand New Start” set the agenda, more typical of the rest of the album, story songs that are part Small Faces and part Roy Harper. Speedvark plough this own furrow with aplomb, making music on their own tiny Chestnut label on limited release. Perhaps, they will garner a fanatic following of their own.
