I mentioned Sheffield based musical legend Jarrod Gosling (I Monster, Henry Fool, Skywatchers) in my post about the Awards Night, I thought having introduced him, it seemed only fair to give you my opinion on his new album. Jarrod, who has worked with such luminaries as the Human League and Moby as well as remixing artists like Pulp and Goldfrapp, has finally taken the plunge and released his first honest to goodness full on prog rock masterpiece. Anyone familiar with the fascinating work of I Monster, most well known for their top 20 single Daydream in Blue will know that as duo they are inventive, playful, and like to straddle as many genres as possible!
Recorded at Jarrod’s own Pig View studios in Sheffield, and with a stunningly striking cover and a dazzling array of instruments on offer this is an inventive and exciting album. Jarrod takes his musical playfulness and his ear for a melody and pushes the prog boundaries as far as they can go, basically because he can.
Aided and abetted by a crack musical team including Michael Somerset Ward on saxes, clarinets, flutes and whistles, Graeme McElearney on harp, Richard Bradley on EMS synths, vibraslap and flexitone, Jack Helliwell contributing violin, Nick Goblink on electric guitar, Lucy Fawcett on trumpet and vocalists Rebecca Allen, Kevin Pearce, Lucy Hope, Peter Rohope (also guitar), Emily Ireland and Tim Bowness (No-Man/Henry Fool) the display of talent and the musical dexterity on this album is quite frankly amazing.
With a great use of his antique mellotron throughout (no prog masterpiece is complete without a mellotron, it’s the law) and quirky titles, offbeat time signatures and a couple of complex musical suites reminiscent of that purple period in music from 1969 to 1972, where everybody played what the hell they liked, and it didn’t matter whether a rock track would go off into jazz, or the drums would kick in from nowhere, because it sounded good, it sounded right and it just worked. That is how Regal Worm sounds, from the fantastically offbeat sax driven jazz funk rock of Cherish that Rubber Rodent, which rattles along at a great old pace, with some fantastically spacy breaks, some spooky old synths, sinister vocals and a squeaky soft toy in the mix, it sounds like Crimson ’69 in parts, and it appears to be a paean to a squeaky rubber toy. The Mardi Gras Turned Ugly in Seconds is another funky number, which with its driving brass sounds has a touch of Bonzo Dog band about it, whilst the beats are timed to perfection, the psychedelic jazz mixed with the full rock sound works fantastically well together. Throughout the album you realise how deeply immersed in prog Gosling is, and how clever he is as an arranger, performer and songwriter.
With the psych folk of Apple Witch, which sounds like it fell off a Harvest sampler in the early 1970’s, we’re followed by the ritualistic chanting and keyboard rock of Morning Sentinel, which has an amazingly fuzzy guitar solo and is probably the closest Jarrod gets to traditional I Monster territory on here.
Then we’re into one of the suites of music that dominate the album the Twelve minutes plus Confessions From a Deep and Warm Hibernaculum, with some fantastic mellotron sounds, driving percussion and intense musical moments and some beautiful female vocals, it is an absolute delight, there is so much going on musically that it takes several listens to absorb and take it all in, even then you find yourself hearing different things every time you listen. It’s a musical gift that keeps on giving.
Mud is a brief, but wonderful interlude, with some great vocals and lyrics, before we’re into the even larger epic clocking in at over 25 minutes, we have 6:17 The Aunt turns into an Ant, an impressive musical suite that’s split into several sections.
The narrative of this is as the title suggests, about an Aunt whose turned into an Ant, with some suitably treated spoken word interludes, psychedelic soundscapes, the title is a fantastic display of the word play that is so apparent in Jarrod’s work. From jazz sax breaks and keyboard interplay, the distinctive sound of the Hammond sneaking in there, some fantastic fluid flute pieces and underpinning sections some funky drum and bass interplay, this is epic prog on a grand musical scale. Sounding sometimes like a lost 1970’s TV theme, and at other points like the scary, spacy music that the BBC Radiophonic workshop used to produce in the early ‘70’s for Doctor Who, and with some great musical interplay throughout, as keyboard, guitar, sax all vie for position in the forefront of the song, pushing the music, and themselves along. Explosions of sound, manic riffs, and big, big ideas fill this epic suite, which would traditionally have been the second sound of an album. If this were a record, then I could imagine listening to it in a darkened room on the headphones, getting lost into the musical soundscapes that Regal Worm create so effortlessly.
The closing Klara Till Slutet (Main title theme) sounds again like it could have been used on a soundtrack somewhere, with a great chunky drum beat, and some fantastic keyboard and vocal parts building up to a nice epic finish.
If you’d not guessed I absolutely adore this album, and its mad, intense, eclectic beauty. It could be the soundtrack to some crazy film no-ones made yet.
To summarise, Regal Worm is the kind of album that they don’t normally make anymore, bursting at the seams with ideas, sounds and some fantastic musical interplay throughout. Jarrod Gosling has always been a fascinating songwriting talent to listen to, as a listener you are never quite sure where he’s going to take you. But you know whatever musical journey he’s about to embark on, you sure as hell don’t want to miss the ride.
Progarchy 