East
meets west, surf meets spice, everyone has a groovy time.
Currently a household
favourite round at mine is this limited 7” by Hove-based trio The
Space Agency. The A-side is a surfy, twelve bar instrumental made all
the more interesting and fun by the sitar lines that sit on top. You
could easily imagine it being used in a '60s American teensploitation
movie. I guess you could almost call it a novelty record (and that's
a compliment by the way, novelty records are a very misunderstood and
neglected genre I reckon).
Of course it was in the
'60s when a lot of western musicians flirted with the mysterious
drone and twang of the sitar, not least George Harrison. This 7”
has more in common with the work of Ananda Shankar and Lord Sitar
(aka top session man Big Jim Sullivan) than the full on immersion of
Beatle George, mixing beat music with raga scales to make music
that's kind of familiar yet takes you some place new too. It's beat
music with added exotic spice.
The singles' other
track 'Purple Power' is a more of a dramatic, energetic surf
instrumental that pushes all the right retro buttons. It'll have even
the most land-locked among us wanting to wax down our boards. Twang
on brothers and sisters!
'Bombay Potatoes' is
out now on Market Square Records. (Limited to 300 copies in a
hand-numbered picture sleeve).
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