Two rather unsuccessful bands I discovered recently which I should have known before:

First the Blue Orchids from Manchester who formed in the early eighties. Una Baines, the keyboarder and Martin Bramah, the singer came from an early incarnation of The Fall. On their only longplay from the 80s, 1982's The Greatest Hit (Money Mountain) they did not sound as Mark E. Smith's seminal indie rock band at all if you listen to the two songs on their download page. A Year With No Head is more of a short psychedelic guitar hymn in the vein of The Doors. Bad Education is a gem of a pop ballad using the unforgettable line

The third downloadable song I can recommend to you is Wierd World where Bramah sings in a grave voice not quite unlike Peter Hammill. Lots of organ and a flair of gothic otherworldliness.

Apparently they toured a lot with Nico in the 80's which is not surprising given their dark atmospheric style.

They have a new record out called Mystic Bud (without Baines) of which I have heard good things though the available mp3 Black Peg's Son is not really my cup of tea.

The second band came from Glasgow and was simply called The Orchids. They were on the famous (long defunct) Sarah label whose catalogue is taken care of Shinkansen now (no Orchids rereleases yet). Sarah stood for twee pop which was made immortal by the Field Mice. I wrote about them before and called them the missing link between The Smiths and Belle and Sebastian. In retrospect I still think this description is ok but there definitely is a rather gradual but steep decline from the first to the last band in this trilogy. Anyways The Orchids were more adventurous than twee. They did jangle guitar pop, dancy tracks and also a song called Yawn which is a moody psychedelic seven minute piece with distorted guitars. You can download this trouvaille over at The Mystical Beast who has much more info on them and more mp3s (check also the two last posts).

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