Rockbites: David Candy’s way-back machine

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David Candy’s way-back machine
25 July 2001

The English production team of Jeremy Butler and John Austin, who over the past three years have brought the pop music world some badly needed doses of Day-Glo happiness with their psychedelic projects Lollipop Train and Death By Chocolate, are back. This time ’round they give some time off to wondrous young vocalist Angela Faye Tillett (who breathes life into LT and DBC), and explore their sensitive, dark, and philosophical male side with the help of Make Up front man Ian Svenonius.
    The new album (released early June), titled Play Power and credited to the fictional David Candy, is a lovingly crafted simulation of ’60s underground rock—authentic from the period instruments, melodies, performance, and mixing styles down to the archaic quality of the vocal reverb, the uneven inter-track tape noise, and the sweetly ingenuous romanticism and existentialism of the lyrics. They got it so right it’s creepy.
    At the same time it’s hilariously funny in spots in a desert-dry, deadpan sort of way. This wasn’t immediately obvious and took me by surprise, but on retrospect is an ineluctable outcome of being faithful to the genre. Sixties underground rock, as a reflection of the day’s childlike idealism, was infused with a sincerity out of all proportion with its place in the world—which might be part of why it changed the world. But that purity of emotion presented behind glass, as it were, where things look real but you know they aren’t... well, it’s a just a bit over the top!
    Neither Svenonius nor the musicians break character for an instant. They don’t mock the genre—which would be far too easy and completely ineffective. They just get out of the way and let the music speak for itself. The result is a refreshing, familiar yet original blend of heartfelt hope, hilarity, wide-eyed mystical wonder, and cartoon love.
    The highly varied 40 minute, 7 track disc includes covers, such as Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil’s Listen To The Music (you might know them from You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling, covered by The Human League on their 1979 debut), as well as new songs written by Butler, Austin, and Svenonius. There are a couple of instrumentals and one 19 minute epic journey in eight parts titled Diary Of A Genius, alone easily worth the price of admission. Then there’s the spoken Redfuchsiatamborine&gravel, with flamenco backing; no doubt the most absurd piece of retro you will hear this year.
    If someone had handed me this album on vinyl with the sleeve a bit roughed up, and told me it was a godlike but virtually unknown San Francisco band from 1968, they might have had me going for a while. Take a trip back with David Candy. You’ll be glad you did. Four bites out of five.

Rockbites ratings  5: life changing, 4: stunning, 3: captivating, 2: amusing, 1: annoying.

| David Candy on Jetset Records | | Death By Chocolate review on Rockbites | | Make Up on K Records | | Make Up on Southern Records | | discography | | CD | | top of page |

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