ALL MIMSY WERE THE BOROGOVES

This album marks the starting point for Smell of Incense’ recording career as far as I know, although the band itself predates the record by anywhere from two to eight years depending on who’s counting and how liberally one frames the concept of a ‘band’.

Obviously this is a sixties psych-inspired album (a sixties psych-inspired band for that matter) as evidenced by their name, the album title (taken from the Jabberwocky poem in Lewis Carroll’s ‘Through the Looking-Glass’), and the record’s artwork. Other not-so-subtle clues (if you need them) are the heavy use of sitar and an early Pink Floyd cover.

That being established, this is (like their other full-length album ‘Through the Gates of Deeper Slumber’) a total blast to listen to. The band clearly had fun making it, and it shows in the energy applied to every track. Unlike their follow-on this album includes a handful of covers, but like their second release it also houses some literary tribute pieces that tend to reveal the group’s non-musical influences, as well as the contents of their bookshelves.

The opening carries on the theme of the album’s title with a tribute to Alice (of Carroll’s’ ‘in Wonderland’ variety). Lumpy Davy sounds just a little bit like Ray Davies here as he relates a snippet of this familiar tale amid an upbeat and melodic blend of guitar fuzz, organ, fairly simple percussion and faint mellotron strings. It’s a fun tune with a couple of interesting tempo changes in the second half, and a first introduction to the gorgeous throwback psych-folk voice of Bumble B. This isn’t quite what I would call exceptional for this band though, and I say that as a big fan. Having heard them produce much better, I would place “Alice” in the ‘still-evolving’ phase of the band’s history. Also, a mild distraction with this song is the bass line which sounds an awful lot like the one on the early 60’s Little Peggy March tune “I Will Follow Him”, although that may in fact be nothing more than the band trying to place the tune in a sixties context. In any case, both those things being said, this is a decent tune on an album that gets even better rather quickly.

The first time I heard “Faerie Emerald” I thought it was another of the band’s tributes to the late Cicely Mary Barker’s fantasy-world fairies. Turns out it is actually a take on a ‘famous’ Elizabethan poem by the 16th century laureate Edmund Spenser. I put quotes around ‘famous’ because I’ve never heard of him, and I suppose many non-British literature experts probably haven’t either. Anyway much more mellotron here, and especially strings and choir. The band uses the ‘tron choir sounds a fair bit throughout this album, as they did on the second record as well.

And speaking of Ray Davies, the first of three cover tunes comes with “Fancy”, a spaced-out version of the Kinks’ 1966 song “Fancy” from one of their lesser-known records ‘Face to Face’. Here the band turns what was originally about a 2-1/2 minute mildly Eastern-influenced ditty (there was some sitar in the Kinks’ original version), into a full-fledged psych-trance dirge. The bird sounds here would make another appearance on “A Word in Season” with their second album, and are as over-the-top here are there were there. But frankly I suspect most listeners will take to these guys well enough and, like me, will find such self-indulgence easy to forgive.

Next comes another song with a guitar lick that sounds familiar, “Christopher's Journey” with what comes off a bit like the famous riff from the Turtles “So Happy Together”. Again, I think the band may just be trying to date the music, and don’t care either way because it’s so fun to listen to. Here ‘Christopher’ refers to Christopher Robin, the perpetual pubertal lad from A.A. Milne's world of Winnie the Pooh. As the father of three young men who grew up on Winnie the Pooh stories, I have a hard time reconciling those memories and that context with a psychedelic rock album, but what the hell – I suppose hippies have childhood memories too, theirs are just a bit more twisted than normal.

In a take on the band’s name (which itself was lifted from a cover tune if I’m not mistaken), the band includes as the most lengthy track a cover of Pink Floyd’s “Interstellar Overdrive” under the title “(Smell of) Interstellar Overdrive”. I’ve only heard one other cover of this song, and that was from the post- punk band Camper Van Beethoven. I can’t quite decide which I like better; I’ve seen CvB do theirs live and it was excellent. But in both instances I think the covers easily do justice to the original. In this case the band lays on thick mellotron strings and woodwinds, a heavy and persistent organ track, loads of sound effects, sitar and heavy psych guitar; and at the forefront Bumble B. rests her voice but offers instead an eerie viola track that adds a different and intriguing dimension to this old and well-known song.

There’s one more cover, although the first time I heard it I didn’t quite catch this. “Witches Hat” comes from the Incredible String Band’s 1968 release ‘The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter’. I didn’t notice this at first mostly because Bumble B. adds her own spin with extended vocals and the band layers on keyboards and fuzz guitar in a way that ISB never really did. Overall though, I get the impression this is more of a tribute to that band then most of Smell’s covers, as opposed to them adopting it as their own.

Surprisingly the album ends on a bit of a downer with the Peter Hammill poem ‘Shrine’ set to music. There are a few situations that just about every person dreads the thought of occurring; waking up in a public place and realizing you are naked ranks right up there. Walking in on your parents ‘doing it’ is another, as is finding yourself cornered in a dark alley by an armed killer. Or finding your personal diaries from the puberty years published on a psychiatry research web site (okay, maybe that last one’s just me). Anyway, Hammill’s poem relates one of these sorts of stories, this of a guy looking forward after a long travel to surprising a lover, only - ooops…. no spoiler alert here. Look up the lyrics yourself, or pick up the album. Or I’m sure you can figure it out for yourself.

I also have to say that musically “Shrine” is the most mature of all the songs on the album, a serious progressive piece of art with plenty of attention paid to the instrumental breaks, the layering of keyboard sounds, and even Lumpy Davy’s vocals which sound a bit more like the Tanget’s Andy Tillison than they do Hammill’s. A great way to close an outstanding and entertaining album in any case.

Smell of Incense don’t really do anything original in their music, particularly if you only consider musical styles or innovative arrangements. But there are few bands that so completely embrace their musical heritage, or integrate it so wholly into their own sound. The Tangent is one of those bands; some say Marillion was another. Musically I wouldn’t put these guys into the same category as either of those two. But for a noteworthy commitment to immersion in what they do I would lift up Smell of Incense as a group whose music is well worth investing a bit of your time in. Four stars and my thanks to the band for an hour well-spent every time I play this album.

peace