RICHARD FALK's REVIEWS

Ps-Py

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Psoas (USA): Blood Flow (Onoma NMA 70022, CD, 1996)
Folk/Rock/Progressive
Michelle Karcher (occasional vocals), Carol Peña (occasional vocals, percussion), Amy Lewis (flute)
The title might lead you to expect extreme metal or industrial music, but this is actually semi-acoustic folk/rock with lots of flute and a few vague hints of Jethro Tull. Lively and energetic yet laid-back and beatific, with some jazzy edges and mildly funky rhythms, their richly melodic music recalls the early seventies Canadian underground sound more than anything – and does it with aplomb. GRADE: B–.

Psychedelic Source (Hungary): Golden Age Of Glorious Jam Sessions (Psychedelic Source, download, 2020)

Psychedelic

Kriszti Benus (lead vocals)

The title makes this sound like a Five Fifteen album, but unlike Five Fifteen – and like everything else Kriszti Benus has recorded – this is full-blown psychedelia rather than old-school retro rock. Also like her best work, it's very good psychedelia indeed. GRADE: B–.

See also Bence Ambrus, Forrás Sessions, Lemurian Folk Songs, Paranormal Family, Pilot Voyager, Red Gem Space Funk, River Flows Reverse, Satorinaut, Sessions With Hisa Shiroma, Various 'Psychedelic Source – Finalizing 2020 Compilation'

Psychedelic Witchcraft (Italy): Black Magic Man (Taxi Driver, 10", green or white and green vinyl, some with art print, 2015)
Rock/Metal
Virginia Monti (lead vocals)
A marginal case for inclusion (being an EP rather than album), Black Magic Man offers four promising acidic hard rock songs. Avoiding the doom metal edges their name implies, Psychedelic Witchcraft offer atmospheric hard rock that sometimes hints towards a more psychedelic, underground early Heart. It’s good stuff, but it would also be good to hear them stretch out on some longer numbers. GRADE: C+.

Psychic Dose (USA): Early Demos (No label, download, 2014)
Metal
Amanda Howells
No prizes for guessing from the band name that this is doom metal with a mildly psychedelic edge, plus strong garage elements (partly due to these recordings’ demo status). Judging a band by its demos is usually unfair, but there’s plenty of promise here and this is pretty satisfying in its own right. GRADE: C+.
Psychic Dose (USA): Satyrnalia (No label, CDR, 2016)
Metal
Amanda Howells (principal vocals)
Their album proper offers a pleasing mix of doom, stoner and hard rock styles, with the whole thing having a definite seventies edge. This is pleasingly raw stuff, with strong garage edges, and could have some appeal for fans of the wildest side of acid-rock too. GRADE: C+.

Psychic Dose (USA): Mykviðr (No label, download, 2016)
Metal
Amanda Howells (principal vocals)
Whilst they’re fairly ambitious here – the closing jam extends to 14½ minutes – Psychic Dose’s punkish, garage take on doom metal is never going to win me over to the same extent as, say, Blood Ceremony or Windhand’s majestic take on the style. Nonetheless, this is good stuff: raw, powerful and assertive, and packed with powerful riffing. GRADE: C+.

Psychic Hit (USA): Promo 2018 (No label, cassette, 2018)
Rock/Metal/Progressive
Ariana Jade (lead vocals, synthesiser, violin), Andrea Genevieve (guitar, synthesiser), Melanie Burkett (guitar, bass)
This mostly female band’s demo EP offers unusual progressive hard rock with wild vocals and plenty of unexpected shifts of mood and tempo. Complex yet amateurish and sometimes quite bizarre, it melds all kinds of influences, and is extremely hard to define: a cross between Canadian experimental metal pioneers Trop Féross and Stevie Nicks is about as close as I can get. The end results are odd through and through and could sharply divide listeners’ opinions. GRADE: C+.
Psychic Hit (USA): Solutio (Seeing Red SRR067, gold or gold and black splatter vinyl, with insert, 2021)
Rock/Metal/Progressive
Ariana Jade (lead vocals, violin), Andrea Genevieve (guitar, synthesiser), Melanie Burkett (guitar, bass)
This is an odd as their demo – a truly peculiar melding of styles and influences – but it’s much more confident, if still a touch tentative with a playing time of under half an hour. But maybe half an hour is about right for music this wild, unpredictable and untutored, and this is certainly a memorable trip. GRADE: B–.

Pumpkin Pie (UK): Down The Cut With Pumpkin Pie (Saydisc SDL 272, 1976)
Folk
Norma King (joint lead vocals, guitar, accordion, recorder)
The subtitle ‘The Canal Age in song’ explains the concept behind this traditional folk album, which comes complete with a laminated cover mimicking a barge’s sign. With decidedly rustic vocals backed by acoustic guitar, bass and accordion plus occasional harmonium, melodeon, harmonica and recorder, it has a similar sound to bands like Vulcan’s Hammer and is a pleasant example of its genre. GRADE: C+.

Punch (USA): Punch (A&M SP 4307, 1971)
Pop
Kathy Ward (joint lead vocals), Dee Steele (joint lead vocals)
Bright and breezy harmony pop, with punchy production by Bones Howe and backing from top sessionmen like Hal Blaine, Joe Osborn and Larry Knechtel. Several tracks are self-penned, which is unusual for the genre, but the two best numbers are the Beatles covers: an eerie, baroque ‘Blackbird’ and a lively ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’. The band later changed its name to Sonoma and issued a second album in 1973. GRADE: C.
See also Sonoma

Punchin’ Judy (UK): Punchin’ Judy (Transatlantic TRA 272, 1973)
Rock
Barbara O’ Meara (principal vocals)
This competent hard rock album often sounds more American than British, bringing to mind female-fronted contemporaries like Brownstone, Coven and Kindred. There are also a few hints of contemporary Led Zeppelin at their most straightforward, as well as Stone The Crows, with Barbara O’ Meara’s vocals sometimes strongly resembling Maggie Bell’s. With a range of moods and styles, this is a solid and enjoyable disc but it lacks the great songwriting or original vision they would have needed to break through to the big time. As a surprising footnote, Fuchsia leader Tony Durant joined the band following the release of the LP. GRADE: C+.

Pupils & Staff Of Humphrey Perkins School, Leicester (UK): Resurgam (No label, 1975)
Folk/Rock
Jackie Brown (joint lead vocals), Anne Thursby (joint lead vocals), Rebecca Disney (joint lead vocals), Helen Gibson (backing vocals), Jenny Mitchell (backing vocals), Dawn Holt (backing vocals)
This rather amateurish school project album combines massed and solo vocals with backing from piano, drums and brass, with the whole thing having an obvious stage musical feel. Whilst not a particularly impressive example of its genre, it’s an evocative period piece and some of the solo pieces are pleasant enough. GRADE: C.
Pupils & Staff Of Humphrey Perkins School, Leicester (UK): The Song Of Nowayre (No label, 1976)
Folk/Rock
Candace Mort (joint lead vocals), Susan Widdowson (joint lead vocals), Francesca Shackel (joint lead vocals), Jackie Brown (joint lead vocals), Catherine Mee (backing vocals), Anne Harris (backing vocals), Shelley Green (backing vocals), Caroline Tyson (backing vocals), Helen Gibson (backing vocals)
The kids have learned a lot in a year, as this is significantly more enjoyable (and better recorded) than Resurgam. Full rock band backing is used in the middle of the first side, and the mood gets pretty heavy and even somewhat psychedelic. Elsewhere, extensive use of organ varies the mood and adds a welcome late sixties touch, and the music ebbs and flows with good use of dynamics. On the downside, the frequent loud applause and cheering is rather intrusive and some of the more comedic musical diversions are ill-judged, but there’s plenty to enjoy here. GRADE: C+.

Pupils Of Houghton Regis Upper School (UK): Eden (No label, with inserts, 1978)
Folk/Rock
Sharon Dempsey (joint lead vocals), Debbie Harrison (flute), Jackie Munn (clarinet), Pauline Woolley (clarinet), Linda North (oboe)
This secondary school concept album comes housed in an absolutely stunning laminated black-and-white sleeve depicting a serpent in paradise. Musically it’s par for the course, featuring full band backing with lots of woodwind; instrumentally there’s a strong resemblance to Jaffray’s The Seven-Sided Dice but the vocals are amateurish and rather hesitant. The inserts comprise two photocopied letters and a printed sticker. This is a very rare record, with just a handful of copies known. As a footnote, the album credits numerous female backing vocalists in addition to the musicians listed above. GRADE: C+.

Pure Love & Pleasure (USA): A Record Of Pure Love And Pleasure (Dunhill DS 50076, 1969)
Rock
Pegge Ann May (joint lead vocals)
Guitarist and bassist Bob Bohanna had previously been the leader of Morning Glory and, as on their sole album, he writes the vast bulk of the material here. The mood is very different, though, with a far less psychedelic feel and a more conventional late sixties rock style. The songs and vocal delivery are actually more pop than rock, but the backing is pretty heavy, with the stomping ‘Relax’ approaching proto-metal. It’s not the most revolutionary LP in the world, for sure – but for melodic West Coast rock with great guitar leads, this is a thoroughly appealing piece of work. GRADE: C+.

Pure Reason Revolution (UK): The Dark Third (Columbia 82876817842, CD, 2006)
Progressive
Chloë Alper (joint lead vocals, bass)
Essentially arranged as a continuous suite of music that ebbs and flows – simuiltaneously hypnotically repetitious and constantly varied – this is one of the most impressive progressive rock debut albums for many years. Their biggest influence is clearly Pink Floyd (most notably on the superb spacy opener ‘Aeropause’) but instead of offering a neoprog homage they cross the Dave Gilmour-esque ambience with modern progressive metal stylings and an epic, multilayered vocal sound that is uniquely their own. As a footnote, the American pressing (and the German issue eighteen months later, as a double CD) feature the tracklisting the band had first intended for the LP; their label forced them to change it since most of the original contents had already been released on singles and EPs. Notwithstanding that the German issue is the most comprehensive, I think Columbia got it right: the British version of The Dark Third is decidedly the best. GRADE: B.
Pure Reason Revolution (UK): Live At NEARfest 2007 (NEARfest NFR0010, CD, USA, 2008)
Progressive
Chloë Alper (occasional vocals, bass, keyboards)
This excellent live set unsurprisingly features most of The Dark Third, as well as a couple of more techno-styled numbers presaging their future direction. Some of the material sounds a little thin compared to the beautifully layered studio versions, but this is still a fine album and a worthwhile historical document. GRADE: B–.
Pure Reason Revolution (UK): Amor Vincit Omnia (Superball Music 28150 CD+DVD, CD plus DVD, with digipak and booklet,

Germany, 2009)

Rock/Techno
Chloë Alper
In a baffling change of direction, their second album fuses the vocal and compositional approach of its predecessor with simple, largely electronic backing drawing heavily on techno. Whereas The Dark Third is a work of amazing complexity, with interlinked songs that push in a variety of directions, this collection of short individual tracks sounds as though it took about as long to record as it does to play. The bonus DVD features live versions of five of the album’s tracks; the disc is crudely put together, with different visual formats for different songs, but the material works vastly better in a live setting with real drums. GRADE: C+.

Pure Reason Revolution (UK): Live At Italia Wave And Heitere Switzerland 2009 (No label, DVDR, 2009)
Techno/Progressive
Chloë Alper (occasional vocals, bass, keyboards)
Mixing material from their first and second albums, and mixing performances from two different shows (filmed with different aspect ratios), this is a fairly low-budget, but importantly both the filming and audio quality is impressively high. More importantly, the performances are excellent – although I clearly prefer their earlier material, I suspect I would have enjoyed both gigs from start to finish. GRADE: B–.
Pure Reason Revolution (UK): Hammer And Anvil (Superball Music 0504438, CD plus DVD, with digipak, booklet and insert, 2010)
Rock/Progressive/Metal
Chloë Alper (occasional vocals, bass, keyboards)
Their third is both a logical step forward from Amor Vincit Omnia and a partial change of direction. Once again, it blends prog and techno, but this time the musical base draws heavily from metal, with occasional punky touches thrown in. That’s for the first seven tracks: the eighth is pure techno, the ninth is a progressive instrumental and the closer is a ballad. Overall, this is mildly interesting and somewhat more enjoyable than its predecessor, but in restricting themselves to short, discrete pieces of music the band ignore their real strengths and fail to produce a worthy successor to The Dark Third. The bonus DVD is an enjoyable nine-song live set drawing on this album and its predecessor. GRADE: C+.

Pure Reason Revolution (UK): Live At Scala (No label, DVDR, 2010)
Techno/Metal/Progressive
Chloë Alper (occasional vocals, bass, keyboards)
This is another great gig, but whilst the staccato techno and borderline metal numbers – taken from their second and third albums – that make up the main set may be viscerally exciting live, they don’t have many hooks to hang your hat on. The three encores from The Dark Third – introduced by Chloë Alper as ‘golden oldies for Christmastime’ – are in a different league musically, and the band’s decision to save them until last suggests they know it too. GRADE: B–.

Pure Reason Revolution (UK): Eupnea (InsideOut Music 19439725051, double LP, some on blue vinyl, plus CD, with insert, Germany, 2020)
Progressive
Chloë Alper (joint lead vocals)
The Dark Third remains among the five most remarkable progressive albums of the current millennium: a majestic, constantly changing tapestry of songs that takes clear influences from Pink Floyd but weaves in all kinds of other elements from the Beach Boys to grunge. Yet Pure Reason Revolution’s career as a whole remains a colossal disappointment: two adequate follow-ups more influenced by techno than prog, then a decade of silence. Trumpeted as the logical follow-up to The Dark Third that their other two weren’t, Eupnea arrived as an album weighed down by heavy expectations. The good news is that this returns the band to the prog-influenced style of The Dark Third, with an elegant, atmospheric and thoroughly modern sound (despite the unpleasant thoroughly modern compressed mastering). The bad news is that this has none of The Dark Third’s gravitas or conceptual unity, and aside from the superb ‘Silent Genesis’ (wisely used as a trailer for the album) it doesn’t have any of its great hooks either. Thus, enjoyable as this is, Pure Reason Revolution remain unable to fulfil their early promise. GRADE: B–.

Pure Reason Revolution (UK): Above Cirrus (InsideOut 19439989401, LP plus CD, some on white, green or lilac vinyl, with insert, Germany, 2022)
Progressive/Metal
Chloë Alper (occasional vocals)
The good news is that, despite the band’s claim that this would sound more techno than Eupnea, it mostly resembles that album rather than Amor Vincit Omnia or Hammer And Anvil. The bad news is that there’s nothing here remotely as good as ‘Silent Genesis’, let alone The Dark Third. This is still a very good album, the soupy mix notwithstanding, showing the band starting to move in a progressive metal direction, but they’re going to have to manage something more substantial next time around if they’re to maintain my interest. GRADE: B–.

Pure Reason Revolution (UK): Coming Up To Consciousness (InsideOut Music IOM710, CD plus DVD, with digipak and booklet, 2024)

Progressive

Writing Pure Reason Revolution reviews is starting to feel like ‘Groundhog Day’, as most of comments from Eupnea and Above Cirrus remain. This makes it (just) over the line to B– as it’s atmospheric, Floydian and occasionally quite dynamic, not to mention heartfelt (unsurprisingly, since it’s a concept album about the death of Jon Courtney’s beloved dog). But their material isn’t as memorable as their sound, leaving The Dark Third and ‘Silent Genesis’ as landmark works I can’t imagine the band emulating any time soon. GRADE: B–.

Purple Algae (UK): Adrift On A Sea Of Sound (Poor Person Productions PPPR7, with booklet and insert, 1995)
Garage
June Player (lead vocals)
‘If the Purple Algae had been around in the heady days of the Haight-Ashbury scene, they would of [sic] without a doubt been regulars at the Fillmore West, playing alongside such now remembered groups like the Jefferson Airplane, Electric Flag, Quicksilver Messenger Service, HP Lovecraft and the Neighb’rhood Childr’n’ comments producer and label boss Dave Tor in the sleeve notes. However, whilst Purple Algae’s music bears a certain resemblance to a less bluesy Big Brother & The Holding Company, there’s also a lot of seventies punk in their sound, with particular hints of Poisongirls and early Patti Smith. Ultimately, their material and performances are pretty good, but the recording less so – it may seem perverse to complain about the sound quality of a garage-rock album, but a fuller, less shrill sound would have given their acid guitar attack a bit more heft. GRADE: C+.
Purple Algae (UK): Adrift On A Sea Of Sound Gig (Poor Person Productions, VHS, no artwork, 1997)
Garage/Psychedelic/Progressive
June Player (lead vocals)
Mixing material from the LP and covers (ranging from ‘White Rabbit’ and ‘Epitaph’ to ‘Venus In Furs’ and ‘Rocking In The Free World’), this live set sees the band stretching out nin a way they didn’t in the studio. Filmed in a local pub, it’s a fairly amateurish set (in terms of both the performance and the sound quality), but it was clearly a great gig: the band have a warm and inviting stage presence, and anyone liking acid-rock or garage rock will find plenty to enjoy here. GRADE: B–.
Purple Algae (UK): Adrift Live (Poor Person Productions, double CDR, 1997)
Garage/Psychedelic/Progressive
June Player (lead vocals)
Limited to two copies, this double album features audio from the entire Adrift On A Sea Of Sound Gig set plus four bonus songs from a different show. Despite the bootleg-like sound quality, the material impresses as much as it did on the video, whilst the bonus cuts (which sound slightly better) include a stunning extended version of Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick In The Wall (part two)’ and a nice interpretation of Hazel O’ Connor’s ‘Will You?’. GRADE: B–.
See also Euphoric Darkness, Fump, Mynd Muzic

Purple Image (USA): Purple Image (Map City MAP 3015, 1970)
Psychedelic
Diane Dunlap (joint lead vocals)
This is heavy fuzz psychedelia from a black band whose concerns are summed up in song titles such as ‘Living In The Ghetto’ and ‘We Got To Pull Together’. The album loses momentum a little in the middle with a catchy pop-ish number followed by a soulful ballad, but these provide some respite from the hard acid-rock that bookend them. When it’s on form, this is an impressive, if not hugely original, album – the band really knew how to jam, and frequently cut loose in no uncertain fashion. GRADE: C+.

Purple Smoke (USA): Vol 1 (Mark MC 1446, 1971?)
Lounge/Rock
Mikki (joint lead vocals, percussion)
This lounge rock album sells for big money, but for the most part it’s fairly tepid and unexciting. On the plus side, their version of ‘Black Magic Woman’ has sinuous guitar and organ work, whilst the closing eight-minute ‘Evil Ways’ contains some enjoyable jamming and a good drum solo. There’s also an attractive and rather psychedelic sleeve, which is appropriately purple. GRADE: C.

Purposeful Porpoise (USA): Purposeful Porpoise (No label, double CD, 2014)
Rock/Progressive
Ginny Luke (occasional vocals, violin)
It’s pretty unusual for a new band to debut with a double album including songs of up to 20 minutes, implying they wish to make a major artistic statement. Then again, Magenta did the same with their first LP, which went precisely nowhere, and though I prefer this the same could be said of Purposeful Porpoise. Leaving the rather silly science fiction concept aside, this is a collection of fairly straightforward soft rockers interspersed with a few harder rocking instrumental sections: pleasant and well-crafted but never particularly adventurous or memorable. The album was reissued the following year in the UK as The Water Games (Giant Electric Pera GEPCD1048), with a bonus track. GRADE: C+.

Purpura (Argentina): Purpura (Vertigo 812 040-1, 1983)
Rock/Metal
Leonor Marchesi (lead vocals)
This is a solid hard rock album, with very good singing and guitar work but not an especially memorable set of songs. It’s also far from varied, making for a listenable but rather uninspiring set. GRADE: C+.
Purpura (Argentina): Purpura II (Vertigo 818 825-1, 1984)
Rock/Metal
Leonor Marchesi (lead vocals)
Their second is rather heavier, with the emphasis more on the metal side of their repertoire. Like its predecessor, this isn’t terribly exciting or varied, but it’s solid enough eighties heavy rock with some good guitar leads. GRADE: C+.
See also Santa

Purson (UK): The Circle And The Blue Door (Rise Above RISECD162, CD, 2013)
Psychedelic/Progressive
Rosalie Cunningham (lead vocals, guitar, keyboards, percussion)
This album was released to considerable fanfare, and was described by the label as a cross between Pentagram and Pentangle. I can’t hear any influences from either band, and nor is this is the satanic metal album that the cover artwork implies. Instead it’s a collection of short, trippy songs with influences from both psychedelic and progressive rock, performed with plenty of Mellotron. Notably, on ‘Leaning On A Bear’, they sound like dead ringers for Julian’s Treatment, and the whole thing has a definite early seventies vibe. Despite the appealing sound and strong musicianship, the disc is a bit lacking in intensity and the songwriting is never especially memorable, so whilst there are definite hints of greatness this doesn’t live up to the hype. GRADE: C+.

Purson (UK): Desire’s Magic Theatre (Spinefarm 0602547714367, CD, with gatefold minisleeve and booklet, Holland, 2016)
Psychedelic/Progressive/Metal
Rosalie Cunningham (lead vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, percussion)
Everybody except me seemed to love Purson’s first album, so I wasn’t sure what to expect from their second. The most notable thing about is how strange it all is – Rosalie Cunningham’s theatrical songwriting style is quirky through and through, and the backing, which draws on everything from metal and glam-rock through to psychedelia and jazz, is equally strange. Like their debut, this doesn’t reflect any of the musical labels people have attached to them; unlike their debut, it’s a very interesting album that’s packed with constant surprises.

GRADE: B–.

PUS (Brazil): PUS (Maggot FUC 11, with insert and poster, 1985)
Metal
Simone Death (guitar)
This is a fairly early example of black metal, with stripped-down, guitar-dominated arrangements and a very understated feel. In small doses it’s quite enjoyable, but PUS were one-trick ponies and over the course of a whole album the endless repetitious riffing and silly death vocals become rather one-dimensional. Nonetheless, this is a bit above average for the genre, with some good moments (principally those without singing). GRADE: C.

Puzzle (Poland): Puzzle (Lynx Music LM97CD, CD, 2015)
Pop/Rock/Jazz/Soul/Progressive
Karolina Teernstra (lead vocals), Marta Mołodyńska (keyboards, backing vocals)
The sole instrumental ‘Jedna Z Dróg’ is nice enough and the front cover artwork is lovely, but that’s where my praise for Puzzle ends. Their slick synthesis of jazz, soul, pop and rock, with just a hint of modern RnB and borderline prog, all fronted by over-emoted vocals and wall-to-wall saxophone (not my favourite instrument, especially when used like this) may well have an audience, but I’m struggling to imagine who it might be. GRADE: C.

Puzzlepie (West Germany): Now (Majesty PP 001, 1989)
Progressive
Sibylle Karpati (lead vocals)
This unusual progressive album features three short songs followed by one of nine minutes and another of 22, with the latter taking up the whole of the second side. Side one, as nearly as I can describe it, sounds like a more theatrical twist on Renaissance circa Azure D’Or, with a singer who resembles Shirley Bassey on some of the high notes. Side two is better, also resembling a theatrical twist on Renaissance, but this time the mid-seventies incarnation. As a whole, this is an odd record indeed, with lyrics as strange as titles like ‘Moods Of A Guinness’ and ‘Twilight Spin’ suggest. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Sibylle Karpati’s main career was in classical music and chanson. GRADE: C.

Pyewackett (UK): Pyewackett (Dingle’s DIN 312, 1981)
Folk/Rock
Rosie Cross (joint lead vocals, tambourine, bassoon)
Unusually for a folk/rock band, all the guitar is acoustic, and it’s rarely used as a lead instrument – the focus here is on violin, keyboards, accordion and multiple woodwinds, creating lush, symphonic, almost chamber music settings for the traditional songs and instrumentals. Rosie Cross’s flawless vocals add the final ingredient, particularly on a spellbinding version of ‘Reynardine’ with a subtly psychedelic ambience. Not everything is perfect, with ‘Reynardine’ followed by the incongruous (though very well played) 1930s whimsy of ‘We Just Couldn’t Say Goodbye’ and ‘Aunt Hessy’s White Horse’, providing a bizarre end to the album, but for the most part this is stunning stuff. GRADE: B–.
Pyewackett (UK): The Man In The Moon Drinks Claret (Familiar FAM 43, 1983)
Folk/Rock
Rosie Cross (principal vocals, tambourine, dulcimer, bassoon)
More 1930s whimsy, early music with a progressive edge, acapella sections and modernistic folk/rock with funky bass and synthesisers – Pyewackett’s second album has it all. There’s plenty of fine music here, but unlike their first it’s not at all cohesive, with the band seeming unclear about the direction they wish to pursue. GRADE: C+.
Pyewackett (UK): 7 To Midnight (Familiar FAM 047, 1985)
Folk/Rock
Rosie Cross (lead vocals, dulcimer, bassoon)
The promo letter accompanying my copy announces that ‘Pyewackett has become famous for powerful and inventive playing of music from the past five centuries’. I’d question whether they were ever ‘famous’, but this is a solid enough album of folk dance instrumentals, prefaced by one nostalgic song. GRADE: C+.

Pyewackett (UK): This Crazy Paradise (Familiar FAM59(CD), CD, 1986)
Folk/Rock
Rosie Cross (lead vocals, dulcimer, bassoon)
Unlike its almost exclusively instrumental predecessor, the band’s final album is mostly song-based. It’s a bit different musically too, incorporating world music elements (hinting towards Jacqui McShee’s Pentangle) alongside early music instrumentals, contemporary covers and some 1920s nostalgia, with the whole thing sounding very modernistic due to the keyboards and drum machines. The results are interesting and sometimes excellent, but also quite incoherent, as that description suggests. The CD version, which is now very rare, includes an extra song and a longer mix of the opening number. GRADE: C+.
See also John Kirkpatrick, Rosie Cross, Georgina Le Faux, Michael Gregory, Jane Threlfall & Carl Hogsden

Pymlico (Norway): Meeting Point (Apollon ARP003CD, CD, 2016)

Progressive/Jazz/Rock

Marie Faerevaag (occasional vocals, piano, percussion, saxophone)

This album of jazzy prog (which never crosses over into being jazz/rock) offers eight elegant, carefully phrased instrumentals that are mellow and engaging, yet also a little too middle-of-the-road for their own good. Further, by focusing entirely on discrete tracks the band never really stretches out, resulting in an album that’s a little low on energy as well as inventiveness. As a footnote, they had previously released several albums as a one-man band or with an all-male line-up. GRADE: C+.

Pymlico (Norway): Nightscape (Apollon ARP015CD, CD, 2018)
Progressive/Jazz/Rock
Marie Faarevaag (occasional vocals, keyboards, saxophone)
This is somewhat livelier than its predecessor, and nicely varied too, but some of my reservations remain. Maybe it’s because of the lack of rough edges, though I suspect it has more to do with the band ending some of the tracks just as they’re catching fire. Another factor is the rather filmic nature of much of the music: this sounds like decent progressive rock, but ultimately it sounds more like above-average library music. GRADE: C+.