Fuchsia - Fuchsia (1971/2003 24bit Remastered Edition)
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Album: Fuchsia - Fuchsia (24bit Remastered Edition)
Released: 1971 (2003)
Genre: Psych-Folk, Prog-Rock
Gnosis Rating: 10.64
Night Wings - NWRCD 02
Official release housed in an elegant digi pack reproducing the original artwork, informative booklet and remastered by Tony Durant himself. This 1971 UK progressive folk album has male and female vocals and features complex whimsical arrangements with cello and violins etc, this is a rare slice of progressive folk in a similar style to Principle Edwards Magic Theatre and Momus. Very cool. - Freak Emporium
Many English bands tried to blend folk music with progressive rock with various degrees of success. Most of these relied on old, traditional themes with elements of progressive rock being added to produce the desired effect. FUCHSIA is quite different as there are almost no traditional influences at all. Take a whimsical, eerie, gentle folk theme, with acoustic guitar and soft voices, both male a female, throw in cello, harpsichord, and then run it through a fiery electric guitar along with a solid rhythm section and you have FUCHSIA. The music is sublime, the melodies are gorgeous and the playing is top notch. There is something magical about the music; you could almost feel transported in medieval times, with knights in armors, and dragons and the inevitable beautiful princess dressed in a white gown and held captive, waiting for her savior. Their lyrics were inspired by the surrealist English artist MERVYN PEAKE, hence the whimsical, magical atmosphere the album exhales. Sheer Beauty! - Bogdan Corai, Gnosis Ratings
While I would not call this double trio group as revolutionary as KC’s incarnation during the 90’s, this group is made of the basic guitar trio and another trio of classical musicians interacting fully. The resulting music is not only charming but also quite interesting for progheads.
In 71, there were plenty of musical possibilities yet unexplored and Tony Durant thought about integrating the strings developing soothing rather between ELO’s first three album and JDDG’s superb, haunting spine-chilling Sun Symphonia. Rather closer to ELO’s sweeter sounds (circa Eldorado) than JDDG’s crazed sounds, the album is a pure pleasure for progheads enjoying string works that is precisely between ELO’s first three album and JDDG’s superb, haunting spine-chilling Sun Symphonia, the album is a pure pleasure for progheads enjoying string works. Although you can sense the inexperience of the group (only Durant had actually recorded before) and therefore an underlying naivete, the album operates full-charms out on the unsuspecting proghead, even though the album’s inventiveness might not appear at first listen.
Although you will probably their music very symphonic, the real feel pervading is a rather soft folk rock with intricate (almost medieval) string arrangements. From the opening Gone With The Mouse (in JDDG’s loft? ;-) and its marvellous naive pastoral feel, to the fabulous mini-epic A Tiny Book with its exuberant feel reminding the better ELO days, where the wise-at-first strings dare go in adventurous demoniac/fiendish grounds. The lyrics throughout the album are hardly innocent or hippy dippy rather concentrating on Mervin Peake’s oeuvre, but do not hold much wickedness, but the album is a must for anyone into Titus Groan.
Another Nail is one of two tracks that come from their Durant’s Louise days (the other being the sub-par Kite), but it is definitely the first inside the coffin of your sanity. Here the girl trio provide a hellish intro before the group takes over, but Bland’s harmonium keeps popping up and the girls come into the group to provide delicious licks on their strings and then outro the track as well.
The second side of the album starts softly on Shoes and Ship, with the whole thing definitely progressive but staying calm and featuring haunting cello drones (I was not sure I could place this line for 100 points ;-) on the closing section. When listening to the extensive mini-epic Nothing Song, one can wonder if Lynne and Wood had not laid their hands on a copy of this album. The album is not always even as there are tracks when the string section is used in a conservative manner: Kite and are hardly more than songs where a strings synths could suffice nowadays. However the closing Just anyone holds a tense suspense where the women are more discrete than on other parts of the album.
While it does not hold the insanity of Tea And Symphony, the pagan savagery of Comus and the extraordinary enthusiasm of Jan Dukes De Grey, this album is yet another just unearthed gems from the early 70’s, just waiting for progheads to stumble on it and carve out a 24-carat reputation. - Hugues Chantraine
I recently took a trip where I had a seven hour drive. Knowing I would need something interesting and novel to keep me alert, I picked up this reissue of some ancient prog/folk band I had never heard of, along with a couple of South American symphonic CDs to listen to along the way.
One of the other CDs was Crack’s album, which I enjoyed immensely. The other one never got played. I actually listened to this thing about five times in a row on the way to my meeting, and at least three more times on the way back. What a completely enjoyable album!
I have no idea what this band should be classified as. The first track starts off as sort of symphonic, but the strings are almost Baroque at times and lady singing ranges from near operatic to gothic. The acoustic guitar work is exquisite although quite simple, and Tony Durant’s singing reminds me a great deal of a number of early seventies British folk singers. Each track is elegant but not pompous, full of sounds but not haphazard. I have to believe these guys were mostly classically trained based on their precision and formal arrangements, but the feel of the album is one of young, creative artists of the very early seventies or even late sixties, which of course is exactly what they were.
The castanets on “Gone with the Mouse” contrast interestingly with the shrill cello and tinny harmonium. You don’t here those two instruments together, and the castanets make a trio that’s probably unique to this band. The violin passage that comes in at the end is achingly familiar, but perhaps that’s just a result of having heard this song so many times in the past few weeks. This is exactly what I always thought symphonic progressive music was supposed to sound like, although the rest of the album is much closer to a folk sound.
The acoustic guitar that opens “A Tiny Book” quickly gives way to a driving guitar/ tambourine/cello rhythm that is totally seductive, accompanied by harmonic backing (a couple of ladies with a guy who pipes in occasionally) and Durant’s vocals now sounding a bit like very early Moody Blues. A couple of tempo shifts give this one a bit a character, and the almost martial slow ending makes for an elegant closing.
“Another Nail” has a dissonant string opening that could have come from a Silver Mt Zion album just as easily, and this also gives way to a driving rhythm, this time acoustic guitars and a lively bass (perhaps upright, I actually can’t tell). The strings throughout this composition are lush and beautiful, not at all like the strident opening. Durant’s voice by now is almost driving me mad for its vague familiarity to someone else I can’t quite place. This is a ‘hug the sunshine’ kid of folksy number that also features some pleasing harmonium, and finishes with a catchy guitar riff that slowly fades to the same string discord that opened the song. Very well done.
The acoustic guitar continues on “Shoes and Ships”, and in fact this one sounds a lot like “A Tiny Book” but without the persistent guitars in the middle. The violins and cello are featured prominently with Durant’s simple vocals for a casual, almost ballad-like number.
The “Nothing Song” is announced as just that by the vocalist straight away amidst a formal string arrangement that reminds me a lot of very early ELO. This is the longest song on the album, but frankly there’s quite a bit of wandering around on guitar and meandering vocals that could have been firmed up a bit. But this was recorded in 1971, and things just didn’t move as quickly then, so one shouldn’t ask something to be what it is not, I suppose.
“Me and My Kite” could have easily been a Moodys song, a completely unaffected and simple ditty about a guy and his kite just meandering through the day without a care. I guess that thing I said about things moving a bit slower in 1971 was dead-on after all.
Finally comes “Just Another”, a pulsating guitar number with philosophical lyrics about the tranquility of personal observations of one’s surroundings despite the discord happening all around. Or something like that, not really sure to be honest, that’s my impression though. This one has more great acoustic guitar, but it a bit more aggressive than the rest of the album, and also includes some almost angry piano behind the thudding bass. Another fadeout ending, and I already want to play it again.
I don’t know what happened to these guys, but I hope they found other ways to express themselves throughout the rest of their lives. I suppose they could still be around, or at least some of them could be, although they’d be pretty old now. Too bad they didn’t put out more of this kind of music though. It’s really engaging, and makes for a nice drive through the countryside on a warm fall day. Highly recommended. - Bob Moore, ProgArchives.com
Not to be confused with the flower (fuschia), this group took its name from Mervin Peake’s book Titus Groan (just like the proto-prog group of the same name, Steerpike and Gormenghast) and was the project of Tony Durant. Having dabbled in the music business since 66 (he started with Henry Cow’s Chris Cutler in a band called Louise), but leaving it for a University spell, he started writing again eventually forming a trio with drummer Gregory and bassist Day. But Durant was interested in using and integrating string instrument in another fashion than using them as a string section for embellishment, so they joined forces with a truio of classical music student babes (what a coincidence, them being a trio too ;-). The project was contemporary of the start of ELO and Jan Dukes De Grey. The music developed then very charmingly as a folkish trio with extended strings arrangements integrated fully in their music.
The album was well received by the critics but insufficiently promoted, sank without a trace and the group did not manage to tour the university circuit to promote it either. The group disbanded a little later that year, but Durant revived it for further sessions in 75. The albums with all of those side-sessions got a release in 05. This historical album got a re-issue in the Cd format in 01 - ProgArchives.com
Fuchsia is one of those hard to judge albums on first hearing, but the more you listen to it the more it captivates, as it grows on you. As a consequence this LP has over the years become a must for any good collector of the genre, and has been given special attention and plaudits by the more discerning music critic and lover of '70's music.
FUCHSIA, according to Tony Durant
"I was born in London, Palmers Green, (a first generation post war baby boomer!) and moved to South Africa when I was 6 months old. My family returned to England when I was 10. Then boarding school, Dover College, a middling English public school. I started playing drums at school, then guitar when I left school, and during the '60's found myself caught up in the progressive psychedelic music thing. From 1966 to 1968 I played in a band called Louise in south London, with Robert Chudley and Chris Cutler (later with Henry Cow), doing some pretty weird 'stuff, original songs ("Another Nair resurfaced years later, while a recording of "Look at the Sun" could still exist somewhere!) and others with long free form sections in the middle...liquid light shows, all that kind of stuff.
With the end of the '60's, the band was going nowhere and I felt a need to do something quite different, so I went to Exeter University to escape music for a while. Two weeks into University, and I had started writing music again, this time for a night of poetry based around Ferlinghetti's poems, on Goya's pictures of the Napoleonic wars of all things, and with a general anti war theme. I advertised for players and found a London Cockney piano player (Mick McGee) and ex colonial Dave Haskins on drums. From memory the bass player could have been Mick Day. It was a good night, which had me totally hooked into music again.
Then I wrote and recorded some harder edged songs like "Ring of Red Roses", playing them at one of the Ottawa concerts in 1971, organised by Chris Cutler and featuring various luminary associates of his. I played this gig as a three piece with Chris Cutler on drums and Mick Day on bass.
About the same period, I formed the Fuchsia band with Michael Gregory and Mick Day. I wanted to experiment with writing songs not to the normal pop format, rather a series of musical themes, which start at a particular, point and move on, without necessarily following the normal classic pop song format. Also I wanted to experiment making string parts an integral part of the song itself, rather than something added to embellish the song once written (this was pre Electric Light Orchestra, remember), so we were soon joined by Madeleine Bland (Cello), Janet Rogers (Violin) and Vanessa Hall-Smith (Viola). Also students at Exeter, the girls were from a purely classical background and wanting to do something different.
It was a very adventurous project with great production difficulties in actually amplifying the strings for live performances, together with our relative lack of experience.
We played a few gigs at the university, and recorded two songs, "Ring of Red Roses" coupled with "Shoes & Ships", at a demo studio in Torquay. A good friend in the industry, Paul Conroy, passed the demo on to Terry King, who signed us up to his new Kingdom Records label, distributed through Chrysalis Records. I think Terry was as impressed by the radically different approach to the music as he was by the fact that there were three girls in the band!
We recorded the album in the early summer of '71 with David Hitchcock producing, and then went back to university, with the intention of doing a promotional tour for the album in the next holidays. The album was released with one ad in Melody Maker and some reviews in various papers, which were all very complimentory. That was the total extent of the promo it received. The proposed promotional tour disappointingly never eventuated, and after months in limbo, the project came to an end.... and a band that don't play together, don't stay together. We recorded another demo, ("The Band" and "Ragtime Brahms") but failed to capture a new record deal.
I continued to play with the drummer and bass player, eventually ending up in London and playing round there. The Fuchsia concept revived itself in 1975, when I wrote a series of songs for a theatre show based on Brecht 's Threepenny Opera, which to this day I feel was the best thing I ever did in terms of realising the true potential of the string trio/rock band ensemble. This was with various players from the London College of Music. There was some interest from Virgin records, but a miss is as good as a mile!!
The rest is history. I played with Punchin' Judy with Greg, Robin Langridge and Keith Grant-Evans, (a true legend-Downliners Sect) and am still in touch with Keith today. This blues based band had a deal with Transatlantic Records and an LP to promote, so we played mainly university venues in England, and toured Holland. I also played with a reggae band called Greyhound for a short time, no recording, but one great live performance for the Jimmy Saville Show in about 1975.
I came to Australia in 1978 for one 4-month tour and to produce one album for Dave Warner, a Perth punk musician. I had previously recorded some demos with him and another fellow in 1976. With its highly original 'Suburban Rock' theme, the album we recorded went gold, and we became a major cult act here for about 2 years, while I was commuting back and forth between London and Australia. In 1981, I eventually made the decision to live there for 2 years, which turned into 20 years in the blink of an eye.
Australia went well for me, playing, producing, jingles/advertising/film and doco music while in Perth Western Australia. I did a lot of stuff for Alan Bond for the successful 1983 Americas Cup Challenge. In the '90's I moved to Sydney with a band on the back of a publishing contract with Polygram, and continued playing for several years before striking out into the exciting world of video production. I now have my own production company, and I'm currently involved in a variety of projects from docos on the womens refuge movement to videos on the history of motor sport."
To complete the story above, we like to point out that the album was also issued (in 1972) in France too, this time by Kingdom label itself (cat. KV 6002).
As far as the other musicians mentioned above, as already said Chris Cutler joined Henry Cow in 1972, continued with Art Bears, Pere Ubu and is still involved today in countless musical projects. Michael Gregory, after some time spent in rock revival circuit, with Heinz, Jess Conrad, Big John's (Goodison) Rock'n'roll Circus, and with Greyhound as well, established himself as the "other" (besides Dave Mattacks and Gerry Conway, of course!) folk-rock drummer, playing with Ashley Hutchings, Shirley Collins, Albion Band, Home Service, Jay Turner, and today is gigging and recording with Rie Sanders and Vo Fletcher. Both Gregory and Durant collaborated also in Simon Boswell's The Mind Parasites (Transatlantic, 1976), an interesting Al Stewart-like project of this musician, nowadays best known for his soundtrack work. About Michael Day, we only found a participation in "Pale Horse", the only offer by Dave Carlsen (Spark, 1973). Vanessa Hall-Smith is today a lawyer specialised also in musical legal rights. David Hitchcock, besides Caravan, Camel, Genesis, Marillion, Pink Fairies, Curved Air, Nazareth, produced other less famous, but intriguing and now collectable, little bands like Mellow Candle, Aardvark, Jan Dukes De Gray, Walrus and Mother Nature. We also like to report that to Anne Marie Anderson, author of the enchanting cover portrait, we owe the beautiful artwork for Caravan's In The Land Of Grey And Pink too. Bob Chudley, at last, after having worked now and then with Cutler, continued to write songs without finding a publisher, giving up writing around '76 in coincidence with his marriage. Luckily, some of his songs were recorded with the help of Tony Durant and should be included in a forthcoming CD, which will also collect some very interesting unreleased Fuchsia demos and of course the Mahagonny tracks.
At last, we want to add that Fuchsia owed their name to the excellent Mervyn Peake's book Titus Groan. Other bands got their names off this highly recommended novel, in primis Titus Groan of course (whose lone album on Dawn label was mostly inspired by that book too, as stated by tracks like "Hall Of Bright Carvings", "The Burning" and a mispressed "Fuschia"). More obscure groups were Steerpike in 1969 and Gormenghast between 1969 and 1971; Al Stewart wrote his thanks to Peake in his 1970 "Zero She Flies" cover notes, Strawbs wrote "Lady Fuschia" (sigh!) in 1972, Third Ear Band recorded "Groan's Dance" for BBC in 1972 and Fruup had a track called "Gormenghast" in their last album, 1975. But we are sure there are many more, right? - Release Notes
Gone with the Mouse (05:01)
2 A Tiny Book (08:04)
3 Another Nail (06:56)
4 Shoes and Ships (06:11)
5 The Nothing Song (08:26)
6 Me and My Kite (02:32)
7 Just Anyone (03:35)
Tony Durant: acoustic guitar/electric guitar/lead vocals
Michael Day: bass guitar
Michael Gregory: drums and percussion
Janet Rogers: violin/backing vocals
Madeleine Bland: cello/piano/harmonium/backing vocals
Vanessa Hall-Smith: violin/backing vocals
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