It's a fun and accurate album title, Beautiful Debris, collecting the quite wonderful and indeed more often than not sweetly beautiful output of Blair 1523. The group only released an EP in its lifetime on a small English label; thankfully Spacemen 3/Spectrum mainman Sonic Boom heard it and was able to arrange for the release of Debris some time later. Compiling both the EP and unreleased tracks, it makes a solid case for Blair 1523 as underrated modern psych gods, mixing a fun kick-up-your-heels rave-up sense -- "Swell" is particularly great on this level -- with some drone feedback zone-outs to good effect. Lead singer Alan Duke has a fairly understated voice, but no more so than, say, Ian Brown and Tim Burgess, and unlike those others, Duke avoids whine in favor of pleasant wistfulness. The other key member of the sextet was Andrew Jenkins, whose organ work fills out the songs perfectly, and on songs like "On the Rise," which tackles Madchester neo-psych and beats most of its more well-known practitioners at its own game, takes everything to a truly groovy level. Everyone else is at the least competent enough and at the most darn sharp with what they did. Simon "Floyd" Harris' opening guitar on "The Psych One" sets the rhythm and drone mood well, for example, leading into Jenkins' soothing keyboard flow and Duke's echoed, sighing singing, with Harris then peeling off some fine drones and snarls as the trance-like mood continues along. Things go from very good to downright great at the end, with the blissy drive of "Violins," the tense build to full band explosion on "Pale," and the final fantastic jam on "Slyde." Track listing note -- the back cover lists only seven tracks while there are nine total; the first and last songs are the ones that have unknown names. ~ Ned Raggett, All Music Guide
Tracks
Track Title
Composers
Performers
Time
Fantasy of Folk
Blair 1523
Blair 1523
The Psych One
Blair 1523
Blair 1523
On the Rise
Blair 1523
Blair 1523
Swell
Blair 1523
Blair 1523
Violins
Blair 1523
Blair 1523
Pale
Blair 1523
Blair 1523
Slyde
Blair 1523
Blair 1523
Credits
George Harris (Harmonica), George Harris (Vocals), Andrew Jenkins (Organ), Blair 1523 (Producer), George Harris (Tambourine), Andrew Jenkins (Vocals)
