‘an ambitious and ornate work characterised by acoustic and orchestral arrangements. Very few acts end their careers with such a strong piece of work (The Beatles’ Abbey Road is one that springs to mind). And it is my contention that AV is XTC’s magnum opus.
Apple Venus (1999) by XTC
Try to describe XTC and you’re likely to use
terms such as ‘quintessentially
English’, ‘psychedelic’, ‘retro’, ‘arty’, ‘wordy’ and ‘quirky’. Their late-‘70s early work was punky,
spikey New Wave before settling into a more mature style of intelligent, tuneful,
well produced pop.
6 singles and 9 albums seems a rather mean Top 40
yield for such a well-respected band – especially considering that ‘Senses
Working Overtime’ (#10) from the English Settlement album (#5) were the only
times they ever reached UK Top 10. They never quite cracked the US Top 40 either -
furthermore, brilliant singles like the scathingly atheist ‘Dear God’ and the
dazzling pastorale of ‘Love On A Farmboy’s Wages’ barely grazed the charts. As
their leader Andy Partridge wryly reflected on ‘Mayor Of
Simpleton’, another fine single which duly puttered out at #46, he didn’t ‘know how to write a big hit song’
Given that their work was usually well-received, one
wondered why, in a recording career spanning over 20 years, there hadn’t been
more hits. Clearly, Partridge’s nervous breakdown and increased stage-fright, which
heralded the band’s withdrawal from touring in ’82, didn’t help, but my theory
is that they tended to repeat themselves too often and would have benefited
from pruning releases which were often effectively double-albums. Partridge’s
voice was distinctive, but lacked range and tended to become rather monotonous
when stretched out over too many songs similar in structure and tempo. In addition, like his
contemporary, Elvis Costello, he sometimes crammed too many words into his
lyrics, which led to a reduction in clarity and impact. The band’s cheerfully
unashamed tendency to wear their ‘60s influences on their sleeves may also have
put some listeners off.
 |
| The original XTC - L-R - Andy Partridge, Colin Moulding, Terry Chambers, Dave Gregory. |
This though, is to carp. XTC were quite simply one the
great British bands of their time - two of
the best actually, if we take into account their ‘60s-psych alter-egos The
Dukes Of Stratosphear (see Underrated Albums #). Most critics and fans seem to
regard the Todd Rundgren-produced Skylarking
(1986) and the sprawling, sporadic Oranges
& Lemons (1989) as their best albums,
although Nonsuch (1992), has
deservedly gathered a reputation in recent years. The most melodic set they
made on Virgin, it preceded a protracted dispute with the company and a seven
years hiatus before Apple Venus appeared
on their own Idea Records label
Originally conceived as a double with what became Wasp Star (2000), AV was XTC’s 13th and penultimate album release. The
electric guitar rock of WS (also
known as AV Vol.2) is a more
conventional XTC record, whereas AV
is an ambitious and ornate work characterised by acoustic and orchestral
arrangements. Very few acts end their careers with such a strong piece of work (The
Beatles’ Abbey Road is one that
springs to mind). And it is my contention that AV is XTC’s magnum opus.The title of the album relates to the famous C15th century painting by Botticelli The Birth Of Venus, but was also lifted by Partridge from a song on Nonsuch called ‘Then She Appeared’, a janglingly pretty exercise in imagery which begins ‘Then she appeared, apple Venus on a half-open shell’. The phrase, highly suggestive of pastoral freshness and sensuality, beauty and betrayal, is clearly illustrative of themes which will follow on the record.
By no means their only album to centre around pastoral themes, AV rises above the rest of their catalogue as a coherent and cohesive whole. Unlike so much of their work, there is little or no slack cut on this record. The first track, ‘River Of Orchids’ opens with plucked strings and a bowed bass which take up the sound of dripping water before tootling brass accompanies Partridge outlining a fantasy of ‘a river of orchids where we had a motorway’ and walking into London on his hands ‘smelling like a Peckham Rose’. The song’s eco-message of the grass being greener ‘when it bursts up through concrete’ with Partridge dreaming of ‘the car becoming a fossil’ harks back nostalgically to an C18th Peckham noted for its market gardens and William Blake seeing a vision of an angel in a tree. It’s an unusual curtain-raiser and it marches along in its own Mardi Gras fashion for close on 6 minutes without losing its charm.
A jaunty acoustic guitar carries ‘I’d Like That’, a
romantic ditty which name-checks Albert &Victoria; Hector &Helen Of
Troy and Nelson & Lady Hamilton, whilst Partridge aspires to cycle down the
lane in the rain, lay in front of the fire and float away in bed with the
object of his desire. With its backing harmonies, humming and general good
vibes, it recalls one of The Kinks’ sunnier afternoons.
‘Easter Theatre’ enacts the burgeoning of renewed life
in spring with fanfaring brass, throbbing bass, electric guitar and trumpet
solos and vocal harmonies. Partridge’s rite of spring is a joyously erotic affair
in which Easter makes her entrance ‘dressed in yellow yolk’ with a ‘rainbow
mouth’ and, ahem, ‘chocolate nipple brown’
as ‘flowers climb erect’ in a landscape that is generally bustin’ out
all over. ‘I’d Like That’ and ‘Easter Theatre’ were released as singles but
despite their tuneful upbeat positivity, both disappeared without trace
As punning titles go, ‘Knights In Shining Karma’ is
likely to make one either smile or wince – it might almost as well have been
called Nights In Shining Armour. The notions of karma and dharma – destiny and
oneness - are at the heart of a lullaby which conjures a nocturnal refuge
presided over by the guardian angel knights. Lyrically, it’s a vague piece of
whimsy – the ‘jealous winter sun cold as vichysoisse’ had me running to the
dictionary (well, clicking anyway) and returning doubtful that a cold
cream of vegetable soup was the most effective image, but the charming tune,
Beatlesque guitars and soothing vocal all work together in a pleasing whole.
Nevertheless, ‘Frivolous Tonight’ by Colin Moulding,
follows as something of a welcome return to solid earth, as is often the case
with contributions by the band’s bass player and second singer-songwriter. Albeit
responsible for hits like ‘Making Plans For Nigel’ and ‘Generals & Majors’,
Moulding was very much the major to Partridge’s general in XTC, usually
averaging about a couple of songs an album – as is the case here.
| And then there were three - L-R - Partridge, Moulding, Gregory. |
The mid-tempo tune, cheerfully plonked out on a
double-tracked bar-room piano, opens with ‘Let us talk about some trivial
things we like / A bit of this and that / Let’s chew the fat.’ Andy might be
tucked up in his bucolic bye-byes, but Col is down the pub in his Raelbrook
shirt, drinking stout, telling mother-in-law jokes (jumping to attention when
she actually appears), kicking out the boring git who insists on talking shop
and generally having a laugh with his mates and the girls. Moulding’s gentle
Wiltshire burr, bathed in occasional harmonies and warm horns makes for a good night out and the song is reminiscent of some of McCartney’s lighter moments
We can assume that these frivolities are taking place
in a village pub and the next track
takes us out to the green and back to the woods. ‘Greenman’ features
Partridge’s most economical lyric of the record so far, along with the first
conspicuous use of drums and a fuller orchestration with sweeping strings
dancing us round the maypole in a glorious celebration of paganism. The spirit
of the Green Man of ancient forest lore who, ‘for a million years…has been your
lover / Down through your skin to the core’, is summoned up in fine style,
ending with this image of heathen mischief: ‘See the Greenman blow his kiss
from high church wall / And unknowing church will amplify his call’.
With ‘Your Dictionary’, the benign mood of the album
takes a sudden twisted turn into what Partridge afterwards described as ‘a
childish tantrum of a song’. Well, given that this is one of rock’s great divorce
songs, he can be excused the unambiguously bitter, self-pitying tone of most of
the words and melody. To an acoustic guitar strummed hard, Partridge grinds out
the words: ‘H-A-T-E – is that how you spell me in your dictionary?’ And so it
goes on – ‘friend’ spelled ‘F-U-C-K’, ‘me’ spelled ‘S-H-I-T’ etc. alongside
other observations such as ‘Now that I can see it’s the queen’s new clothes, /
Now that I can hear all your poison prose.’
The verse and rhyme structure of this song is as
coldly precise as some of the earlier ones are warm and woolly. Halfway
through, the guitar is joined by piano and cellos in the bridge and the music,
if not the lyric, starts to thaw, hinting at a wiser, less wrenching attitude
waiting in the final verse.
‘Your Dictionary’ can be compared to two other fine
break-up songs: Elvis Costello’s ‘I Want You’ and Bob Dylan’s ‘Idiot Wind’.
Unlike the sustained and seething disgust for himself and his partner in the
Costello song, Partridge manages, like Dylan, in the end to temper his sulking,
suffering and spite. Whereas Dylan finally switches from the accusatory 2nd
person ‘you’ to the 3rd person plural ‘we’ to finally admit mutual
responsibility, Partridge moves from a minor to major key in a spirit of
reconciliation and moving on:
‘Now your
laughter has a hollow ring,
But the hollow ring has no finger in,
But the hollow ring has no finger in,
So let’s close the book and
let the day begin
And our marriage
be undone.’
Good humour is restored with Moulding’s other
inclusion, ‘Fruit Nut’, his hymn to pottering about in his garden shed, keeping
himself sane by growing fruit – although some see him as being ‘out of [his]
tree’ and ‘a strawberry fool’. A whistle and concertina with an occasional wash
of strings lead a Kinksy lollop, but it’s a slighter offering than ‘Frivolous
Tonight’, albeit one which has Moulding’s amiable vocal providing sweet relief
after the sourness of ‘Your Dictionary’. It’s the sort of tune your milkman
might have whistled back in the day (which is not to denigrate it in the
least).
‘I Can’t Own Her’ is next and it lifts us back up into
the clouds on an orchestral breeze to where Partridge’s fool on the hill,
adopting the persona of a rich man, reflects that money and status can’t buy
him love. Another very finely wrought song as solidly built as its theme is
airy, it features an exceptional vocal by Partridge - clear, controlled and
engaged with its confident, crafted lyric:-‘I own this river, I own this town -
All of its climbers and its winos sliding down,
But I can’t own her and I never will,
No, I can’t own her and that’s a bitter pill.’
By now, Partridge is on a roll, and the
penultimate track, ‘Harvest Festival’ may well be XTC’s finest moment. No
matter what your educational background, almost everyone in Britain will
remember the school harvest festival with fond waves of nostalgia and Partridge
connects eloquently with that universality, recollecting the common scene with
simple details of flowers round the altar, tinned fruit, hymn books and canvas
chairs and ‘children with baskets…their hair cut like corn, neatly combed in
their rows’.
| And then there were two - Moulding and Partridge |
Prefigured by the early image of the
‘chosen’ pair of children walking ‘hand in hand to the front of the hall’, we
become aware of the narrator as a boy catching the eye of the girl sat in
another row who was, perhaps, his first love. The ‘longing look’ she gave him
was ‘best of all’ (cleverly rhymed with festival) and ‘more than enough to keep
[him] fed all year’.
The song starts with piano and a clattering
of chairs as the assembly is seated. Partridge’s voice, suffused with the
bittersweet yearning of nostalgia, comes in to be joined by bass, cellos and
drums thumping like young hearts, then plaintive recorders – and if it hasn’t
grabbed you by this time, then you must be made of very stolid stuff indeed. We
then learn from the downbeat transition that ‘the exams and crops all failed’
- although the Apple Venus of Andy’s eye passed - never, it seemed, to be seen
again, thereby compounding the sting of the post-school reality-check.
But years later, after a fleeting return to
the addled cynicism of ‘Your Dictionary’, the ‘screwed and cut and nailed’
narrator receives ‘out of nowhere [an] invitation in gold pen’. Cue more
flowers round an altar and wishing the dream girl well - who still fondly
remembers that boy in the harvest hall - on the occasion of her marriage. A
beautiful song – and, frankly, if it seems too sentimental, you must have a
heart of stone.
With ‘The Last Balloon’, AV floats away into the ether – as,
indeed, did XTC (although Wasp Star,
recorded at the same sessions, would be released the following year). It’s a
low-key conclusion: a dream of escaping the nightmares of the real world at its
worst. After loading up ‘the balloon from fear’ with men and women – exhorted
in turn to leave behind their ‘bombs and knives’ and ‘gems and furs’ - the
children, embodying hopes for the future, climb aboard.
The rise of the balloon and Partridge’s voice
have been counterpointed between the verses by his dark commands to ‘Drop it
all’ - and it becomes clear that we’re not dealing with ‘Up, Up & Away’
here. The adults realise they’re ‘weighed down by [their] evil past’ and that
the balloon will never soar away with the children into a better future unless
they, the guilty adults, are ‘dropped like so much sand’. Guy Barker’s
flugelhorn, which has been hovering amidst the subtle strings and a guitar
treated to sound like an unearthly harpsichord, comes into its own with an
ambiguous jazz coda after echoing, muffled plunges evoke the jettisoning of
dead weight. Ending thus with bangs and a whimpering, it’s a somewhat disconsolate
and disturbing song to go out on.
Apple Venus thereby fades
away into a vacuum leaving listeners uncertain as to whether they should
feel uplifted or downcast at the end of an album that has ranged through
various moods, offering observations about landscape and love and broaching
serious questions about the world we live in and the ecological challenges it
faces. Although it provides no easy answers, it is a record full of warmth and
humanity, living up to the tagline on its cover: ‘Do what you will but harm
none’. It features some of Andy Partridge’s best songs and singing and is also
an object lesson in how to use an orchestra sensitively in rock and pop music.
The arrangements, by the way, are all by Gavin Wright of The London Sessions
Orchestra, although none other than Mike Batt worked on ‘Greenman’ and ‘I Can’t
Own Her’.
A little sadly, XTC had been
fragmenting for a long time, - with them using one session drummer after
another and losing keyboardist Dave Gregory, who actually left during the AV sessions - and they finally called it a day a
few years later. Apart from a lone solo album released in 1980, Partridge seems
in no hurry to make another and contents himself with a cottage industry
gathering XTC demo’s and rarities on his own Ape House label. Moulding has been
seldom heard of in the C21st and there is a
strong sense of the band having run its natural course. They left behind them a
fine body of work, of which AV is the
fulfilment and culmination of their best efforts.
(IGR 2015)
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