on sale mid-September
Sendelica
play
The United States Of America

7" - colour vinyl
Crustacean 54

Part of Fruits de Mer's '7 and 7 is' box-set, Sendelica reinterpret two tracks by The United States Of America, taken from their 1968 album on Columbia:

'Hard Coming Love'
'Love Song For The Dead Che'



ONLY AVAILABLE AS PART OF THE '7 and 7 is' BOX-SET - GO TO THE FdM SHOP TO PLACE AN ORDER

sendelica

I asked Pete Bingham from Sendelica why they chose the United States of America...

I LOVE THE ALMOST 'AMBIENT' TEXTURES OF SOME OF THE USofA RECORDINGS.... SOMETHING ETHEARAL ABOUT THEM.... LOST IN TIME, NOT OF ANY TIME..... WANTED TO BRING OUT THAT ASPECT OF THEM EVEN MORE IN OUR INTERPRETATION OF 'LOVE SONG FOR THE DEATH OF CHE'

A bit of background on Sendelica....

It's kind of ironic that the normally tranquil, lush hills of the welsh countryside has served as the home base for the mightily psychedelic / space rock sounds of Sendelica, a band that has been steadily gaining momentum throughout the world since their inception around late 2006. Centered largely around founding members Pete Bingham (guitars and electronics) Colin Consterdine (keys, electronics), and Glenda Pescado what initially grew out of informal jam sessions between them and a few friends has slowly over time seen the band expand and grow into an international collaborative collective taking on board musicians from both sides of the Atlantic and as far afield as Russia. With extensive touring taking in shows at Boston, New York, Providence Rhode Island, Helsinki, Riga, Moscow and St. Petersburg to name but a few of their legendary spaceship landings.

...and some background on the United States of America...

Formed in 1967 by Joseph Byrd, the band membership consisted of Joseph Byrd (electronic music, electric harpsichord, organ, calliope, piano, and Durrett Electronic Music Synthesizer); Dorothy Moskowitz (lead vocals); Gordon Marron (electric violin, ring modulator); Rand Forbes (an early adopter of the fretless electric bass), and Craig Woodson (drums and percussion). Ed Bogas also performed on the record with occasional organ, piano, and calliope; he became a full member of the band on its first and only tour.
Their eponymous album was recorded in December 1967, produced by David Rubinson for Columbia Records, and released in 1968. It was rereleased on CD by Sundazed Records in 2004 with various alternate takes, demos, and outtakes. Their sound blended a range of musical genres, including avant-garde, psychedelic, and art rock. One of the more notable points of the band was that it had no guitar player, which for its time was quite radical, as the electric guitar occupied a central position in rock music of the time. Instead, they used strings, keyboards and electronics, including primitive synthesizers, and various audio processors, including the ring modulator. The record was released in early 1968, at a time when there was a receptive audience for “underground music” which combined musical experimentalism with radical social and/or political lyrics – other examples, in their very different ways, including the Velvet Underground (who shared a common background in the New York experimental music scene; according to Moskowitz, Nico at one point tried to join the USA), Frank Zappa (whom Byrd considered a niche-marketer "subsumed in a self-referential loop", Love's Forever Changes, Country Joe and the Fish, and Jefferson Airplane. Whether intended or not, the record took the form of a coherent "song cycle", a radical commentary on contemporary American society. The words ranged from satires on decadence ("The American Metaphysical Circus", "..Wooden Wife..", (this title being a parody of the old music hall song, "I Wouldn't Leave My Little Wooden Hut for You" by Tom Mellor and Charles Collins) to lyrical expressions of longing (the pastoral "Cloud Song", the political "Love Song For The Dead Che"). Musically, the songs ranged from pseudo-classical elegance ("Stranded In Time", "Where Is Yesterday") to aggressive discordance and hard rock ("The Garden of Earthly Delights", "Hard Coming Love"), with heavy electronic distortion and collages of "found" music such as brass bands, Byrd being heavily influenced by Charles Ives. The final suite "The American Way of Love" integrates most of these elements, with a dreamlike ending containing a collage of earlier tracks.
Despite the widespread support of music critics, the album sold poorly and soon disappeared - at least in the USA, although in the UK it remained fondly remembered, in part because of one track ("Wooden Wife") being used on a popular CBS sampler album. The band's tour in support of the record led to difficulties of its own. Members of the band were arrested for drug possession, and they had a number of serious equipment failures - these and other tensions made Byrd increasingly difficult to work with, and the group largely unmanageable, and resulted in the band splitting up. Joseph Byrd went on to form Joe Byrd and the Field Hippies, who released an LP, The American Metaphysical Circus, in 1969. Byrd also released a number of additional recordings under his own name, as well as scoring a number of films, writing music for television, and working as a music producer.
(taken from Wikipedia)