Art
Supernatural Fairy Tales

Among the rock bands of the first "psych-rock" wave from England, ART remain among my favorites, especially for being among the first to push the genre beyond electric blues and beat toward the horizon of certain (hard) experimentalism of the pop-rock to come, with many pleasing nods to the U.S. "acid scene" of the period. Speaking of their only album, "Supernatural Fairy Tales," I cannot help but mention both The VIPPs and Spooky Tooth. The core lineup, at least chronologically speaking, was the same, and I hope you’ll forgive the long-windedness, but the reviewed record, due to a temporal quark of less than a month, could have appeared as the first LP release of Spooky Tooth.

It all began in the fall of 1963 when in the town of Carlisle (UK), friends James Henshaw (piano), Frank Kenyon (guitar), Walter Johnstone (drums), Greg Ridley (bass), and Mike Harrison (vocals) formed an initially amateur band they wanted to call V.I.P.'s. By pure chance, they were noticed during an amateur concert by an RCA talent scout who convinced them to follow him to London. In the capital, they had the opportunity to showcase their visceral passion for music and why not, also their innate skills for their respective instruments, especially live but also in the recording studio, with a total of six singles released between 1964 and 1967. However, the genre proposed during this first phase remained a good imitation of what the Yardbirds were already doing. At the beginning of 1967, producer Guy Stevens noticed that the band's sound was gradually shifting towards something different, a strange combination of rough, very powerful sounds, mainly no longer linked to the "new white electric blues" but inclined towards modern soul and the acid rock of certain overseas psychedelia. This began the long collaboration with the renowned producer who proposed them to Island Records, which immediately released the last single under the name V.I.P.'s. Meanwhile, however, the lineup had undergone significant defections, and for the last live season with the original name, the group reassembled with Mike Harrison and Greg Ridley, the only survivors, and the addition of guitarist Luther Grosvenor, drummer Mike Kellie, and keyboardist Keith Emerson. A few months later, Emerson left to form the Nice, leaving the V.I.P.'s without a keyboardist at a crucial moment, that is, entering the recording studio for the production of a full-length album. Again, Stevens introduced them simultaneously into the artistic-musical circuit of the boutique Granny Takes A Trips, having them collaborate with the experimental Hapshash & The Coloured Coat for the creation of the album The Human Host & The Heavy Metal Kids. Additionally, during the aforementioned hallucinogenic meetings, he convinced the V.I.P.'s to change their name, as it seemed too tied to the past, urging them during recording sessions to dare and push well beyond.

By the end of 1967, ART's album was ready for distribution; however, the lineup once again changed its name following the arrival of keyboardist Gary Wright; from now on, they would be known as Spooky Tooth, one of the most creative English rock bands during the transitional period between the '60s and '70s. "Supernatural Fairy Tales," having been released in December '67, unfortunately, was overshadowed by the success of the first single Sunshine Help Me under the Spooky Tooth name, released in January '68, shortly followed by the album "It's All About" and the quintet, now caught in the swirl of unexpected success, neglected the launch of "Supernatural," as the same Island would indeed do. Thus, a remarkable masterpiece was overshadowed by events and a process of artistic growth which, while leading the Harrison-Ridley duo to maturity, lost a fundamental piece along the way. Analyzed as a transitional work between the naive prowess of the V.I.P.'s and the brilliance of Spooky Tooth, "Supernatural" reveals an essentially freak soul marking a point of no return even for Island itself, from this album on, the important major would indeed show increasing interest in the new youthful upheavals initially in the field of psychedelia and subsequently in progressive.

"Supernatural" opens with one of the last concessions to sounds coming from the English scene, the track "I Think I'm Going Weird", a clear and frenzied homage to the "mad world" of Arthur Brown and Vince Crane. Quite different is the obsessive "African Thing" with a frantic tribal interlude where drummer Mike Kellie’s talent finds free expression thanks to a long solo. Amid acidic and uncompromising moments ("Rome Take Away Three" and "Room With a View"), hard rock detonations close to the psychedelic evolution of Blue Cheer with some imperceptible cosmic organ insertions ("Brothers, Dads & Mothers" and "Supernatural Fairy Tales"), dark moments of apparent peace ("Love is Real"), astral situations linked to opiates (Flying Anchors) and brief passages clearly inspired by the Anglo-Saxon psychedelic ballad ("Alive Not Dead" and "Talking to Myself"), there even finds space a couple of covers: a success by Buffalo Springfield, an excellent adaptation of "What's That Sound", and a very fast-paced version now beyond any rock 'n' roll canon of "Come on Up" by Rascals.

As you will understand, the album is ultimately a multifaceted cauldron, a nuanced combination of various influences reworked by a lineup with all the credentials. Although these multifaceted properties flow smoothly from the first to the last song without moments of boredom and indeed capture anyone who seeks power, rhythm, and fresh ideas within a genre, English psychedelic rock, that had accustomed the average listener to overly composed structures. Definitely worth reevaluating for those few who haven't already done so.