FOURMYULA,Green B Holiday,'69 NZ LP freakbeat pop psych
A$
104
$
69
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Description
As good as the Fourmyula's debut album was, this second album, released only a few months later, is even better. Gone are the Northern Soul r&b standards that took up half of the debut, replaced by a full album's worth of perfect toytown popsike classics. This is a flawless gem, like the Small Faces "There Are But Four", the Kinks "Something Else" or the Who's "Sell Out". In fact, the Fourmyula's sound is SO British (unusual since so many Australian and New Zealand bands favored a bluesier or hard rock sound), you could say "Green B Holiday" plays like Blur's "Great Escape" or "Parklife" 30 years earlier. Playful Kinks sounds abound here - melodies that have more bounce than the trampoline room at the Playboy Mansion. Like the whimsical rhythm that powers "Bang on Harry", who won't mind if you do because he "never wears a frown" and "is never feeling down." You'll find this popsike classic on the recent "A Day In My Mind's Mind" NZ psych compilation. "Hampden Tennis Club" offers the same satirical look at class distinctions as vintage Kinks or certainly Blur, and rides along on a happy-go-lucky Small Faces vibe, the rhythm marked out by the sound of hits on a tennis racket. Little touches like that make this album such a delight. Check out the twisted munchkin voices at the end of "Mummy Told Me" which are either supposed to be little kids or furry woodland creatures...or the goofy "Yellow Submarine" background shouting going on in the middle of "Sally's Line". There's a real flair for UK toytown Kinks/Beatles whimsy on that one, with its locomotive sound effects, train conductor shouts and bouncy calliope organ. It's a mix of "Yellow Submarine" and the Monkees, who also sang about trains. "Sally's Line" should have been good enough to get the Fourmyula boys their own zany Saturday morning TV show. I would've watched. Elsewhere, the boys get up a good head of steam on "My Mamma George", a heavy slab of rippin' acid psych that sounds like Steppenwolf covering the Open Mind. And "Fun" is a nifty bit of crunchy stompin' freakbeat that swaggers like the Small Faces "Song of a Baker" and hits just as hard. Great stuff throughout here, even more remarkable when you consider they recorded this in only a few months. It's the band's toytown popsike masterpiece, and their hardest album to find. Those who've heard it treasure it. Now it's your turn. Original 1969 stereo pressing on the HMV/EMI New Zealand label (CSDM. 6296). Glorious psychedelic cover too in better than VG - it has a small surface tear top left, a taped over crack in the cover top left, and a couple of other small marks along the top seam; the spine is perfect as is most of the bottom seam; the back cover has a little aging and spotting. The vinyl is fabulous - a minimum of VG++, playing at NM - ... a few light hairlines and marks, nice and shiny and a very clean sound. A fine copy of very hard to find popsike gem.
