Jah Wobble & Tian Qiyi - Mystic Liverpool: The Beatles' Psychedelic Songbook (Cherry Red)

Driving home the other day to the sound of Echo and the Bunnymen's remastered Ocean Rain, the mood was somewhat spoilt by the inclusion of the band's version of All You Need is Love among the additional tracks. Covering The Beatles, it struck me not for the first time, is generally not a good idea.

There are exceptions, though. I'd name The Breeders' version of Happiness is a Warm Gun as my favourite Beatles cover version. Still, it didn't prevent me from approaching this album with some apprehension. Jah Wobble's sons - who record collectively as Tian Qiyi - produced one of last year's best albums with their Songs For Workers, so it seemed only right to give this release, where they team up with dad to take on some of the fabs' more psychedelically-inclined outpourings - a chance. 

I'm glad I did. For me, there are few better examples of recorded music that Strawberry Fields

Forever, where of course Lennon ignored George Martin's scepticism to take the two arrangements they'd tried and put them together, producing one of the greatest moments of the sixties in the process. To my surprise and delight, Jah Wobble and Tian Qiyi manage to pull off a cover of said track brilliantly and without, you suspect, any of the original's studio sorcery, and it's this you can hear in my Dandelion Radio show this month (here).

Where the rest of the album works best is often in the more under-the-radar Beatles tunes (if there can be said to be such a thing). The treatment of Blue Jay Way is a particular delight, as is the instrumental Flying, both of course originally from the Magical Mystery Tour EP. My mumbled 'careful, boys' at the attempt at the EP's most notable track - I Am The Walrus - is thankfully ignored: this version is wonderfully understated. Much as I'm tempted to stick on a recording of King Lear while playing it, for posterity's sake, I'm happy to report that the recording works perfectly well without it.

Mystic Liverpool is out today: get it from Cherry Red here.

Vert:x/VX

Following yesterday's foray into the world of The Chasms, it seems appropriate to follow that with a journey into another fascinating world, that of their sometime collaborators Vert:x.Vert:x recorded four sessions for my show in 2010, 2018, 2019 and 2021 and VX, the solo offshoot of main man Neil Whitehead, have recorded two more and there was also a joint session with The Chasms in 2012.

Basically, listening to the show means Vert:x beoome difficult to avoid, and why would you want to? Like The Chasms, there's a krautrock foundation to what they do, sprinkled with lashings of psychedelic guitar and electronica, the latter very much the focus of the VX project. If you have somehow managed to miss them, their fascinating series of albums, including a couple of great collaborations with Pete Hope, can be found here. 

A couple of those sessions are available there too. 

If that's not enough - and why would it be? - you can get all the VX material on their bandcamp site.

In my Dandelion show this month, I'm featuring the extraordinary Full Fathom Five, from the 1947 album that was released on my Unwashed Territories label back in 2018. I only had time to play the radio edit in the show but you can still get hold of the full release here or at the Vert:x site, including the full 15.56 version which made the Festive Fifty that year.