A Penny Change From Two Pound Coins: Emily and Pacific

Ah, I well remember buying Creation’s “Doing It For The Kids” compilation LP: and the fact that as a schoolboy, the £1.99 price tag (as the sticker says, "for the price of a 7” single”) was absolutely crucial, as I could only sate my appetite for new records by sticking strictly to discounts.

For me and a few of my mates the record opened a door into the label roster (this was Creation phase two, post-Pastels though with a few other fanzine favourites, like the Jasmine Minks and Primal Scream, still hanging on for dear life). But while my friends clustered around the heavy hitters of the House of Love or My Bloody Valentine, I couldn't help but be intrigued by some of the other artists then on board Alan McGee’s good ship. These included the ‘house band’, Biff Bang Pow! - whose “She Paints” here began a slow burning journey of discovering their (somewhat patchy, but at their best incredibly under-rated) discography - and of course the Razorcuts, a band we've always loved, and who scenesters oft forget managed two-long players for the self-styled “President” after being poached from the Subway Organization. The irascible Ron Rom, when reviewing this comp for Sounds, spent much of his word count rubbishing the Razors’ contribution (the admittedly uber-effete “Brighter Now”), which could perhaps have been better deployed bigging up other bands who needed attention.

I seemed to be the only boy in town who liked Emily’s contribution, “Reflect On Rye”. The vocal was moody and lugubrious, almost comically so, although joining the dots I realised this was the same band whose “The Old Stone Bridge” flexi I’d once borrowed from a classmate and committed to C90. But this time, I felt I detected first glimmerings of magic; this two minutes & ten seconds of sheer yearning, underpinned by a breezy, organic guitar strum, fitted perfectly with my teenage sense of outsiderness.

In the months that followed, when we should probably have been revising or something, we discovered a little more about Emily (remember, these were pre-internet days). The LP only gave the songwriting credit to one Oliver Jackson. We found out they were Welsh, and had once been called See Emily Play. It also transpired that the song was taken from a 12” EP on Creation called “Irony”, which also included a re-recorded version of “Old Stone Bridge”. But once we tracked down “Irony” the standout song for me was “Mad Dogs” which, unlike those, was uptempo and bright, a song that I think indie kids would have gone ga-ga for had Guy Chadwick penned it; and that deep, sonorous voice worked wonders for me again. I read now that “Mad Dogs” is seen as badly produced, and not optimally played (the drummer gets particular stick in this regard), but to this day I can’t find any fault with it.

By the time we’d completed these researches, it seemed that Emily had apparently been dropped by Creation. But, happily, there would be more to discover. We stumbled across their next outing, “Stumble”, a 7” on the fairly legendary Esurient label. On any level, it was a step up: beginning as low, almost eavesdropped rumblings of vocal and folksy strum, it gradually flowered into a darkly jangling pop song, gaining momentum and instrumentation: drums, piano, flute, then a sudden and dizzying saxophone, the effect of which on us was not so far from the way that Sarah Curtis’ violin used to take King Of The Slums to the next level. Yet somehow Emily remained subtle and enigmatic, as well as urgent and primal. On the B-side were two more accomplished numbers, the knowing post-Smiths dreamabout “Rachel” and “Boxing Day Blues”, a gorgeous, laidback, classically-tinged ballad that now brings to mind two of the truly great bands that would follow them, Blueboy and Hood. This time the songs are credited simply to Emily, although the ‘guest’ musicians (Gian, Anna and Steve) get shout-outs too.

At this point the opposite happened of what should have happened. Instead of being hailed and feted, Emily simply fell off the radar. And that seemed to be all, as was the wont for so many bands who had skirted with the plugholes of indie obscurity. But then, a year or so later again, we found ourselves reading a ravishing fanzine review (I think in Far Out and Fishy ‘zine) of what was apparently a whole, utterly-out-of-the-blue new Emily release. It was a terrifically written piece, as always, describing an avant-garde and sprawling sounding LP called “Rub Al Khali” issued by a fledgling and super-obscure imprint called Everlasting and it made the record sound strange, exotic, deeply flawed and yet unmissable. Trouble was, it may as well only have been released on the Moon. No record shop had it, no friends owned it, and as years and then decades passed, nobody ever re-issued it. I remained grimly determined, but realistically was prepared to accept that *hearing* the damn blighter just might never happen.

25 years on, and not for the first time, Firestation Records of Berlin came to my rescue. Not only does their double-CD “A Retrospective” deliver a first digital outing for this lost gem of an album but it packages it up with a host of unreleased Emily demos and outtakes (plus, by way of no small bonus, the tracks from the Esurient EP).

And ‘tis a sign of Chris Fish’s talents that “Rub Al Khali” is everything we expected it to be from his write-up a cool quarter of a century ago. Seven tracks ranged louchely over an hour of unhurriedly unfolding indie / folk / rock / jazz / soul, “Rub” is the proverbial lighthouse in the desert, an expansive, ambitious and at times impossibly fabulous suite of semi-improvised torch songs. On highlights “Foxy” (which we could easily imagine as part of the late, great Guru’s “Jazzmatazz” series) and the soulful, white hot “48 Today” an out-of-this-world female vocal adds yet another layer of atmosphere; on “Americana” the amplifiers throb to ‘60s-nodding paroxysms of electrified riffs and guitar bliss; on the closing, 13½-minute “Allah”, all senses converge to be tingled as Emily’s new age stylings positively encircle, *captivate* the listener. Those that decry this as ‘prog’ miss every point in the book: long songs alone do not a prog record make, and artists from Misty In Roots to Amayenge over the years have amply proved how a ten-minute song can feel as light as a feather if the attitude and quality are right. As many of their contemporaries limped on, adopting shufflebeats and insisting there'd always been a dance element to their music, Emily were free and clear, in a field of their own. And with the benefit of hindsight, it feels right that they couldn’t, didn’t try to follow what is probably their masterpiece.

In contrast, the rest of “A Retrospective” is inconsistent, to say the least: copyright matters having presumably done for the inclusion of “Irony” (although the four tracks from that do appear on Creation Soup volume five) the other high points (and, to be fair, they are very high) are provided by the jazzy showmanship of the delectable “Waiting For A Letter” and the single that should have been, “Merri-Go-Round” (which, incidentally, features some amazing drumming – our love for “Mad Dogs” notwithstanding, they had long dispensed with the original drummer by now). What remain are largely lo-fi acoustic demos, and though a few (“New One”) scream with unrealised potential, most are inchoate offcuts, perhaps left to fester in the attic for good reason.

There is, however, no excuse for any of us missing out on “Stumble” or “Rub Al Khali” for a second time, so please don’t sleep on this one.

* * * * *

Also appearing on side two of “Doing It For The Kids” were an unheralded outfit from Brighton called Pacific, who doled up a ditty called “Jetstream”. This was a rather genteel affair, all ocean spray and xylophone, yet the use of a sample from a House of Commons debate on the sinking of the Belgrano hinted at darker textures. “Jetstream” felt harder to love than “Reflect On Rye”, but yet the plaintive vocal and crystalline beauty of the thing compelled us to investigate further (again, the lone credit to “Pacific” on the centre label didn’t get us off to a flyer with our research).

Eventually we learned that the track was culled from a 12” EP called “Sea Of Sand”, which kicked off with a brace of great, if grown-up songs called “Barnoon Hill” and “I Wonder” that, like Emily in their later incarnations, were unafraid to co-opt strings and brass; although Pacific sounded much more controlled and clinical than Emily, especially when they added spoken word and sequencer into the mix. And there was a sense of almost permanent wistfulness: it sounded like the vocal was ever on the point of breaking into tears, whilst many of the lyrical themes didn’t feel far off “Reflect On Rye”. Again, all this was manna to me then (er, and now). And you can relive my teenage years (sort of) by downloading “Barnoon Hill” for free, here.

“Sea Of Sand” was followed by another 12” single called “Shrift”, which came in a gorgeous sleeve and saw Pacific up the gears with a sequencer-led, almost New Orderish number and for our money, minor classic which - over eight minutes - mingled bubbling synth lines with touches of brass, strings and woodwind and a desperate, naked, Orchids-style vocal; yet on the flip Pacific went for two ambient, lowkey, neoclassical instrumental pieces. The sleeve credited a name this time – “DENNISS” – which also appeared on the sleeve when Creation bundled the two EPs onto a single CD (also adding the shorter 7” version of “Shrift”) and called it “Inference”. This time the spoken-word artist and guest violin player got namechecked too, but there the trail ran cold.

Again, we were left in the dark for more than 20 years, until the indefatigable Roque decided to do an interview online with the singer from a mega-unknown south coast 80s indiepop combo called the Doris Days. That man, one Dennis Wheatley, confirmed that the Doris Days’ disappearance coincided with the birth of Pacific, the band’s reincarnation when they signed to Creation. And that far from disappearing from view after “Inference”, Pacific’s singer/songwriter remained very active in the music industry (albeit that we would not really hear his rather touching vocals again). This was not before Pacific had been paid to do some recordings for EMI which, it seems, came to naught.

As part of a duo called Atlas with Tony Newland, Dennis released a couple of 12”s on Pandephonium in the early ‘90s, “Noontide” and “Compass Error”. The former even featured a ‘Pacific’ remix. The latter, later remixed by Menace and Fluke amongst others, is a quite brilliant slab of acid house-influenced techno that, ironically, Alan McGee would probably love to have courted around the time Creation released its blissed-out “Keeping The Faith - A Creation Dance Compilation". (Plus, the sampled intro to "Compass Error (East)" reminds us of the Michael Heseltine 'vocal' used all the way back on "Jetstream"...) A later single, “Beauty”, would emerge on the Jackpot label, a version of which would later appear on a John Digweed album.

In the 2000s, working with Nina Miranda, Dennis released a clutch of records as – appropriately – Shrift, with an album, “Lost In A Moment” and a remix EP. This duo were marginally closer to the coffee table – downtempo/electronica with ghostly vocals, but the songs still shuffle around pristinely, and there are some insanely pretty strings that flutter around the mix.

And in 2004, Dennis contributed a remix in his own name to Paul Haig and Billy Mackenzie’s “Give Me Time”, which came out on One Little Indian and even features guest MCing from Buzz B. The original “Give Me Time” is beautiful , soulful and harrowing: the remix is sparse, atmospheric and spacey, with the late Mackenzie’s voice taking on a new plaintiveness. We’re rather pleased, given that it’s a collaboration between at least four different artists that we’d admired over the years, even if we would probably never discovered its existence had Roque not decided to chase down the remaining Doris Days.

* * * * *

All of which goes to show that there was quite a lot to discover under the surface, however unassuming our first encounter with these bands. Surely David Cavanagh’s (unfairly maligned) magnum opus on Creation Records might have mentioned either band, at least in passing, in its 584 pages? No, not even a footnote. 

in love with these times, in spite of these times top 10 Emily tunes: Stumble. Mad Dogs. Foxy. Merri-Go-Round. Reflect On Rye. 48 Today. Boxing Day Blues. Allah. Waiting For A Letter. Americana.

in love with these times, in spite of these times top 10 Pacific / Dennis Wheatley tunes: Shrift. Barnoon Hill. Give Me Time.  I Wonder. Another Day (the Doris Days). Jetstream. Plus any 3 of the several hundred million mixes of "Compass Error"!

We also contemplate the legacy of Creation Records (and a few of its other unsung heroes) here.