Witchazel

Description

To celebrate its tenth anniversary Matt Berrys debut album for Acid Jazz returns to the shops this August with his caramel vinyl edition.

Featuring the theme from his BAFTA Award winning TV show Toast Of London Take My Hand, it has been his biggest selling album and has been out of print on vinyl for several years.

Acclaimed at the time of release, the Guardian said Witchazel is enchantinggenuinely impressive., while The Times labelled itpsych-folk genius. It has matured into an acknowledged classic.

Having starred as eccentric explorer Dixon Bainbridge in The Mighty Boosh and Douglas Reynholm in The IT Crowd and co-written his own musical parody AD/BC: A Rock Opera with Richard Ayoade, Matts own BBC3 comedy show Snuff Box (with Rich Fulcher) was, as they say, well received.

His position as one of the most compelling comedy talents duly confirmed with a nomination as Best Male Newcomer at the 2007 Comedy Awards. But were not here to blow those particular trumpets. Rather, strum a more melancholy mandolin.

Inspired partly by Richard Adams Watership Down Witchazel (Matts first album proper following limited releases Jackpot and Opium) is a voyage into the heart of the countryside, where strange things happen and barn doors go creak in the night. Looking back, Matt Berry wouldnt have had it any other way. If his highly successful career as an actor/comedian/radio DJ hadnt sent him on a different trajectory, he wouldnt be where he is today, releasing his extraordinary new album Witchazel. Recorded almost entirely in his front room, it is a collection of thirteen songs which will touch a central nerve with anyone with a fondness for British psychedelia and/or 70s folk. For Matt, its a labour of love, pure and simple.

Veering between spooked folk laments (Accident At A Harvest Festival), space rock tapestries (eight minute epic The Pheasant) and Donovan-esque pop (Look In My Book), its quite simply a stunning record; the sort of woodland fantasia Fleet Foxes would make had they grown up in within earshot of the M25. If the massed mellotrons, fruity Hammond and prog-rock inflections (check out From The Manger To the Mortuary) makes it feel like a lost classic youve found in the racks of your favourite second hand record shop, its deliberate. Anyone still thinking Witchazel has a whiff of indulgence, meanwhile, should be directed to the brilliant, Todd Rundgren-ish Take My Hand. Is there anyone out there making complex pop as smart and heartfelt as this?