Consortium - Mr Umbrella Man: A Collection of Demos 1967-69

Soft-pop garage sounds of unlikely provenance

If you didn’t know better, you’d have to assume this whopping collection of soft garage sounds originated from the US West Coast. The clue’s in the name, right? These cats most often sound just like The Beach Boys playing one-handed (in other words, like The Association or The Free Design) with liberal dashings of fuzz guitar, Mellotron and sassy attitude underlying the harmony pop.

The story gets steadily stranger. This is the best of four entire LPs’ worth of demo material recorded by the West Coast Consortium in the room above their bassist’s dad’s undertaker’s shop. Not on the West Coast at all, but in Shoreditch, in London’s East End. Throughout this period, the band were actually also recording and releasing cabaret pop that’s nowhere near as groovy. They even hit the UK chart in 1969, as Consortium.

“Our demos were always better than the records,” bassist John Barker nails it. There’s also a Castle singles compilation, with just five day-job songs overlapping this DIY collection of Doctor Jekyllish experimentation. You know which one to buy.

4 stars 4 stars 4 stars 4 stars

Wooden Hill | WHCD 019

Reviewed by Derek Hammond
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