Posted on February 7, 2007 - by dionysus

Please pass the Lemon Jelly

We first heard Lemon Jelly in rotation on di.fm chillout, with their first-ever track, In the Bath. Its the sort of song that makes you smile when you think about it (especially if you are taking a shower at the time), and it is one of the few nontrance tracks on our Must Hear At A Trance Party Someday wish list.

The English duo of Nick Franglen and Fred Deakin charts cool, ethereal courses through the little fluffy clouds, wandering off occasionally into candy-colored La La Land, while superimposing occasional samples of sleepy Discovery Channel/Mr. Rogers voices offering surreal, seemingly educationally derived narration. The grooves are rich and powerfully relaxed, the beats deep and hypnotic. This is way-downtempo dance music that makes you feel like someone’s slipped a Valium into your champagne flute.

The road to Lemon Jelly’s fey, spacey, musical fantasia contained, not surprisingly, a few twists along the way. Franglen began as a gardener to the stars, a career which took a calamitous turn when a bridge he’d constructed collapsed — with Freddie Mercury standing on it.[epitonic]

• Download Lemon Jelly’s The Staunton Lick (mp3)

Other snippets from around the ‘Net refer to their love of quirk:

In the early 1990s, Deakin ran a club called Misery. Its patrons were forced to do ironing while records by Geordie actor Jimmy Nail blared from the speakers. Fred and Nick organised a giant game of Bingo, presided over by Death and played by many members of the audience. In other shows, support was provided by Don Partridge – a traditional one man band – whilst “Jelly Helpers” distributed sweets to the crowd.[wikipedia]

The other half of Lemon Jelly’s old-school psychedelic appeal comes courtesy of the graphic artists at Airside.

“Ah, Airside. What excitement the name conjures up. I remember our first meeting as though it were yesterday – the overpowering sensations of the jungle that surrounded us, the intense heat, the punkawalla gently fanning us as we discussed brave new plans for visual domination late into the night until the humidity drove us to the refuge of the mosquito nets. Oh the heady days of the Raj, I miss them so. Cafe Flo just isn’t the same, and they don’t do poppadums either.”

– Nick Franglen