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Kenny Elliott and chums create another bleak, brilliant visi

Mr. Thomas Thatcher | Salisbury, UK | 12/23/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have a bit of inside knowledge here, but came to this extraordinary piece of music quite independently.



First, and most important, this is written and performed by the wonderful Kenny Elliott. The next album after this, Death May be Your Santa Claus, is a source of wonder and surprise and I reviewed it for Amazon.co.uk Aided and abetted by brilliant drummer Kieran O'Connor, taken from us far too young, Kenny went on to transform Secondhand into Seventh Wave and they released two albums, Things To Come and PsiFi, the latter featuring Hugh Banton from Van Der Graaf and the former the incredible George Hart on bass, now resident in County Cork and late of Salisbury blues band Grandma Moses (see reviews of 7th Wave on Amazon.co.uk). The bass player on Reality, Arthur Kitchener, went on to form a band called Arthur's Mother but he did not play on their single On The Dole, a small hit, but his place was taken by bass/vocalist Mike Wedgwood. Mike went on to play with Nicky James, and then with Curved Air and Caravan. With Curved Air he cut one of the finest albums of all time, Air Cut, the best prog. masterepiece of the lot, starring 17 year-old Eddie Jobson, later of Roxy, Zappa, Tull, UK and Nash Bridges (see Air Cut reviews on .com and .co.uk).



Reality was one of Pete Townsend of the Who's favourite albums, and he talked about it a lot. It didn't sell in huge numbers but was so far ahead of its time that it caught up with itself going the other way. It is basically the story of Dennis James, who has an unhappy childhood, is terrified of his father (Fairy Tale), has childish, possibly drug fuelled, hallucinations of his wallpaper ( ... it was covered in Steam Tugs = bed bugs), is seen as a joke and a clown by his friends (Dennis James the Clown) and finally commits suicide to the most beautiful music in the bathtub after his girl finally gives up on him. The music is a mixture of almost hard rock, sweeping keyboard landscapes, inspired power guitar and heartachingly beautiful tunes. None of it makes sense for the time, of course, nor is there anything twee or hippified about it. There are plenty of clues that it would lead to the extraordinary Santa Claus.



Kenny takes all the lead vocals and his agonised straining voice is not to all tastes, but it would not work sung by Olivia Newton-John.



This is a real sounscape, with perhaps the most chilling moment in the line to Fairy Tales, an exquisite tune, that goes.. Father comes home late at night, hard as nails: his stony footstep on the stairs end our fairy tales......



This is so so good. Please buy it and help to restore a forgotten genius, the real deal, to his rightful place in rock history."