Formed in 1985, John Peel favourites JTQ (the James Taylor Quartet) started out life as a jazz-funk band, albeit an atypical one. Incredibly prolific, not only has the band put out some 29 albums, but the various members have guested with the likes of Tom Jones, Pulp, the Manic Street Preachers, the Pogues, the Wonder Stuff, and U2.
Even with this remarkable lineage, however, their latest album, is something of an unexpected treasure. Titled Hung Up On You, it combines the nervous, punky energy of bands like the Undertones, the Buzzcocks, and even Dinosaur Jnr., with the teetering-on-the-brink psychedelia of Pink Floyd’s matchless Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. Clad in its plain white and blue sleeve, you’d be hard pressed to anticipate the multifaceted wonders that lie within but then, it seems, James’ mantra is to under promise and overdeliver.
As ever, alongside James, we find Mark Cox (guitar), Andrew McKinney (bass), and Pat Illingworth (drums), a sympathetic quartet in which the members intuitively know what the others will do, even before they do it. It makes for an enthralling album, with each track benefitting from the sort of loosely spontaneous feel that you only get from musicians entirely comfortable in one another’s presence.
The package
Pressed on pristine, white vinyl, Hung Up On You sounds fantastic, the format perfectly suiting the analogue warmth of the recordings. It’s otherwise a simple package, with the vinyl housed in a simple paper sleeve, and liner notes limited to the credits listed on the rear of the sleeve. Nonetheless, if you’re looking to dig into the album, vinyl is totally the way to go – CD would just feel wrong!
The Album
The album opens with the recently released single and title track, Hung Up On You. A fuzzy rocker with a hard driving beat and sun-kissed vocals, it’s bright and breezy – sitting somewhere between the Undertones and early Floyd – and you you can feel the band’s engagement with the material. It makes for a great opening track, and it sets up the sense of fun that permeates the songs that follow. Things take a further step into psychedelic territory with the Beatles-esque She Dreams In Crimson. With its warm vocal harmonies and James’ Hammond organ washing through the mix, close your eyes and you’ll find yourself transported to a simpler world, where smartphones are aeons away and oil projections are still de rigueur at rock shows. The wonderful sense of whimsy remains on slinky instrumental Chicken Leg, a groovy instrumental that sounds like it should be soundtracking a miniskirt convention. Then there’s the expansive Feet On The Ground, which has an addictive melody and some wild Hammond work. The punky edge returns on Miss Your Life, a blistering take on 50s rock ‘n’ roll led by stuttering guitar and sweetened only slightly by the harmonies that bookend the chorus. There’s such warmth and energy in the band’s performance that you cannot help but be hooked, the spontaneity of the live recording providing that wonderful sense of everything teetering on the brink. The first side wraps up with the equally tough edged Perche Non Vai Da Lui, which offers up the bittersweet line “I want my childhood back” as a rambunctious backing rattles past and into the run off groove.
Side two is no less electrifying. Opening proceedings, Pat unloads upon his kit as Mark peels out a cracking riff on the anthemic Put Your Hands Up. The band nod to their jazz-fusion roots on Small Thing, a wonderfully exciting instrumental that serves primarily as a showcase for James’ brilliantly lively playing and Andrew’s seriously funky bass, only for Mark to throw in a jazzy solo in the second half that damn near tears the roof off. Something of an album highlight, it’s only slightly marred by a fade out that leaves you having to imagine where the band went next, and you have to hope the live shows will see this brilliant piece expanded further.
Following such a wild excursion, the band deal out a simple slab of psyche pop next. Titled My My My, it’s an addictive track that feels like a long-lost gem from the sixties, caught somewhere between the Kinks, the Stones and the Floyd in the chain of inspiration. The band dim the lights on the next track, as they take the listener to The 4th Dimension. It starts out as a jazzy little instrumental, evoking images of leather trimmed bars, wreathed in smoke and lined with expensive bottles of scotch; only for James to unleash a wild solo on the second half, stabbing at the keys as the venue continues to fill with revellers. The album closes with another psyche pop number and this time we’re heading into Sgt Pepper-via-David-Bowie territory for a lovely piece titled My Wife. With its acoustic guitars, key shifts, and jazzy percussion, it provides the album with the warm-hearted conclusion it deserves, leaving you feeling slightly bereft as the world it conjured up slowly drifts back into the aether.
Conclusion
This is a lovely record, full of passion and filled with unexpected twists and turns. From the sparky numbers that open the album to richly textured psychedelic pop workouts like My Wife, it conjures up a world long gone, and it’s played with such heart that you cannot help by be drawn in. Albums as passionate and as full of life as Hung Up On You are few and far between and they deserve to be treasured– grab a copy and lose yourself amidst its dreamy soundscapes. 9/10
