Here is a review of "Pony" by Dann Chinn of the Misfit City fanzine.

Looks as if Tim Smith - Cardiacs' wayward leader - has pulled another one out of the hat for '99. What with his main band touting an imminent new album and his folkier instincts absorbed in the regeneration of The Sea Nymphs (plus wiggling fingers in various other audio-visual pies on behalf of Dark Star and The Monsoon Bassoon), the Wagner of Carshalton could've been forgiven for snatching the opportunity to grab a couple of weeks off. Pottering round the kitchen, doing a bit of gardening, maybe burying himself under the rockery for a while to get a bit of peace and quiet... Not a bit of it - the bugger only used his Christmas holidays to get another band together, and the results are with us already. Spratleys Japs were put together around a batch of Tim's New Forest friends (mostly notably co- singer/flugelhorner Jo Spratley) and the inspiringly bizarre sound of an ailing Mellotron. So we could think outlaws playing with classic keyboards, we could ponder the brass and wonder if Tim was off on a Kenny Wheeler tip, we could puzzle at the name and think "Cardiacs gone panto samurai?", and we'd be wrong.

What we get is something that draws those enduring eccentric Smith talents off towards some of their most accessible results to date. Yes, it's not a million miles away from home. There's a strong case for the idea that all of Tim Smith's work, Zappa- like, is all part of one extended piece; and "Pony" has the definitive Smith stamp. The seesawing chords and melodies that cut wickedly across standard pop sense; the whoosh up from spiky cheek to orchestral splendour; the fascination with a decorative and convoluted song structure that houses a cunning hook at each twist; the endearingly scratchy vocals that capture a child's illuminating curiosity about the world and scatter it across the closed soil of an adult mind, to tickle up the little sleeping seeds. And Spratleys Japs do sound something like Cardiacs did during their "On Land And In The Sea" peak; especially on the all-out romp of "Don't You Ail, Flash The Sea To Steam" or the deft parade of "Vine" which, with its rock-out choruses and the flea-jumping staccato feints of the riffs. Plus the Japs have also got The Sea Nymphs' way of fishing unknown memories out of your brain with a flicker of surreal, naked folky fragments.

But they're very much their own Smith-ereen. A rootsier one, for starters. The relentlessly dogged and abrasive edges of Cardiacs are missing, as are many of the Nymphs' more preciously monastic hang-ups. And, as the furious clatter of Viv Sherriff's drumsticking opens "Burnt", and as Mark Donovan's bayou guitar merges with spitting electronics, honeycomb harmonies and communion-wafer lyrics into a chipped bluesy stomp, it sounds as if Tim's let himself relax away from Cardiacs' manically obsessively Anglo-Saxon lollop and is flowing closer to rock's ancestral blues heartlands than he's ever done before. "Pond" even kicks off on a corny old walking blues riff - it packs a giggle, but also a funny feeling of homecoming. And "Vessel" balances its breaks of Mellotron seamonsters, dub-echo flickers, and signature squeaky choirs atop a mutated Duane Eddy twang. Most obviously, "Fanny" (which ain't about women's bits, and which cracks the first big pop grin on "Pony"'s face) sounds like Sea Nymphs getting it on with Prince. Earthy, haunch-raunchy: a boom-blap funk beat, on which jangling wedding-bells piano and a zig-zag crosstalking weave of compressed brass bounce jubilantly while banks of chirpy voices tussle with shipping-forecast interference. Plus it's armed with an elasticated Blurry pop chorus ("take that boy and give him too much, / take up tension to calm yourself,") to clinch the prize. Wonky pop goodies overloaded with sparkling gifts.

That's one side of Spratleys Japs: another is even more experimental than previous Smith business, keen to take detours into lo-fi land or Beta Band oddities. The subaquatic boom of a grunge guitar riff, the gibber and twitch of Heidi Murphy's temperamental analogue synths, Jo's occasional horn work, or the tinkle of musical toys tend to hijack the mix just when things are comfortable. The quiet, knocking Syd Barrett acoustics of "Oh" end up bursting into a wall of quaking My Bloody Valentine noise (as did Cardiacs' "Dirty Boy"), and "Fear" takes a laddering Nymph-y structure on random, wallshaking bass, somehow redeemed in frail optimism by Jo's vocals and the hopeful courage of her ropy, tentative flugelhorn solo. The organ furrows of "Pony"'s title track creak and flutter in creepy Krautrock style, and clamber through one of Cardiacs' chaotically crenellated "Stoneage Dinosaurs" chord sequences; but Heidi's warbling whistles and the band's ambling warmth makes it sound more like a seriously drunken Teletubby party. And then set against that are the bursts of epic orchestration. The grandeur of "Cabinet", sweeping along like a motorcade on harsh throb- wobbling analogue bass and glockenspiel glitter. "Hazel"'s Gustav Holst filmscore, Mellotron and falsetto choruses soaring swoonily up over the mountains into the valley. Or, best of all, the moment where the bizarreness transmutes to an incredible beauty as the shakers-and-piano twinkle of "Sparrows" (led up til then by Tim's Squire-y bass and Jo's butterfly voice) all drops and dissolves away to a dreamy, distant wall of moonstruck choir, like Yes done by little orphans. One one hand, the Japs are so loose that you can see the sparking wires and the gaffer tape holding them together; on the other, they're a night at the opera with all the gilt and trimmings.

Inconsistent? More like unrestrained. Spratleys Japs - from their New Forest clearing, their flowery suburban bunker, their schizophrenic blues club, haunted theatre, or wherever it is that they're broadcasting from - are firing off whatever wayward sparks of music come to them, in innocence, trusting in blind faith that there's a receiver out there that'll make sense of it. Let's face it, Tim Smith's performed his usual trick of making yet another album that melts down your conceptions of pop music while hooking you with flashes of inexplicable off-the-wall charm and unorthodox prettiness. "Pony " is a tangy, tasty, eccentric English fruit-pudding of a record. And, incidentally, one of the happiest things he's ever come up with: full of the feel of lifted clouds, fresh friendships, and a new sparkle to the icing on the world. Perhaps he did get to take that invigorating snooze under the rockery after all.

(DANN CHINN)

This review will appear - possibly tarted up a bit - in Issue 2 of the "Misfit City" music e-zine. For more of "Misfit City" (including coverage of various other branches of the Cardiacs family), click here.