Psonic Psunspot

[laughs]

Skylarking in '86, another Dukes of the Stratosphere project called Sonic Sunspot in '87, Oranges and Lemons in '89, and then we come back to where we started at the top of the episode in the Big Lots discount bins with Nonsuch in 1992.

So after this record, they go to Virgin and they tell them they have this plan for this kind of always the plan I like to have, a sexually explicit bubblegum pop record.

[laughs] This does seem like the record you and I would have made.

Oh my God, the Dukes of Stratosphere are XT fucking

C! 25 O'Clock reignited my connection with and love for the band that continued to burn strongly throughout the 80s through Skylarking, Sonic Sunspot, all the way through to Oranges and Lemons.

30 years later, as the shock of social distancing and the prospect of no live music during the pandemic settled in, it was the Surroundabout Ride 5.1 Blu-ray sitting on my shelf unheard, which increasingly became the itch that just had to be scratched.

The prospect of hearing it in all its expanded glory drove me almost solely to cobbling together a basic surround system with an old AV receiver, speakers from the attic and procured from eBay.

Stephen uses this to incredible effect on the Mole from the Ministry, when the different voices in the song move around above your head, to paraphrase T.S. Eliot, as if you're a patient etherised on a table, except, instead, you're flat on your back in a very lively and colourful meadow, close to where a distinctive yellow submersible may well be moored.

The clarity and positioning of the sounds of picked and strummed guitars, bouncing bass, toy pianos, orchestras, sitars, organ, mellotron and even a sweet whistle is so defined throughout.

Likewise, a full assortment of percussion is used to such great effect on both 25 O'clock and the Sonic Sunspot album which followed in 1987.

Sonic's classic first track, Vanishing Girl, is an undisputed gem of a pop song, which Stephen's Atmos mix brightens to let the groovy guitar and vocal melodies shine through even more clearly.