Endle St. Cloud - Thank You All Very Much 1968 (@320)

 

Endle St. Cloud - Thank You All Very Much

Thank You All Very Much Review by Stewart Mason.

A typically freaky 1968 release from the estimably freaky Texas label International Artists, Thank You All Very Much is an all-over-the-map blend of guitar-based heavy psych, early country-rock, and an oddball music hall sound possibly influenced by the Kinks (especially on the jaunty "Jessica") and certainly unusual for a Texan group of their era. Singer and pianist Endle St. Cloud (it's also the band's name, à la Brinsley Schwarz) has an unusual voice with a heavy vibrato and often a higher-than-normal pitch; he sounds a bit like a slightly less-elfin version of T. Rex's Marc Bolan on a lot of tracks. The songwriting is kind of uneven, with the second side, featuring the loosey-goosey groove rocker "Like a Badge" (which has a fake-out turntable-slowing-down ending) and the tense "Laughter," better off than the first. The album's oddest feature has to be the piano solos between each track, which feature St. Cloud performing a variety of hectoring monologues in various character guises. Thank You All Very Much is that rarity, an obscure psych-era platter that's actually worth the trouble it takes to track down.

Tracklist:

1. Street Corner Preacher

2. Who Would You Like To Be Today?

3. This Is Love

4. Professor Black

5. Laughter

6. Jessica

7. Come Through

8. Like A Badge

9. Tell Me One More Time

10. Quest For Beauty

11. The contact sessions

12. Live in Texas

13. The psychedelic sounds of (Mono)

14. The psychedelic sounds of (Stereo)

15. Live at the Avalon

16. Easter everywhere (Mono)

17. Easter everywhere (Stereo)

18. Beauty and the beast

19. Bull of the woods

20. Death in Texas

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