CRYSTAL JACQUELINE
Sun Arise
Album
Mega Dodo Records
Crystal Jacqueline’s debut album on Mega Dodo, “Sun Arise” mixes classic pop-psych with new on her enjoyable long player. Building on her work with neo-psych group The Honey Pot and success of her recent Fruits de Mer EP, album opener “Sun Arise” branches into proggier territory mixed with glam stomping guitar. Despite blending originals with new material “Sun Arise” works as a whole album, with other stand-outs include the romantic melancholia of “Who Do You Love” and “By The Way”.
“Sun Down” rounds off this delightful record with more mellotron sounds and exquisite harmonies with another warning to its female protagonist. For a refreshing approach to the UK psych scene do give check out Crystal Jacqueline’s “Sun Arise”:
The Strange Brew
Throughout Sun Arise, Crystal Jacqueline avoids prog rock over-synthesized cliches in favor of more inventive arrangements. On energetic songs like “A Fairy Tale,” originally recorded by Second Hand, and “Dream I,” she seems to command the elements of the universe to swirl around her as she spins tales via her atmospheric keyboards and vocals. On “By The Way” she blends piano and layered vocals in a medieval arrangement that’s both ominous and romantic. The melodic “I Break” is also steeped in Old World folk music. The title track opens with hypnotic chanting before introducing a boogie guitar sound reminiscent of Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit In The Sky.”
Broken Hearted Toy
It’s one of those albums that you hear once, play again, and before you know it, an entire day has gone by and you’ve still not heard enough. Crystal Jacqueline may not be a household name … at least, not yet.
But in that corner of modern psychedelia that seems to be expanding with every passing day, a heap of Youtube clips have now transformed into Sun Arise (Mega Dodo) and, as 21st century debut albums go, it takes a lot of beating.
Think… classic Airplane merged with Syd Barrett’s Floyd, then drape them in sunshine flavored gauze. Think Me and My Kites and Us and Them, modern psychedelic warlords who have already run a few lap around our ears, then push them into the things that a starburst dreams of. Think “Let’s Go Fly A Kite,” and imagine Mary Poppins getting high on the first This Mortal Coil LP. Sun Arise is all these things, and every fresh spin brings a new thought to mind.
Goldmine Magazine
‘Fly A Kite’ – what can we say. I’ll admit we here have always had something of a soft spot for the film ‘Mary Poppins’ – but shhh don’t tell anyone else, so it was a heartening and a eyebrow raising occasion to hear this airily dreamy sort softly weaving through the speakers before it headed off to touch stratospheric heights. Best moments of the set, and there are many, we suggest you track the haunting and bewitchingly dark hearted Nico-esque ‘Who Do You Love’ as it pirouettes upon a gorgeously brooding madrigal that ripples with feigned passion to the lovelorn incline of chiming corteges and hollowed twinkle tones. Maybe not quite in design, ’Alice’ mirrors in spirit and subject matter Jefferson Airplane’s ’white rabbit’, both inspired by the brace of books that formed Carroll’s Victorian fantasia and here trip wired to a thoroughbred English eccentricity spirited upon the surreal warping psyche of Syd Barrett.
The Sunday Morning Experience
As befitting a Fruits-de-Mer staple, Jacqueline has included a cover or two with the stand out being the atmospheric take on The Troggs’ eerie Cousin Jane, which sounds even more sinister than the original. Equally as good is a version of Second Hands’ “ A Fairy Tale”, driven along by a squeaky organ and some punchy guitar. The originals are entertaining too. The title track is a glam rock stomper, while “I Break” is a gossamer light accoustic ballad with an odd melodic twist.
Shindig
But my hands down favorite of the covers is the psychedelic take on Fly A Kite. YES, from the Mary Poppins movie! This is by no means a stretch in terms of song choice because it could be argued that ‘ol Walt’s flicks had more than a few psychedelic moments in them, however unintentional it may have been. The song begins as a lulling and oh so slightly acidic dreamy number, later launching into a heavier rocker with freaky warbling, wah’d and spacey guitar, plus a ripping lead once we’re in full majestic rock mode, before returning to the introductory lull for the finale. Wow, what a great example of taking a song out of its known context and completely reinterpreting it.
In summary, this is an impressive and intriguingly varied set of songs.
Aural Innovations
But Crystal’s beautiful voice and singing lends a sinister ambiance to the psychedelic and otherwise trippy music.
Expose
Crystal Jacqueline sort of magically floats through the English psych and prog rock scene as a vocalist for the bands The Honey Pot and The Green Question Mark, while her solo work has been released on the Mega Dodo and Fruits de Mer indie labels. She sings about fairies and witches within arrangements that vary from medieval to space age. On her latest release Rainflower, which will be released as a limited-edition180g LP and as limited edition digi-pack CD by Mega Dodo on May 25th, Crystal Jacqueline performs a mix of covers and originals produced by her fellow Honey Pot member and bona fide eccentric Icarus Peel.
Broken Hearted Toy
Rainflower
Mega Dodo Records
Few albums in recent years can be said to have eclipsed Crystal Jacqueline’s Sun Arise, although one comes very close. And the fact that it’s her own follow-up set detracts from neither her debut’s brilliance or its successor’s genius.
Opening with a “Siren” that restates her uncanny ability to channel Grace Slick without really sounding remotely like her, but powering on through ten songs that merge her musical taste for classic psych with a literary bent that bows through darker pastures, “Rainflower” hits its first peak early, with a “Winter Deep / Dress Of White Lace” that kickstarts memories of the scary bits from Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby, without offering you a single reason to think in those terms.
The mood lightens across “Daisy Chains,” which is the kind of thing Pink Floyd might have thought of as a potential hit single around 1968, while the post-Barrett spacemen re-emerge across a gorgeous cover of “Grantchester Meadows,” restyled as eastern mantra and reminding us that that band’s most overlooked era (apres Syd, pre-Meddle) is also the source of their most fertile fruit.
If anything here states Crystal Jacqueline’s magic, though; even more than the sensual soul that is the heartbeat of her own compositions… even more than “Mary Waiting,” whose voice and bee-hum intro alone with steal your eyes…, it’s her take on Status Quo’s “In My Chair.” Once a slice of luciously lazy rhythm’n’boogie, here it is recast in some dark place midway between “Season of the Witch” and “Lucifer Sam,” supremely foreboding, sexy and sinuous… and underpinned by a guitar riff that sounds like a pagan God clearing his throat.
Do you even need to ask any more?
Goldmine Magazine
The very name, Crystal Jacqueline, conjures up light psychedelic imagery and that is a fair starting point here. The female vocals have a relaxed clarity to them as they navigate the dreamscape paths the songs take. Sure there is a touch of the ‘Kiss in the Dreamhouse’ Siouxsie and the Banshees here, but the vocals are purer and not as intense. There is an interesting weaving of thick and thin sounds along the path of this album. The mood moves through a relaxing middle portion to a riveting send off with the title cut and closer pushing up to new heights. This path is clearly up to a distant peak, through the clouds and a chilly atmosphere. This English artist is a great successor to the likes of Vashti Bunyan, Mary-Anne, Mandy Morton, and many more. DAVID HINTZ DC Rocklive
Pastoral psychedelia, acid folk, bright psych-lite pop and a Status Quo cover! It's all there on the second solo LP from Devon's Crystal Jacqueline.A glance at the track listing tells you something of this second solo LP from The Honey Pot vocalist Crystal Jacqueline. Multiple references to the seasons, nature, mysterious and unobtainable female spirits, all the hallmarks of an acid-folk album you'd think. A record in the vein of Vashti Bunyan's Just Another Diamond Day or Shelagh McDonald's Stargazer. And that's true to a point but there's much more to it than that. From the almost industrial sounds of opening track Siren it's obvious things are not so clear cut. Leave your expectations at the door sonic travellers for scattered among the Nick Drake-esque pastoral folk tracks are enough surprises, twists and turns to make this a much more multi-hued and varied affair. For a start there's the inclusion two cover versions. A stab at Status Quo's In My Chair and a lovely assured take on Pink Floyd's Grantchester Meadows. The former is a tight Chicago R&B shuffle, souped up with effects-laden guitars, whereas Grantchester Meadows blue-sky folk gets an added space-rock edge. Strange Bloom has echoes of San Francisco's golden era, all bluesy and meditative, whereas Daisy Chain is a bright, psych-lite pop tune that in a fairer world would have a stay in the top 20.As the album title suggests Rainflower thematically revolves around nature, seasons and the weather. For all its sonic diversity these lyrical concerns somehow piece it all together. A celebration of deep-winter and high summer, there's mystery, folklore, the beauty of bloom and the beauty of decay. And for all it's modern production it still resonates with the wyrd, deep-rooted ways of Old England. An album to re-visit and treasure. Harmonic Distortion