Reviews

A Fairy Tale EP Fruits de Mer Records

If you only knew The Troggs for Wild Thing, then Cousin Jane would came as a surprise, being a gently whispering and lightly orchestrated polar opposite from their best known hit. Crystal Jacqueline hews closely to the spirit of the original but stretches out a bit musically. .. I like the dark piano lead and surreal synth melody, and Jacqueline’s voice is perfectly suited to anything with a 60s flavor.... My favorite of the three is Jacqueline’s take on The Rolling Stones’ Play With Fire, which in her hands is both hauntingly dreamy and intense. I love the combination of bubbly psych guitar leads, acoustic guitar, piano and spacey symphonic keys. Nice stuff. I’m intrigued and will be on the lookout for her full length album.
Aural-Innovations Blog

Best of all is "Play With Fire", transformed from it's already moody baroque-pop beginnings, into something even darker with a hypnotic, cascading guitar lick threatening to pull you down into a paranoid filled abyss. In the best possible way, of course.

The Active Listener

“Cousin Jane,” is one of those songs where a creepy underworld lurks beneath deceptively simple lyrics. Crystal Jacqueline gives it an ominous piano, synth, and strings arrangement that’s fairly similar to the original. Virtually no one in the States has heard of Second Hand, but Crystal Jacqueline does the English group’s 1960s gem “A Fairy Tale” proud with a swirling, high octane mix of psychedelic and garage rock. She doesn’t bother to flip the genders on The Rolling Stones’ “Play With Fire,” but her bewitching vocals and haunting keyboards suggest there might be other-worldly consequences if you did try to cross her.
Broken Hearted Toy

The Troggs Cousin Jane is first up, in this take a frail musical journey with a slow piano motif, occasional symphonic inspired backdrops and odd but effective rhythm effects supporting the sensual, longing lead vocals that might just make this version of the song a lesbian anthem. Second Hand’s A Fairy Tale is a more elaborate construction, alternating between a classic psychedelic sound of darker toned guitar riffs combined with organ garage rock style with lighter toned, richly layered themes sporting gentle guitars and symphonic backdrops of a Mellotron inspired quality as the main features, elements from these two contrasting movements combining in different arrangements towards the end. Rolling Stone’s Play With Fire isn’t known as their most energetic creation, but this frail version of it with careful harpsichord and nervously reverberating light toned lead motif by the guitar is perhaps the most tender version of this song yet. Neat and gentle psychedelic guitar solo details makes occasional appearances throughout, and with lead vocals of a toned down, emotionally edged variety there’s tension by the truckload here too. A splendid take on a classic song.
If Crystal Jacqueline’s apparently forthcoming full length debut album manage to maintain the quality of this three track single, then she’s got all the musical elements she needs for a career going. A highly intriguing production by an artist that at least for me is a new acquaintance.

The House Of Prog

Crystal Jacqueline, first heard in The Honey Pot, branches out with her first release on this package of synth laden pop-psych. “Cousin Jane” originally by The Troggs sounds even creepier with female vocals. Second Hand’s “A Fairy Tale” weaves I Can’t Explain driving mod with lysergic freakbeat. “Play With Fire” stares coldly at the baroque psych of the Stones for an essential addition to the Jagger-Richards covers collection. The Strange Brew

CJ’s haunting, resonant, beautiful witch voice, and some otherworldly arrangements, magnificently gender bend, era bend, and species bend (witches ain’t people, right?) the Troggs, Stones, and Second Hand. I hope Reg Pres got to hear this gem before he went to the other side. Though I imagine they’ll have this special version on his Ecto-iPod!

Roctober Magazine

That said best of the set by some distance and indeed distinction is their treatment of the Stones’ ’playing with fire’ - here trimmed with a darkly penetrating ghostly aura that mainlines upon a deeply alluring hallucinogenic dream coat that lilts and mesmerises amid a spaced out amorphous symphony of spectral chimes and bliss kissed orbs - utterly stunning.

Mark Barton LJMU

Crystal Jacqueline And The Honey Pot Double EP

Fruits de Mer Records

This new double 7" features Jacqueline partnered with The Honey Pot, who released the excellent To The Edge Of The World album last year. We’ve got a cool cross section of covers here. Pink Floyd’s trippy-spacey-tribal Remember A Day is amped up with a fuller rockin’ Prog-Psych sound. The Honey Pot’s rendition of White Rabbit is a one-two punch knockout, starting off very much like the original, but then about halfway through blasting off into a monster rocker with symphonic keys and ripping guitars. Fleur de Lys’ garage-pop freakout song Tick Tock is given a wah’d dose of funky grooves, which sounds great combined with the stratospheric guitar solos and classic 60s organ. Mighty Baby’s Egyptian Tomb is similarly rocked up and includes more ripping guitar, which sounds fantastic within a bouncy pop-psych grooving context. For Curved Air’s Puppets, Crystal is faithful to the spirit of the original, but injects an orchestral feel that’s both flowing and quirky, and dispenses with the jazzy piano, and in my opinion is overall better than Curved Air. Crystal cranks out a cool rocking cover of The Electric Prunes’ I Had Too Much To Dream. And finally, we’ve got an original, penned by Crystal’s Honey Pot partner Icarus Peel. It’s Raining is a high energy pop-psych rocker with a catchy melody, awesome spaced out guitars, and powerhouse drumming. Nice
Aural Innovations

It kicks off with a massive, swirling take on “Remember A Day” from Pink Floyd’s 1968 A Saucerful Of Secrets LP. Built on Crystal Jacqueline’s evocative vocals, drummer Wayne Fraquet’s tribal beat, and energetic guitar playing by Icarus Peel, it’s an authentic trip back to the original psychedelic era. Crystal Jacqueline, Peel, and Brown craft exquisite harmonies within the enticing psychedelic landscape of Mighty Baby’s “Egyptian Tomb.” “Tick Tock,” originally done by the garage band Fleur de Lys in 1967, creeps along with wah wah guitar playing and eerie keyboards reminiscent of The Doors.

Broken Hearted Toy

This is one strong set of cover tunes setting the pace with “Remember a Day.” This song never sounded so fresh and inviting and I think it takes the Pink Floyd original to a new level of trippiness.

Expose Org

“Tick Tock” is delivered with a fine, funky swagger; “Too Much to Dream” with a truly dreamlike air; and “Puppets” makes you realize just how close to Sonja Kristina Jacqueline’s vocals sometimes sound. Which is such a good thing that we should all go run around the room and wave our arms round for the duration of the song. No matter how silly we look while we do it.
Goldmine Magazine

Good, high quality renditions of compositions from yesteryear is what this double vinyl single is all about, with a great width and span in terms of style differences explored and, one exception aside, with Crystal Jacqueline’s lead vocals delightfully utilized. A production that merits an inspection by those with a fairly wide taste within the psychedelic rock sphere who also enjoy songs of that kind that features a high quality female lead vocalist.
House Of Prog

The band scoring an immediate hat trick with their version of “White Rabbit”, turning it into a lost UK acid folk gem that sounds mighty fine, the sudden arrival of a noisy space rock riff somewhat unexpected although the riff is then subdued again allowing some fine guitar work to shine through. Not wishing to give too much away, this excellent release is rounded off by another great cover, this time of “I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night”, the song given a mellower, atmospheric treatment that works really well counterbalancing the midway point when the musicians rock it out finally releasing the tension and leaving the listener with a smile on their face.
Terrascope

Whilst all the tracks here are composed by different bands, the whole thing flows coherently, with Crystal Jacqueline and The Honey Pot putting their own stamp on the music.
Bliss/Aquamarine

Winter Deep CD Single

The latest from Crystal Jacqueline is an EP that’s available as a limited edition of 100 digipacks signed by Jacqueline and available in a digital download edition too.
Winter Deep was the first part of a longer piece that appeared on Crystal’s excellent Rainflower album released earlier this year. Co-written by Mordecai Smyth and Crystal’s Honey Pot partner in crime Icarus Peel, it’s a tenderly hypnotic, ethereally mind-bending Folk-Psych song with beautiful vocals. Crystal takes Mike Herron’s Feast Of Stephen and injects a feeling of celebratory joy into this orchestral Folk-Psych gem. Very cool tripped out guitar too. Finally, we have a live performance medley of the title track and Mary Waiting from the Rainflower album. The fully produced Jacqueline and Honey Pot albums are exquisite but this stripped down live vocal and acoustic guitar duo is enchanting. I would love to see a live Crystal Jacqueline/Honey Pot split performance between full band and acoustic.
Wow, 2015 has been a stellar year for Jacqueline, between the Rainflower album, the Electronic Memory album with the Honey Pot, and now this end year EP. ALL recommended.
Aural Innovations