Keep Still

UK Import. SANTA SPREES started life as dilettantes in a vacuum, without forethought or grand design, in 1994 following the arrival in the Sprees' household of a cheap catalogue keyboard. Despite it not being touch-sensitive Santa Sprees chose to hit the keys very hard, fashioning short, primitive songs based on a handful of haphazardly uncovered 3-finger chords. As the number of cassettes of said songs grew more instruments were added: electronic mellotron, 5-stringed guitar (Santa Sprees tuning), sleigh bells, diamonica, sampler, distortion pedal, kazoo, harmonica, melodion, percussive lemons etc. A compilation of songs taken from these early cassettes, 'TAKE IN THE CORN WITH SANTA SPREES' - including 'THE SYNTHESIZERS', 'HOUSE OF HAIR' and 'TIN BIN WITH CAVE PAINTINGS ON IT' - was released on the tiny and quickly defunct Peacock Window Muzak label in March 1995. The following August, Santa Sprees made 'THE CURRENT MIND OF....' for the Impakt Festival in Utrecht, which featured the brilliant, treacled drone-hymn 'TRAMBOY RIDES THE TRAMS', the dot-to-dot bells and electronic symmetry of 'THE ARDABIL CARPET', and the pagan-baiting rant 'DRUIDS' (part 6 of a 25 part song-cycle). Santa Sprees' next compilation, 'EMOTIONAL RACKET', enthused Scout records enough for them to want to record an album and arrange a U.S. tour. Santa Sprees, amateurs to the last, refused to re-record the songs with a producer in a studio and shortly after moved to a small cotton town in Thessalia, Greece, before going on to Tokyo in January 1999. Whilst in Japan, Dreamy Records released 'DE HELPENDE HOND' and 'I WISH I'D BEEN AN EXTRA IN DAWN OF THE DEAD' on the 'Head In the Clouds' compilation (rem 004 cd) and over the next 18 months recorded their debut CD, 'KEEP STILL' (rem 00? cd) for the same label: an hour-long album of bedroom hollers, primitive baroque, ramshackle doo-wop, densely lyrical squalls and cheap pop abandonment. SANTA SPREES are Anthony Dolphin and Katherine Marshall plus occasional guests. They will be coming to the UK for some live dates at the end of February 2001.