“I BELIEVE in magic / space magic … put on your unicorn jacket, covered in bat ships.”.
So exhorts Somerset’s Jeremy Tuplin in the opening lines of his current single, “Space Magic”. So whoah: where are we, exactly, now … ground control?
As with the lyrics, the video for the song (which you can watch below) gives you some pointers. On one hand watery domestic, as toast pops and teeth are brushed, sofas are lounged on in the long, dark teatime of the soul; but the colours are mushroomy. There’s a kosmiche in Jeremy’s everyday. He wants you to dust off your Lewis Carroll get-up. You don’t wear it enough.
“Space Magic” follows on from last year’s (oh so gloriously pink vinyl) first LP, Pink Mirror; and as a taster for his second, Violet Waves, which is due for release on August 14th, it’s packed with technicolor umami.
If Jeremy makes you a brew, it’ll be an intoxicating one. A languid rhythm guitar and the boy-girl vocal are interspersed with glittering lead guitar runs descending from above. The lyrics are delivered with the offhand, great-British-eccentric, declamatory warmth of Jake Thackray or Bill Fay, one eyebrow just a little arched. Towards the end the song lifts skyward on an overdriven psych carpet, as the ghost of Mick Ronson picks up his gold Les Paul from above.
I tracked back to his first album and found an awful lot to love. On one hand, he’s fine dining with other contemporary baroque-psych auteurs like Jacco Gardner and Andy Shauf; yet he’s also not afraid of the absolute brilliance of the absurd, like the Flaming Lips and Matt Berry. This is, of course, a good thing.
Jeremy Tuplin is one of the most interesting psych troubadours to emerge from the British scene since Euros Childs put the kettle on for Gorky’s. I’m ready to believe in the magic of space magic; I suggest you should be, too.
“Space Folk” is out now. Disappear down Jeremy’s rabbit hole at http://www.jeremytuplin.com/
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