What with the current excitement being generated by the new Scouse crop such as The Coral, The Bandits and The Zutons and the masterful re-emergence of wayward geniuses Shack, could there be a better time to herald the arrival of an unmissable collection from maybe THE great lost Liverpool band, THE WILD SWANS?
Seeing as they only recorded one single during their brief lifetime - the damn-near perfect "Revolutionary Spirit"/ "God Forbid", financed, produced and drummed upon exquisitely by the late, great Bunnymen drummer Pete De Freitas - you'd wonder why the MK1 line-up of the band would be causing your reviewer to foam uncontollably around the mouth, but as CD1 of "Incandescent" makes abundantly clear, The Wild Swans had more where the mercurial rush of the single came from. Indeed, twenty years down the line, I think it's still accurate to say the nine songs here (including the single's two cuts that lead off) represent what could/ should have become one of rock's landmark debut albums.
We'll get to the details shortly, but first some background for the uninitiated, which will basically be anyone who doesn't remember the Liverpool scene in the post-punk times that spawned the Teardrop Explodes, Wah! and The Bunnymen or read 'SOUNDS' in late '81/ early '82. The Wild Swans comprised vocalist/ songwriter Paul Simpson, keyboard player Gerard Quinn (both former members of the Teardrop Explodes), plus guitarist extraordinaire Jeremy Kelly. They went through drummers and (especially) bassists like most of us have hot dinners, although the ones who hung around for any length of time, such as The Room's future skinsman Alan Wills and bassist Phil Lucking also played an important part in shaping in the Swans' lustrous sound.
In their initial incarnation (roughly late 1980 to late summer 1982), the Swans eked out a ridiculously meagre existence in the Victorian Liverpool flat they shared with Pete de Freitas and were perhaps the ultimate in idealistic, literate young dreamers, far more Baudelaire than Bowie. Often stoned and untogether, it's thanks to the ever-receptive Kid Jensen and (inevitably) John Peel Radio One shows that most of their magnificent early material has survived to be reappraised now.
CD1 features both the Jensen session from March 1982 and the Peel Session from May of the same year, and while this is only seven songs in all, they're seven of the greatest misplaced tracks you're liable to hear. Fragile, poetic and almost Victorian in atmosphere, yet still vitally connected to the bracing modern rock'n'roll of the Bunnymen and Teardrops, "The Iron Bed", "Opium" and the gorgeously forlorn romanticism of "Flowers Of England" are all stone classics, though it's one of Simpson's couplets in the svelte and funky "Now You're Perfect" ("Neither tainted or defiled, your nature dark and wild") that for me somehow captures the indefinable sense of mystery the Swans were wrapped up in.
This is breathtaking stuff, but phenomenally it's equalled by the Peel Session, featuring "No Bleeding", "Enchanted" and "Thirst." "No Bleeding" is arguably the Swans' finest moment and is a delicious headrush, framed by Simpson's most heartfelt, tremulous vocal of all and unbelievably tender musicianship from both Quinn and Kelly. Both musicians were incredibly special, and the piano part Quinn slips into as the track's coda is out of this world.
"Enchanted," by comparison, is scuttly and nervous, with frantic rimshots from Wills and Quinn's keyboards enveloping the track like an Arabian blanket. It's great, intoxicating darkness, going pell mell for the burn. Naturally, they pull it off with serious aplomb, and they even get away with "Thirst": a parched, rolling instrumental featuring some preposterously OTT trumpet blasts from Wills that the Swans pretty much busked in the Maida Vale studios and still stamped indelibly with class. The bastards.
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Creatively, the Wild Swans were at the peak of their game at this time, but the lack of funds at their legendary Zoo label (run by Bill Drummond and David Balfe), coupled with their own lethargy, an overwhelming desire not to play the music biz game and probably a host of other factors we know nothing about conspired to sink them just as they'd begun to shine so brightly.
In terms of bequeathing a perfect corpse, perhaps that should have been the full stop, but in typically convoluted Liverpool circumstances, Simpson, Quinn and Kelly all found themselves at a loose end a couple of years later and drifted back as the Wild Swans Mk2. And so to CD2.
This CD opens with a third superb radio session (this time from the Janice Long show) that demonstrates the spark was still very much there. Sure, it's a slightly warmer, more linear pop sound, with Simpson decidedly less flowery lyrically (there's nothing as doomed and mysterious as the "twist upon the tourniquet" chorus from the positively 19th century beauty "Opium"), but while Quinn was still in the fold, the magic continued to materialise as "Northern England", "Crowning Glory" and especially the superb "Holy Spear" made only too apparent.
Ultimately, the Mark 2 line-up succumbed briefly to the lure of Sire Records, major labeldom and inevitable dilution when Quinn drifted away, but that's another story. Instead, CD2 closes with a spirited live set, donated from Bunnyman Will Sergeant's personal collection, from the Swans support shows on the Buns' 1981 Christmas tour. Fittingly, the winter was the most severe in recent history and the band were forced to catch the train back to Liverpool when their van finally gave up the ghost in Staffordshire. Doesn't stop their live show (with ace Passage sticksman Joe McKechnie braving the drumstool) from being as exciting as hell, though. Not to mention rapturously received. It doesn't have the fragility of the studio recordings, but it's a joyous finale regardless.
That The Wild Swans should have been forced to exist in such an impoverished state during their ridiculously short lifetime(s) seems shocking, but then such unfettered idealism was never designed for sales graphs and accountants. That their rare, volatile and elegant early songs should finally be unearthed for something like mass consumption even so long after the fact is all the riches you could ever wish for. "Incandescent" is all your Christmases come early and no mistake.
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