PICTURES.
As in moving pictures. An ongoing mini-series. Every second Sunday.
Skip past the intro blurb in bold, if you’ve read it already.
Love promo music videos. Always have. Especially ones from the 80s and 90s when they really took off in a big way, following the dawn of MTV and the opening explosions of the hyper-corporatised marketing and PR of the global music industry.
A nice counter-product of that was the emergence of lots of colourful and creative visual accompaniments to artists’ work. Even reasonably small-scale and niche ones, by today’s standards.
These promo videos often providing another insight into another dimension of their creativity and/or the creativity of the artists, animators, directors and visual visionaries they worked with on them.
The weirder and more unusual the better on the music video front for me, unsurprisingly.
Going to be posting some favourites on here, every second Sunday, with a short blurb.
PICTURES #8 - WUBBLE-U - PETAL
Something of a one-hit wonder as far as I can gather, I bought this single on CD when it was re-released in 1998 having read a review in the NME. The tune having originally been released a few years earlier in 1994 on Go Discs! when this promo video too was released into the wild.
Slightly different versions, the one in 98 featured a punchy punctuation point with this additional and most memorable line in the lyrics….
It’s difficult these days… to get good grass.
The group were active in the mid-late 1990s, signed from Go Discs! to BMG ‘indie' imprint, Indolent. Wubble-U consisted of Laurent Webb, Justin Bailey, Dave Pine and Dave Coker and they gained most recognition for this particular single.
In addition to their own work, Wubble-U remixed tracks for artists like Madness, Gabriel, The Cardigans, the 60ft Dolls, and Lisa Moorish, among others during that period. Their album Where’s Wubble-U received critical praise that year but not too sure whatever became of them beyond that.
The tune is very fun and nonsensical and combines elements of the dance music flavours I was beginning to explore at that time… along with the lo-fi, off-kilter indie sensibilities I had been obsessed with since the early-mid-ish 90s.
A dreamy, upbeat, effervescent, summer number that blends elements of indie pop and downtempo-dancey-house beats and features the amazingly eccentric odd-ball comedian and character, Stanley Unwin - famously communicating in his own form of verbal spoken language with lots of words playfully corrupted and crafted from English. Unwin is well worth exploring further. Loads of stuff from him on YouTube if you are unfamiliar and interested.
A bit of a cult celeb prior to this tune, he’s probably most famous and most remembered for his collaborative contribution to The Small Faces’s icnonic Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake LP in 1968.
Unwin's distinctive "Unwinese" language was featured as a core part of that album's overall concept. A proper 60s classic which had a suitably whimsical, psychedelic style.
On ONGF, Unwin provided the voice of The Hobo, a character who narrates part of the album's overall story. His unique and weirdly wonderful, comedic speech style added a suitably surreal touch to the record and nicely complemented its quirky English psychedelic sounds.
Petal starts with Unwin’s spoken intro then some mellow, hypnotic instrumentation kicks in - characterised by smooth synths and soft percussion, gradually building into a lush, layered trancey soundscape.
On this collaborative contribution with Wubble-U, the delicate balance between the mischievous madness, the dreamy electronic production and the vocal delivery makes it feel both strangely banging, soothing and poignant all at once. An anomalous amalgamation.
The promo vid is pure unadulterated 90s nostalgia. We see a sillier side of the post-acid-house explosion. But none the worse for that. Arguably a ‘novelty’ number, I really love it. Proper vibe. Would love to have been there that day when the video was filmed!
A very 90s loved-up vibe but with humour and playfulness at its core. The female vocalist, Charlie One’s delivery is innocent, soft and tender, almost whispered at times, which adds to the intimate and introspective feel of the song. She looks very 90s in the video too - very fun and very cool.
Stanley’s outro words to outro this pre-amble, before you watch the video and smile from ear to ear, below…
“Suddenly the lad on the realisation that the whole universe is just like that, forgot he shut me out and began to wobble. This is Stanley and me signing off… With Wubble-U. All joy-filled. Goodbye now…”
Joy-filled indeed. Hope you like it, petals...