Sounds From The Junkshop #20 - Octopus

 

"We steal the days and catch the rays and no-one knows we're gone. We'll sail the sea, get home for tea and put the telly on..." - Octopus, Adrenalina, 1996

So this is essentially a story all about two bands in the Britpop era who came through at the same time, one Scottish and one Welsh, who played a similar brand of psychedelic-based music which was poppy enough to see them shoehorned in with Britpop. The Welsh one went on to become darlings of the underground scene for several years and had a string of hit singles and albums. They were called the Super Furry Animals. You might have heard of them. The Scottish one put out one sadly overlooked gem of an album then seemingly vanished off the face of the earth. They were called Octopus and they're the subjects of this week's Sounds From The Junkshop.

Randomly, I think my first encounter with Octopus was on a free cover CD with one of the indie music mags I read back then (I think it might have been Select? Now there's a name from the past...) which had the song Adrenalina on it and was probably the best song on the compilation. A dreamy slice of indie psychedelia, it hooked its claws into me and wouldn't let go with its soaring chorus and general joie de vivre. It had been the B-side of the group's first single Magazine and, as luck would have it, a trip into Bradford a week or two later saw me find a copy in the discount rack of HMV for the princely sum of 49p and I duly bought it.

Hands up, Magazine was a decent song but was a bit more Britpop-by-numbers - they should really have switched the A-side and B-side around on the single in my humble opinion. However, it was with their next single that the group would well and truly hit their stride - Your Smile was a bright and bouncy singalong slice of psychedelic pop and very nearly cracked the Top 40 for them.

Looking back now, it's pretty clear that Octopus were very heavily influenced by the latter day Beatles - Adrenalina definitely has a ring of Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds about it and Your Smile's B-side, the lovely languid King For A Day was reminiscent of Here Comes The Sun. The key was though that they were good enough at writing killer tunes in their own right to ensure it was never that much of an issue. I seem to remember Octopus had three songwriters in the band in the form of frontman Marc Shearer, guitarist Alan McSeveney and drummer David Francolini (previously of shoegazing no-hopers Levitation - talk about a serious promotion up the quality leagues!) with Alan's brother Steve completing the line-up on bass.

It was pretty clear all three of Octopus' main songwriters knew their way around a decent tune and a good pop hook and that's why it's still a bit of a mystery to me why their career was so short-lived. And yes, I know a lot of bands were influenced by Lennon and McCartney around this time but Octopus' more fey psychedelic approach to the Merseybeat sound was a nice contrast to the whole tiresome "lads lads lads!" style of Oasis and their numerous clones.

Octopus' third single Saved was the one that finally cracked the Top 40 and set them up for the album From A To B. Not only was it a great single - a mellow string-drenched slice of dreamy pop but it was chock full of great B-sides as well with the laconic No Answer and the almost music hall style True True True being particular stand-outs.

When the album came out it got mixed reviews but I loved it and it was on my listening rotation for most of the tail end of 1996. From the bouncy pop of Joypop and Jealousy to the beautiful acoustic title track to the more reflective likes of the mournful Night Song and In This World (which did probably owe a sly nod of the head to those more thoughtful Oasis B-sides that Noel used to sing on back in the day), it was only when they went a bit too poppy for their own good on the likes of If You Want To Give Me More and Wait And See that it stalled a bit.

Jealousy came out as a single but missed the Top 40 as I think most people had bought the album by this point (again though, two great B-sides in This Book's For You and Yes Yes Yes). I remember taping a live set by the group in early '97 (I think they might have been supporting Hurricane #1 which is a weird combination in itself). And then...nothing. Even the group's fanzine Octozine (which I'd subscribed to via the free mail order form in one of the singles) stopped after just a couple of issues. I seem to remember reading on the Food website (the band's label) some time about two years later in 1998-99 sort of time that the group had been dropped and presumably split up. Reading Food's side of the story, it seemed like either the band had taken so long to sort their much-delayed second album out that the label had lost patience with them or the band had just given up on it and split up. It sounded like there was more to this than meets the eye and I'd be interested to hear the band's take on it - Marc, Alan and Dave, if you're out there, get in touch, it'd be good to hear from you.

From A To B is still available to listen to on Itunes, Spotify etc (sadly the singles aren't) and I thoroughly recommend it as a bit of a lost Britpop gem. As I've said earlier, I'm genuinely mystified as to why Octopus never went on to be Scotland's answer to the (equally brilliant) Super Furry Animals who emerged at around the same time - they certainly had the killer tunes and slight "thinking outside the box" approach that made Gruff Rhys and co such a good band. Maybe it was just bad luck or maybe there was only room for one band of that genre in the popular scheme of things? I dunno. But all I know is that listening to From A To B again and watching the videos above to Your Smile and Saved has cheered me up on a miserable rainy afternoon as I'm writing this. Go give them a listen and rediscover Britpop's great lost psychedelic sons.