Jennifer Gentle – Valende (Sub-Pop)

It is oddly surreptitious that a second-hand copy of this album should reach my hands in the same week Syd Barrett died. Picked up on the recommendation of someone whose opinion I trust, it is obvious from the name onwards that Jennifer Gentle – who are a band, not a person – have drunk deep from the well of Barrett and absorbed his spirit in a very profound sense. But that doesn’t really mean they SOUND like Syd Barrett as such, and in fact they don’t really sound like anything at all that I can easily attach a name to.

So, by way of a review, imagine the following;

Somewhere out there, not too far away, there is a moon orbiting a big old planet, and it is inhabited by a race of strange, comical creatures – Moonbeasts, let’s call them. The Moonbeasts have for a while been tuning into entertainment transmissions from earth, and whilst they are fascinated by, and somewhat jealous of, our wealth of pop culture, they have a deeply-held belief that they can do better. In the interests of proving this, they have launched a rocket containing one of their own musical prodigies straight towards earth, in the hope that he will become a star. Unfortunately though, something has gone awry, and instead of the Moonbeast equivalent of James Brown or the Moonbeast Madonna, we’ve somehow ended up being sent the Moonbeast Syd Barrett instead!

And so, armed with guitars and flutes and pianos and cymbals – unfamiliar instruments which he has diligently adapted to his alien physique and learned to play – Moonbeast Syd has landed on earth and made a record. He still plays using the musical scales of his own species though, and still sings in their language. But don't worry, as he has an experimental piece of apparatus with him, a ‘musical translator’ of sorts, which he can feed his recordings into and have them magically emerge in a form understandable to earth-men. Or at least, that’s the idea, but like I say, it’s kind of experimental, and it has lots of knobs and dials, and he’s not sure whether he’s set it up right. But undeterred, our heroic Moonbeast hammers away at his strange instruments, belting out what in his world are simple songs of love and joy and togetherness, along with some dazzling instrumentals conveying a deep sense of unity and spiritual peace that surely the people of Earth will be able to relate to.

So anyway, by January 2005 he has finished putting the album together, and he’s feeling pretty pleased with himself. So he takes it in to Sub-Pop (his favourite earth record label) to see what they reckon. And the guys at Sub-Pop say; “hey, yeah, this is the craziest thing we’ve ever heard, we’ll totally put this record out! But best drop all the alien bullshit, no one will ever buy that. We’ve been meaning to get around to signing some freaky European bands to make ourselves look cool though, so how about we pretend instead that you’re actually two Italian men who are in a band called.. uh.. Jennifer Gentle? Yeah, the kids’ll dig that for sure! We’ll make millions!”

As usual, the guys at Sub-Pop are wrong, and the album is almost entirely ignored by everybody.

Eighteen months later, in the week that the Earth Syd Barrett dies, I buy a copy for £2.50 and am moved to write this review.