Pete Bingham from Welsh psych-prog band Sendelica talks to Jason Barnard about their latest releases, a moving one-off 12″ single, featuring Sendelica, Secret Knowledge and The Orb plus their final LP in the ambitious Cromlech Chronicles set.
Pete Bingham, Alex Paterson and Kriss Needs
For those that don’t know can you describe the Cromlech IV album and series?
We started a series of albums four years ago under the title ‘Cromlech Chronicles’, named after the ancient burial mound which resides in the grounds of Mynci recording studio in the wild lands of West Wales. The overall idea of this passage of albums was to simply go there with a procession of guests and simply improvise for a weekend to see where the muse would take us, and the process has thrown up some incredibly diverse music that has explored many aspects of psychedelia and electronic music producing some starkly different albums.
Last years annual Pilgrimage to Mwnci Studio in 2018 featured guest Neil Spragg (drums), Colin Consterdine (keys) and the phantom Carningli String Ensemble and it all coalesced into a full on musical head collision of West Wales with the West coast of USA.
Not so much down the rabbit hole but more of a trip through the door into summer of USA West Coast circa 66-70. A door of perception into the jamming delights of Jefferson Airplane,the Grateful Dead, Blue Cheer, Iron butterfly and The Byrds at the heights of their improvisational prowess. Although these bands were quite adept at writing ‘hit pop songs’, it is their live alchemy that is drawn into the ever evolving brewing pot of Sendelica, disjunctive song structures, key and time changes, modal melodies, and drones that entwine and evolve into a magical musical journey. Tune In, Turn on, Turn down the lights, indulge in whatever tickles your fancy and let the Odyssey of Cromlech IV engulf your senses.
And there’s the your Windmill EP bringing together Sendelica, Secret Knowledge and The Orb.
Yes, running parallel to the Cromlech IV recording and production, was another recording project the ‘Windmill EP’ , which, although it came out of tragic circumstances. resulted in a very moving and productive meeting of minds and talents. I think Kris Needs has put this journey into words better than I ever could:
“In July, Fruits de Mer release a very special record called ‘Windmill’, marking a rare organic collision between three disparate outfits who turned unimaginable tragedy into a beautiful eulogy after an astonishing musical journey. On the night of Sunday June 3, 2018, I lost my soul mate Helen Donlon after an illness she preferred not to know about. A respected literary agent and author, Helen and I had got together in 2013 and lived happily in a medieval cottage in Thaxted until events took their terrible turn. I was already on a mission to bring Sendelica into the mainstream music press and struck up a friendship with Pete Bingham that was already pointing to a cover version of Tim Buckley’s ‘Driftin”.
On hearing the awful news about Helen, Pete went and quietly transformed the music into a poignant eulogy with this tragic new dimension to deal with, bringing in Sendelica bassist Glenda Pescado and sax titan Lee Relfe to enhance its gorgeous swirl. When Wonder, who had sung with me in Secret Knowledge 25 years earlier, heard the piece she called it ‘Windmill’, after the beautiful place where Helen had been laid to rest. “The windmill looks so big and strong and beautiful,” she explains. “In a silent way it watches over her, like you did. And it never stops, always protecting.” Wonder flew to the UK all the way from her home in Cleveland, Ohio to sing the song at the magical Mwnci Studios, near Cardigan, giving a heart-wrenching performance while facing Helen’s photo (wearing her favourite purple velvet scarf) that reduced the room to tears. Helen’s beloved dog Jack, now her earthly representative, was also there to make the picture compete.
It didn’t stop there either. my old friend Alex Paterson had already said he wanted to do a remix. Working with Paul Conboy, his co-pilot in Orb spinoff Chocolate Hills, Alex produced two time-stopping remixes, using a recording of Helen’s speech on her beloved Ibiza at the 2017 Breaking Convention conference; her last major appearance in public entrancing the crowd at the world’s foremost psychedelic drugs conference.
With my photo of the Thaxted windmill on the cover, a rare heavenly synchronicity seemed to have been at work to produce this record. It’s an unimaginably beautiful tribute to a very beautiful person, lost too soon but alive forever in the music. She would have loved it.”
I’m very sorry to hear about Helen. Was it surprising hearing the remixes? Are there plans to work with Alex and/or Paul in future?
I always personally find it very satisfying and illuminating to hear what re-mixers do with our tracks, I think it’s great to hear the new directions that tracks take. We are no strangers to the world of remixers having worked a few times with Marc Swordfish (Astralasia) on some FDM tracks and Colin Consterdine also did a fantastic remix album of Cromlech tracks for the ‘Cromlech Re-Imagined’ album.
I thought the mixes that both Colin and Alex/Paul did were all stunningly beautiful and sublime, they all brought a lot of extra depth and emotion to the tracks. I think also a big mention to vocalist Wonder is needed also for a fantastic vocal on ‘Windmill’. It would be great to work with this group of people again and some plans are afoot as we speak for some of us to work together again already. All I can say at the moment is watch the skies… ‘The Lost Stoned Pandas’ supergroup are about to land.
Wonder recording the Windmill vocals at Mwnci Studio
Can you describe the evolution of the four Cromlech Chronicles LPs? Do you write/craft the songs by jamming?
There was no pre-planned ‘agenda’ at all with The Cromlech Chronicles sessions. Which was actually quite freeing and musically liberating in itself, as there was no boundaries or musical limitations imposed on the recording sessions. The only consistent factor was that all the albums had Lee, Glenda and myself involved as the core trio musicians of the project.
Cromlech Chronicles had two keyboards, theremin player and a drummer as the guests, the album had a very trippy almost floydesque movie soundtrack feel to it. Whereas Cromlech II had a much different line-up with the core trio being joined by cello, shaman drums, gongs, tibetan singing bowls, vocals, percussion and many other weird and wonderful non western instrumentation which steered the music into a completely different sphere. It ended up being a very ambient,drone based & eastern sounding album, a very lush sounding album which I found to be a very tranquil listening experience.
I think this is probably the most ‘spiritual’ Sendelica album that we have ever recorded and was more akin to bands such as the Taj Mahal Travellers than Space rock bands. I think it’s a very beautiful album that was probably highly influenced by the inclusion of two female musician guests in the line-up, both Kate Riaz and Cheryl Beer brought a certain lightness to the sessions. It is an album I am personally incredibly proud to have been involved in.
Cromlech III was again a very different sounding beast altogether! Based around a double drummer line-up of Jack Jackson & Gregory Curvey (The Luck Of Eden Hall guitarist), the double drum line-up of the Pink Fairies being a particular role model, along side additional keyboards. The album had a bit of everything going on it from the Black Sabbath riffage on ‘BS’ to the rather tranquil outings of ’12 Shades Revisited’ & ‘Teifi Marshes’, with even a bit of Rust Never Sleeps era Neil Young casting a watchful eye over ‘Star Flower Blossom’.
These really were albums that were, in most parts, sculptured through jamming in the studio. I brought in a lot of riffs and chord progressions to play around with and the we simply jammed around them. Funnily it was often the first takes of these tracks that made it onto the finished albums.
How do you approach live shows, choosing and playing material? Is it tricky given the complex nature of your recorded material?
Live, we have very jamming / improvisational shows. Our tracks tend to have intro’s and endings, the live experience is all about the journey inbetween those two points. I think this is probably why our live albums are so popular with fans, we never play the tracks the same, different nuances at every show.
What’s next for Sendelica, another Cromlech Chronicles, Fruits de Mer releases/live shows?
Next on the horizon are a few UK festival shows over the next month or so including Sendelica’s / FDM’s 17th Dream Of Dr Sardonicus Festival in August.
Release wise we have a few interesting plans on the drawing board including the second volume of Cromlech Chronicles Re-Imagined album and a really big project involving the vinyl release of our three CD only ‘Russian’ albums released over ten years ago on the RAIG label. We are planning a box set with lots of bonus tracks and a live DVD of shows from our two Russian tours. It’s ten years ago since these albums were released and it seems the perfect time to re-visit these recordings.
Recently I have also, courtesy of Kris Needs entered the orbit of Jay Burnet (Afrika Bambaataa / Beastie Boys / Dej Jam Records fame) and Lee and I have been doing some recording work on a cover version of Gun Clubs ‘Bad America’ for a Jeffrey Lee Pierce tribute album that also features Nick Cave, Lydia Lunch and Debbie Harry. The track also features Wonder on vocals and will be out on a German label at the end of the year.
The Windmill and Cromlech IV releases are available from Bandcamp and Fruits de Mer Records.
