The Chemistry Set are back. This is the London Psychedelic-pop duo who, way back when, attracted the attention of the late great John Peel, among many others. It is fair to say, however, that despite this heavyweight support, the duo of Paul Lake and Dave McLean remain one of those ‘so near and yet so far’ bands who deserve a far wider recognition.
Their intended debut album from 1989, the brilliantly entitled, Sounds Like Painting sadly remained unreleased and gathering dust for years. Some of their 12” single releases fetch impressive sums so clearly people are still very much up for the band. The news of this release is pure nectar to the faithful.
The word finally started picking up momentum and The Chemistry Set found that Sounds Like Painting was busily attracting renewed interest and was downloaded 8,000 times in a three month period.
This confirmed what many already knew. The Chemistry Set still had a cult like following. Demands for new material flooded in and the result is here, Alchemy #101, a mini album, released last month on Skittlebrau Records.
The band's name brings back some disturbing memories of nearly burning my parents house down playing with, you’ve guessed it, a Chemistry Set. Historically this has to be the dumbest thing ever to buy a child. Anyone whose parents were reckless enough to buy one will know that a little of the blue powder, a splash of yellow stuff, and a pink crystal or two heats up the test tube alarmingly quickly before catching fire altogether. This band do just that to music.
They recorded this on an island in the middle of the River Thames in the shadow of Henry VIII’s digs, mixed it in Barcelona, and then added a further splash of Catalan atmosphere by inviting the delightfully named Suzette de la grace Faberge to add French vocals. Not contet with that, it’s been released on a Scottish label. The result is a chemistry set to music, of course.
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