Mandrake Paddle Steamer

**alanterrill** · 03-18-2019

Mandrake Paddle Steamer were a short lived band UK band from the late sixties. I heard them when they did their only radio session in 1969 and formed a good opinion of them, but they never released an album, just one single that got zero promotion. There have been two bootleg compilations of pretty poor quality stuff out, but at last some good quality tapes have emerged and the band themselves have now put out an album of these called 'Pandemonium Shadow Show'. Its pretty damn good considering how old the material is -they are on the psychedelic/progressive crossover line and were both competent and adventurous. The title song is very catchy and has has an obvious Sargeant Pepper influence, but elsewhere the biggest influence seems to be the Nice. There are two excellent instrumental tracks and one of them 'Doorway to January' is very like the Nice. If their single 'Strange Walking Man' was included, this would have been an even better album, but that track is owned by EMI and apparently they wanted too much to license it. You will find it on several psychedelic compilation albums though. The album comes as vinyl, CD and download and the CD can be found on Wayside. If you loved 'Emerlist Davjack' or 'Piper at the Gates' you might like to investigate this.

(Stick with it until the 5 minute mark where it takes an extraordinary turn)

**Buddhabreath** · 03-18-2019

Very tempting - I always loved the heavily compiled "Strange Walking Man".

**Rye-Ergot** · 03-20-2019

Really superb and ambitious band. I'll pick this up for sure, since it is an improvement on the previously available versions. I like their sense of swagger and confidence and the arrangements had that kind of mod/psych flash with proto-prog leanings that I dig.