Scuzzed-up wonky prog sci-fi jazz
Who They?
A three-piece from Brighton consisting of Sam Organ (guitar and keys), Adam Hutchison (bass and keys) and Dave Morgan (drums). They met at university “almost by accident” after the break-up of their previous bands, and are about to release their first record in four years.
Why The Physics House Band?
They’re described by Stewart Lee (who wrote their bio) as “sounding like vintage 70s stadium-prog behemoth, but stripped of any errors of taste and judgment, fed amphetamines, made ashamed of their record collections, and then applying their obvious talent and ability to a more worthwhile end than their forebears”. Their aforementioned new record ‘Mercury Fountain’ is full of avant-garde compositions with flecks of prog and jazz here and there. As Stewart Lee elegantly puts it, it’s “a super-dense sci-fi mindfuck of a thing”.
Tell Me More
The album itself was made using a collection of vintage gear, including a couple of 70s Moogs, a Wurlitzer, a Roland RS-202 Strings and even a weird Russian Moog copy. For the band, experimentation “is key and a large part of the recording and writing process”. The title ‘Mercury Fountain’ comes from the name of a sculpture that bass player Adam stumbled upon in a gallery, with the story behind the record being “a hallucinogenic journey through the mind, parallel universes and the astral plane, using the allegory of diving into a Mercury Fountain”. They’ve played with the likes of Alt-J, Three Trapped Tigers and 65daysofstatic and are set to tour the UK themselves in May.
‘Mercury Fountain’ is released by Small Pond