Second Hand

If there were a hall of fame for underground weirdo freak bands, Second Hand would be among the first nominees. Their second album, released on April 1st 1971 through Vic Keary's Mushroom Records, is no joke - it's one of the most unhinged, inventive and genuinely strange records to emerge from the British progressive underground.

Second Hand began life as The Next Collection in South London in 1965, with teenage school-friends Ken Elliott (keyboards, mellotron, harmonica) and Kieran O'Connor (drums, vibes) at the core. Their 1968 debut Reality was a heavily lysergic trip through an increasingly dark alternate universe, but label problems and lineup changes derailed their momentum. By the time they entered Chalk Farm Studios in autumn 1970, their guitarist had departed - leaving Ken Elliott's organ and mellotron to fill the void, with Rob Elliott (Ken's brother, influenced by Arthur Brown, Zappa and Beefheart) taking over lead vocals and George Hart on bass and violin.

The result is an album that defies easy categorization. Part of the music served as soundtrack for an art-film of the same name by Frankie Dymon, which was subsequently banned. Stylistically, Death May Be Your Santa Claus veers from organ-led incantations to Canterbury-adjacent jazz stylings, from circus-atmosphere psychedelia to passages that wouldn't sound out of place scoring the final sequence of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Ken Elliott's keyboard work rivals anything his peers in Egg or The Nice were producing; Rob Elliott's madman vocal delivery channels Arthur Brown at his most unhinged. Tracks like "Hangin' On An Eyelid", "Lucifer and the Egg" and the extended "Cyclops" showcase a band operating with complete creative freedom - the product of limited studio time but boundless imagination.

Despite its quality, the album sold poorly due to Mushroom's limited distribution. Original copies rarely surface; when they do, collectors pay dearly. The band would record one more album as Chillum before dissolving in 1972, their forward-thinking music simply too adventurous for audiences of the time. Peter Gabriel considered them for his backing band after leaving Genesis - an opportunity lost when O'Connor failed to appear at the rehearsal.

For fans of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Kingdom Come, Van Der Graaf Generator, early Hawkwind, and anyone drawn to the stranger corners of British progressive rock, Death May Be Your Santa Claus is an essential discovery.

Japanese mini-LP sleeve edition on high-fidelity SHM-CD with bonus tracks. Complete with liner notes and Japanese translation.