About Me
RADIO AIRPLAY @ LONDON RESONANCE FM & AIR ATLANTIC UNDERGROUND RADIO USA -
"STERLING 'ROSCO' ROSWELL artist / disk jockey and record producer with own lightshow, oscillators, guitar, organ and drumset."
THE PSYCHEDELIC UBIK :
STERLING ROSWELL :
MINTmicrodot recordings MINTCD017
Jungle-records.com
The best album of the year you've never heard of!,
By Ouija Boy "Ouija Boy" (UK)
Everyone who hears this record says the same thing "This is fantastic! Why haven't I heard it before?!" It's definitely an unexpected treat if you're a follower of the careers of the ex-members of Spacemen 3. Sterling Roswell (SR) was their long-standing drummer and played on several albums including their breakthrough Perfect Prescription. But he's a bit of a mystery and I don't think he ever let his photo - or even his name - appear on their record covers. He quit in 1988. All the ex-members went on to do really good projects. The albums SR went on to make while in Darkside, with Spacemen's Pete Bain, are very good, but PSYCHEDELIC UBIK is on a different astral plain. He calls it A NEW PSYCHEDELIC UNDERGROUND. In some ways it's old school; in others its futuristic space rock. Sometimes there's lovely woody double bass thumping away, there's understated 60s style beats. But it's melded so well with electric guitars (sort of twangy surf style) and swooshing, throbbing synths that it sounds like a whole new thing he's invented. It's lazy, it's absorbing. It reaches deep inside you. His songwriting is masterful. They're heartbreakingly romantic, or their so obviously instant pop classics that they could be classified as soul, britpop, garage, country or rock and you wonder if they weren't written years ago, in another dimension, and have been seeping through and guiding us ever since. It really GELS; it's a very well crafted and mature piece of work. One of the tracks is even backwards - and its one of my favourites!
There are several rumours circulating regarding SR's present circumstances. This is what I heard:
(1) He quit England after he finished making the PSYCHEDELIC UBIK to join a voodoo tribe in his native Africa. That's why he's never on TOP OF THE POPS; (2) Sterling Roswell is in a maximum security mental hospital in the USA for killing and eating his entire band including bass player who, apparently, used to play in The Plastic Ono Band; (3) He fell in love with his guitarist, and - in an attempt to woo him - had a sex change so that he could look exactly like Poison Ivy from THE CRAMPS, who he was infatuated with. I don't know how it worked out.
Weird, eh? Not sure about that second one, but he did grow up in Africa, according to his website, so maybe he went back, like in Greystoke: the Legend of Tarzan and the King of The Zulus…
Ouija Boy,
Sterling Roswell - The Psychedelic UbikRecorded in London and Rome the record features the string quartet from Ennio Morricone’s orchestra, drummers Bob Irwin and Arthur Lager, guitarists Steve Donnelly and Laine Hines, and producer Neil Brockbank. The album has already received 4 star reviews in Mojo Magazine, Record Collector and was awarded 'Album of the week' in The Organ Magazine London.
PRESS QUOTES:
"It makes you wonder if the real inspiration in Spacemen 3 was Sterling Roswell. Roswell's stoned Dylanising shines through transcendent acid rock...'Venus Honey Dew' could have come straight off the last Air album. If ever a record was worthy of the lofty claim 'Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space', this may well be it" MOJO MAGAZINE, * * * * (Four Stars)
"A wonderful debut album - a fine mix of glowing futuristic almost whispered Mercury Rev/Beach Boys flavoured space pop, warm 60's garage psychedelia and frothing, creamy, dreamy, analogue synth seduction. Beautifully crafted, detail drenched, delicate velvety pop songs. Triumphantly uplifting - you need this album." Album Of The Week, Organ Magazine.
"A floaty, symphonic psychedelic pop record with woozy sound effects. Actually, this is brilliant!" Time Out.
"A heady, hazy half hour with this album and the contact high remains long after. Reminiscent of Stereolab's euro-lectric pop, a dash of lazy guitars, beats and horns make this a perfect summer afternoon record for slipping out of synch." Record Collector, * * * * (Four Stars)
"Girl From Orbit is a great, great love song; it is sex in a rocket destined for Planet Elsewhere" Single Of The Month, Sleaze Nation. a
