Three Minute Tease debut album out in May
aaamusic | On 16, Mar 2012
Cult singer/songwriter Anton Barbeau’s and two members of The Soft Boys’ impressive new psychedelic group.
Three Minute Tease comprises Andy Metcalfe and Morris Windsor and eternally culty Californian songwriter Anton Barbeau. Morris and Andy are probably best known for their work in The Soft Boys/Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians, though Vic and Bob fans might fuss about that. Anton has released something like 15 albums, including collaborations with The Bevis Frond and The Loud Family, but this shouldn’t stop you from not having heard of him! The story of how the band came to be involves a cassette from 1987, gigs in Hereford, Swindon and London, a tall man in denim holding a plate of potatoes at a wedding, coffee at Cafe Ringo, a formerly fateful trip to Berlin and Kimberley Rew telling Morris “Don’t let Anton get too weird.” We can talk about all this another day, but for now we should talk about Three Minute Tease!
The debut album is made up of 10 songs and was recorded in the wilds of Cambridgeshire at Remote Farm and in bedrooms nearby. Coproduced by Ant and Andy, the latter calling it “an album of contrasts,” the record covers quite a musical range within a psychedelic-pop circle. Opening track ‘Love Is Onion’ bares its teeth to show an undying love for the history of pop itself, complete with Mellotrons, Minimoogs, and a guest-star display of The Bevis Frond’s Nick Saloman on lead guitar, all atop the nimble power of the Metcalfe/Windsor bass und drums machine. As far from that as can be, however, is the next track, ‘Milko II’, which is just Ant, Andy and Morris playing a very, very sad song. There’s the mini spacerock epic ‘These Alien Angels’ and there’s even a proper and official power ballad with ‘Up On The Moon’. Oxford’s Stornoway make an appearance on the song ‘Dust Beneath My Wings’…
The album will be released on May 2012.
