Delta Flora by Hughscore

Teaching an old sliding dog new tricks.

Recorded in two separate studios – Delta in the UK and Flora in the States – this is the third collaboration between Portland-based team, bassist Fred Chalenor and keyboards/vocalist, Elaine di Falco, (best known as Caveman Shoestore) and Canterybury sound legend, Hugh Hopper.

Trippy, often hippy and occasionally spaced out in the nicest possible way, Hughscore contrive to create a groovy jazz-tinged psych-rock that never quite existed in the late 60s but sounds like it could have.

Fans of Hopper’s back catalogue will want to know that they tackle “Facelift”, the monolithic epic from Soft Machine’s Third. On Delta Flora those angular sonorities have been reshaped and moulded to flow more evenly across Tucker Martine’s fizzing drum sample to give the old beast a new lease of sprightly life.

"Was A Friend" from Robert Wyatt’s Schleep (co-written with Hopper) is given a Hughscore makeover in which the fidgety, nervous energy of the original is transformed into a darker, cavernous dub-lined space. At its centre, Elaine Di Falco’s unhurried vocal hovers in stark, intimate contrast to the drifting dance-hall ambience of Craig Flory’s tenor sax.

Though Hopper’s name undoubtedly has a greater currency and potential appeal, this is not a one-sided fuzzfest by any stretch of the imagination. There’s some top quality writing from the youngbucks. Elaine di Falco’s up-close sensuous purr on “November” demands and gets attention.

The cyclical sing-song shuffle, "Based On" is infectious in the extreme with Fred Challenor’s bass bubbling underneath Canterbury-style organ riffs, Hopper’s flanged incursions and velveteen brass/wind arrangements.

It’s not all Softs-focussed. They let their collective freak flag fly on the punchy "Ramifications" whilst the punning "Robohop" plummets into Paul Schutze-style subterranean probing – deep, dark and down there.

The portly tones of real Fender Rhodes piano on "Tokitae" evoke a misty-eyed nostalgia, closing an album of sunny languor whose dream-laden grooves soothingly insinuate and percolate long after its fade-out. Close your eyes and its vintage stuff; homage for sure but without recourse to retread or kitsch parody.

Stand out track: Remind Me