The Scarlet's Well/"Strange Letters" album features songs by Bid (of The Monochrome Set), sung by a motley crew of young girls, demons, shrews, captains, and sundry werewolves. It is the first in a series of albums about Mousseron, a sickly village situated somewhere east of the Azores, and only slightly north of the Styx. "Mousseron the ancient, the mysterious, the wonderful, where the church spire points to the heaven like a vast burned corkscrew, and the reflected sickle of the harvest moon sails upon the black water of Scarlet's Well. Mousseron the fairy foul, where elaborate rituals and magical incantations are preserved to guard the house from pale spectres who peer in through the window, who mop and mow at the lattice, who lurk behind the lintel of the door, who leer at you from the fish soup. Mousseron the bay of goats, where plague port sea-shanties burble on the dock and vile vergers skip lightly on the treacherous cobblestones." (Demetrius, 1898) "Yes, they use the old calendar here, pre Julian, pre Gregorian, and this sleepy town, warmed by the gulf stream which gives succour to incongruous palm trees, would indeed have made Queen Isis feel very much at home. Her 'nod' is seen in the sunshine and the saturation of colour from hayrick to rosy cheek. It is seasoned by the pungent smell of sea salt and of the sweat of generations of vagabond matelots whose abiding gift to the town is a vocabulary of oriental inflection and an orientation towards hedone...." (Thomas Hardy, 1999)
"That foul place......where I got this horrid disease.....English pigs....." Visual to the extreme, this album is the most amazing collection of well-crafted songs we've been given to enjoy (and ponder on) for a long time. With music ranging from the pure sixties pop to the operetta aria, and with lyrics which could have been written by Byron's eccentric uncle, this is a......what? (Henry The Pole, 1999)
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Track Listing
1. Miss Twinkle's been on holiday again |
7. Edo Meriden |
2. Why do spirits haunt Ruby Auburn ? |
8. Willy Whispers |
3. The Water-Shrew shuffle |
9. The Major's Song |
4. Sweetmeat |
10. The Spell |
5. What's Mr. Pinkwig's favourite ? |
11. The Captain's Song |
6. The Narison |
12. Petit Bourrée |
Scarlet'sWell
Lucy Tiddy |
Lucy |
Laura Piggott |
Laura |
Alice Healey |
Alice |
Bid |
The Captain, The Creature, The Footman, The Butler |
Orson Presence |
The Tailor |
Florence |
Herr Doktor Strumpf |
