Various Artist - Hello Everyone: Popsike Sparks From Denmark Street 1968-70 (2014)

Between 1968 and 1970, some of the finest, most obscure British psychedelic pop singles of the era escaped on the Spark label, the newly-inaugurated recording arm of long-established publishers Southern Music.

Recorded in the basement studio of the company’s Denmark Street premises, these tracks often featured the same cabal of musicians and songwriters, leading to a homogenous in-house style that perfectly encapsulates the late 1960s British pop-psych studio sound.

The best of Spark’s impressive roster is now presented here on CD with Hello Everyone: Popsike Sparks from Denmark Street 1968-70, which assembles highly-prized, highly-priced 45s from pre- Rare Bird band Fruit Machine, Gene Latter, post- Sorrows outfit the Eggy, the New Generation (subsequently to become the Sutherland Brothers), the Dennis Wheatley-inspired Icarus and both sides of the magnificent and astonishingly rare single by Sir Ching I (only one stock copy known to exist). Also included are exquisite Brit popsike singles from Timothy Blue, Just William, both sides of the superb John Carter/Russ Alquist collaboration ‘The Laughing Man’/‘Midsummer Dreaming’ and two sensational offerings from Eartha Kitt during her brief and unlikely immersion in late Sixties hippy chick chic.

Crammed with vintage three-minute pop tunes, and with a lavish 16-page booklet that features rare photos, quotes and the full story behind the label, Hello Everyone is simply an essential purchase for admirers of the British psychedelic pop genre.