David Devant and His Spirit Wife - Seaside the B-sides (2026)

Compilation retrospective of all the David Devant & His Spirit Wife B-sides. Rare tracks that were previously only available on limited-edition vinyl and CD singles. All the tracks capture the band’s freer experimental pop magic out of sight of the label asking for the single. Perversely they all seem like hits. And it stands as probably the very best of Devant in one package says Ged Babey.

This album made me very happy indeed as I listened to it from start to finish. I don’t revisit this bands work as often as I should…. It’s utterly joyful, musically wonderful. English vaudevillian psychedelia, glam and pure pop. David Devant & His Spirit Wife, are, to my mind, the great ‘lost’ ‘Britpop-era’ band. They just weren’t monosyllabically nomenclature’d enough (Blur, Pulp, Oasis) – and far too surreal, arty and smart to be capable of dumbing-down.

It also made me cry, as 14 years ago my best friend, who I will forever associate with David Devant & His Spirit Wife, died, unexpectedly, tragically young. I never realised how much I still miss him but and hour and a quarter of David Devant & His Spirit Wife brought the memories flooding back.

Phil was possibly the archetypical Devant fan. A geek, a nerd, into movies and Sci-Fi, soundtrack music and cutting-edge comedy far more than he was actually into music and the indie scene. Ten years young than me, when I first met him he’d never been to a small-venue gig ever. He was a bit OCD and wore earplugs when I did tempt him to go and see bands. He was ‘socially awkward’ and inappropriately rude at times and my friends referred to him as ‘your weird mate’. For someone who was ‘straight’-looking (not at all punk rock or indie-cool) he was incredibly outrageous and funny when intoxicated or bored.

He had tried his hand at drama and writing comedy scripts, movie screenplays etc and the only band he had a passion for previously was They Might Be Giants. Anyway…. most bands he came with me to see he dismissed as ‘rubbish’, until I suggested David Devant & His Spirit Wife….attracted by the kooky name alone.

He was utterly captivated by their performance, the theatrics, the spectral roadies and of course the songs. He’d never seen anything like them before. Neither had I to be honest. The Prisoner type surrealism and Vic and Bob style slapstick of for example, grating carrots over the Vessels head during Ginger. The notion of Englishness encapsulated in the Music Hall magician and the characterisation of the band as The Vessel and the Cluedo-inspired The Colonel – complete with vintage safari suit. Everything about the band appealed to Phil and his imagination. The habit of replacing the ‘obvious’/predictable rhyme… the psychedelia of odd, everyday outmoded objects, cine cameras, steam kettles, curly-cabled red telephones. Magic, love(life) miscellaneous – all the details you can’t do without. He loved them, and so did I, pleased I’d finally convinced him that ‘live music’ was as great as cinema.

DD&HSW’s motto as every fan knows is ‘All Done with Kindness’ way before ‘be kind’ became an memetic platitude. Phil was, despite his idiosyncrasies, a very kind man. He always bought the best presents for my son – including DVDs of V for Vendetta and They Live, before he was quite old enough to appreciate them. He always signed himself off as ‘Philip R. Smart’ so that you couldn’t say his name without saying Arse in the middle.. I miss him, his unique humour and kindness and David Devant will always remind me of him.