Whether they traded under the name
West Coast Consortium or just
Consortium, the British group were responsible for some of the finest light psychedelic pop of the late '60s. They magically combined
Beach Boys/
Four Seasons-style vocal harmonies with lush, string-filled backing to create a sound that was as smooth as paisley velvet and also criminally overlooked. Apart from one medium-sized hit, 1969's "All the Love in the World," the band's singles weren't hits and they never managed to release an album. Not officially anyway. While they were struggling to hit the charts, they were simultaneously making home demos that stripped away the ornate glow of their singles and replaced it with an intimate, rough-hewn, and fascinating take on psychedelic pop. Their work has been collected before, but
Grapefruit's 2024 release
All the Love in the World: Collected Recordings 1964-1972 not only has all their singles on one disc, it has all three of the demo albums they recorded in 1968 and 1969. The singles are a high-level course in MOR psych, built around the group's slick harmonies, with arrangements chock-full of strings, keyboards, and polish, and featuring songs that were pitched somewhere between the merrily twee approach of
the Ivy League and the rambling glee of
the Move.
Consortium prove to be pleasing balladeers on tracks like "All the Love," but they also get pretty weird on the phased psych nugget "Colour Sergeant Lillywhite" and delve into bubblegum sweetness on later songs, especially the insistent "Cynthia Serenity." All A+ work that when stretched end to end rates right near the top of what was coming out of the U.K. during the era.
As good as what they were doing on their records was, the band's behind-the-scenes work is arguably even more interesting. The songs from both sets of demos taped in 1968 trade out the orchestras for Mellotron and the overstuffed arrangements for something less bombastic while showcasing their wonderful mix of voices. The demos feature some of the songs that were released on singles -- a take on "All the Love in the World" with Mellotron taking the lead is quite beautiful -- but they also hold a treasure trove of oddball psych and toytown ballads that the band could have dipped into to make a pretty great album. The double album's worth of demos the group put on tape in 1969 are much peppier than the songs they were issuing at the time, coming across like bubbly soda pop instead of champagne. The tracks are short and hooky, with twanging guitars and bouncy rhythms leading the way and the results coming close to bubblegum at times, but they mostly sound unlike anything else going on in 1969 (especially when they add accordion to the mix to sub for strings). Maybe that's why none of the songs ended up being released on their official singles, though they certainly could have been. It's unlikely that tunes as breezy as "Mr. Umbrella Man" or as giddy as "Rings and Things" would have been hits in such a serious time, but they didn't deserve to be buried either.
Most of the songs from these albums hadn't seen the light of day until the release of this compilation, to which one can only say better late than never. They provide an always entertaining, sometimes brilliant counterpoint to what was already a (short) career's worth of excellent songs. Psychedelic pop doesn't get much better than
West Coast Consortium, and
All the Love in the World is a vital release that all fans of the style need to hear. ~ Tim Sendra
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