Prog's Best-Kept Secret
They’ve released 18 studio albums in their 12-year career and regularly top festival bills in their Cardigan home, but we’re betting you’ve never enjoyed the delights of Streamedelica She Sighed As She Hit Rewind On The Dream Mangler Remote or The Pavilio
s a passionate watcher of the progressive rock skies for over 50 years, this writer has long regarded Sendelica as the UK’s foremost proponents of the music’s original spirit. Evocatively bathed in mystery and imagination, the Welsh band possess that open-minded ethos that can see them embracing electronic music, even disco, while never forgetting their core influences of Dark Side Of The Moon Floyd, Funkadelic’s cosmic jams and Krautrock.
Unbothered by music industry ignorance, Sendelica have spent 12 years building a stunningly prolific cottage industry in far-flung west Wales, releasing 18 studio albums, eight live sets, plus many one-off singles and solo spin-offs. They routinely inspire superlative reviews and enjoy an expanding global following that’s taken them to America, Europe and Russia. Quite incredibly, this is their first major music press feature.
Although Sendelica’s line-up changes with every album, the band always revolves around mercurial guitarist Pete Bingham, a Geordie who lived in Leeds before settling in the Welsh coastal town of Cardigan 20 years ago. Bingham had already been in bands, including K.A.L.D. (Kill All Line Dancers) when his mission crystalised in 2005 after seeing Japan’s Acid Mothers Temple, whose star-sailing ethos and vast catalogue provided inspiration.
“Going to see them reminded me of the music I’d loved since I was a kid at school,” says Bingham. “I decided to make that music for my own pleasure, so we got together every Sunday afternoon in our sleepy little village and it got out of control. We used to tape rehearsals and give them to friends. Next thing, somebody is asking if we do gigs. It was surreal but great because we had no expectations – everything just happened and flowed.”
Sendelica have always worn their influences on their sleeve, allowing Bingham to indulge in his love of guitar heroes, a passion ignited by catching Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon tour in Newcastle at the age of 14, followed by Gong and Hawkwind. After that, he says, “I knew life wasn’t going to be the same.” Joined by former Surf Messengers bassist Glenda Pescado, who became Bingham’s lifelong lieutenant, and keyboardist Roger
Morgan, Sendelica released the mind-blowing Entering
The Rainbow Light on their
Frg imprint in 2007, followed by Spaceman Bubblegum And Other Weird Tales From The Mercury Mind for Russia’s R.A.I.G. (“We were the first Welsh band signed to a Russian label,” Bingham reveals) and their ethereal soundtrack to art house movie Sleepwalker Fever. By now, saxophonist Lee Relfe, another long-standing cohort, had joined, adding swooping flavours recalling VdGG’s David Jackson.
After Spaceman Bubblegum got good US reviews, 2008 saw a six-date East Coast tour, climaxing at New York’s Knitting Factory. They recorded 2009’s peak masterpiece The Girl From The Future Who Lit Up The Sky With Golden Worlds at a Rhode Island studio with veteran jazz percussionist Bob
Fish, highlights including live fave Manhole Of The Universe and Eddie Hazel tribute Hazelnut.
After R.A.I.G. leapt at the chance to release the LP, Sendelica toured Russia for the first time (“mind-blowing but very strange”). The label also released 2010’s Streamedelica She Sighed As She Hit
Rewind On The Dream Mangler Remote. Further memorably titled albums followed, including The Alternative Realities Of The Re-Awakening Somnambulist, The Pavilion Of Magic And The Trials Of The Seven Surviving Elohim, The Satori In Elegance Of The Majestic Stonegazer, The Kaleidoscopic Kat And It’s Autoscopic Ego (sic), The Fabled Voyages Of The Sendelicans and the soundtrack for The Megaliths. All boasted different moods, from monolithic earlyCrimson grandeur to interstellar galactic jams.
Sendelica’s special relationship with the Fruits de Mer label began in 2010 with a 45
“For me, disco is the natural progression from Krautrock, but it’s funny how people into space rock or prog look down on it because they don’t like to look outside of their little pigeon box.”
Pete Bingham
featuring reworkings of The Velvet Underground’s Venus In Furs and Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain. Their FDM covers have since become a tradition, and include versions of Hawkwind’s Urban Guerilla with Nik Turner; electronic pioneers the United States Of America’s Love Song For The Dead Che; Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust; Frank Zappa’s Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow; The Walker Brothers’ Nite Flights (remixed by long-time co-conspirator Marc ‘Astralasia’ Swordfish); and Donna Summer’s I Feel Love, reimagined as a 21-minute Krautrock epic.
“There were a lot of eyebrows raised at that!” laughs Bingham. “For me, disco’s the natural progression from Krautrock, but it’s funny how people into space rock or prog look down on it because they don’t like to look outside of their little pigeon box.”
Their pulsing new Disco Daze EP should further irritate those stuffy noses.
FDM started releasing original Sendelica material with 2016’s The Cromlech Chronicles. Influenced by 70s Japanese commune bands like the Taj Mahal Travellers, recording sessions near the ancient Pembrokeshire burial cromlech became an annual jam session.
Bingham explains: “We invite lots of people to play because I don’t want to risk doing the same thing every time. It’s exciting for us, and the audiences.”
2017 saw epic double set Lilacs Out Of The Deadlands mixing interstellar meditations with scorching double-drummer prog jazz, followed by the Martian chamber music of Cromlech Chronicles II, which includes producer Colin Consterdine on electronics, Kate Riaz on cello and Cheryl Beer’s exotic percussion.
“I really love that idea of being almost like a family. The Cromlech recording sessions are such an experience. There could be 10 people up there. We just go up with very few preconceived ideas and see what develops – quite scary for some, but it makes for more interesting music.”
Since 2015, Sendelica have topped bills at FDM’s annual Dream Of Dr Sardonicus festival in Cardigan. There’s also the Sendelica Drone Band and Bingham’s solo project,
The Fellowship Of Hallucinogenic Voyagers. The latter released last year’s ambient This Is No Wilderness, an album inspired by poet Lindsay Smith’s book of the same title.
All this activity but little press made Bingham wonder if releasing so much material was confusing, but as he tells us, “Our sales just get better, our mailing list continues to increase and we’ve got manic superfans who collect everything. We’re a cottage industry with hands-on directness. We get a lot of feedback from fans who love what we do, no matter what path we go down. I have so much music in my head I want to get out and as I get older, I worry about not doing that.”
As Sendelica’s arc continues upwards, the sky was long ago the limit. They’re prog’s best-kept secret no longer.
My House Is Made Of Angel Hair is out on 31 March via VE Records. For more information, see www.sendelica.bandcamp.com.
“I have so much music in my head I want to get out and as I get older, I worry about not doing that.”
Pete Bingham