Time To Get Organ-ized

I received a lovely surprise late last week, when Tales of the Wyldewood Green landed on my doorstep. Its arrival was surprising to me on two counts: One, I didn’t think that my limited-edition vinyl copy of The Wyldewood Green’s first full-length album (which I’d pre-ordered from Bandcamp back in June) was actually going to show up until August. Two, the record turned out to be even more happening than I’d been hoping.

I’ve been a fan of Marco Scarsone’s L.A.-based, organ-driven instrumental outfit since 2019, when I picked up a copy of their killer debut 45, “Piccadilly Circus” b/w “Panther Walk,” a double-barreled blast of funky Hammond organ-driven instros loaded with some blistering freakbeat guitar. I’d figured a follow-up release containing more of the same hard-grooving goodness would emerge in a timely fashion, but the COVID pandemic — not to mention various other life complications — wound up sidelining The Wyldewood Green for nearly half a decade.

By the time Scarsone — who has also hammered the keys for Trish Toledo, Latasha Lee, Miriah Avila, Adrian Carmine, The Sound Reasons, The Fantastic Fellinis, The Magnificent (featuring The Mighty Manfred) and Tony Saxon — was finally ready to return to the studio with some new material, the WWG’s lineup had dwindled to just him, drummer Jonathan Yang (also of The Sound Reasons) and percussionist Mike Davis. Unfazed, Scarsone painstakingly recorded the 11 originals that make up Tales of the Wyldewood Green at Chinatown’s Black Poseidon Recorders, handling the bass and guitar as well as keyboard, engineering and production duties. Nothing in the way of samples, pre-recorded loops, drum machines or AI nonsense was allowed to enter the equation.

The final results are, frankly, quite stunning. As the band’s Bandcamp page puts it, “The Wyldewood Green plays a kaleidoscope of 60s-70s-inspired mod punk, psychedelic garage, deep funk, heavy psych, hard rock and soundtrack atmospherics.” That’s a pretty tall order for any band to blend convincingly — much less, er, organically — and even more so when one musician is overdubbing himself on most of the instruments. (The band has since re-expanded to include bassist Tim Conaway, formerly of The Killing Floors, and guitarist Zach Jones.)

And yet, Tales of the Wyldewood Green pulsates, pounds and pushes the groove like the noonday underground combo of my paisley-est dreams. Dig, for example, “The Mindsplitter,” a track from the album which sounds like The Chocolate Watchband playing an Ennio Morricone-penned theme for a freakout segment of a long-forgotten late-sixties cop show:

Or check out “Carnaby Nights,” a hip-shaking tip o’ the Trilby to the Small Faces, Artwoods, Georgie Fame, Brian Auger and the other R&B-influenced Hammond haulers of 1960s London. The track swings like crazy, and you can easily picture a dance floor packed with pilled-up mods going absolutely mad for it.

Indeed, the intensity quotient runs pretty high throughout the record; many of the tracks (like the opening “Spires,” “Smith & Strange,” “Tangerine Whiskey” and “The Queenmaker”) would have worked equally well on the soundtrack of sa turn-of-the-seventies Hammer Horror picture (a la Dracula A.D. 1972) or on the score of some grimy, Get Carter-esque British gangster flick. Things only really get mellow towards the end of the record, courtesy of the blissfully Bossa Nova’d “Cadoi” — but then the epic “Murder In The Electric Cathedral” brings the whole thing to shuddering, head-spinning conclusion.

I’ve been an ardent fan of organ-stoked instros since first hearing “Green Onions” by Booker T & the MGs at the tender age of 12, an obsession that was further fired during my teens by weekly exposure to the opening theme to Dave Allen at Large, a.k.a. Alan Hawkshaw’s “Blarney’s Stoned”. To my ears, the hum of a swirling Hammond sounds just as thrilling as a burst of fuzzed-out guitar, and Tales of the Wyldewood Green contains boatloads of both in its roiling grooves. Like the best instrumental albums of this ilk, the LP makes for nicely evocative and mood-elevating background music when played at lower volumes — but to crank it is to truly give it life.

If you dig the above two tracks — and/or if anything about “60s-70s-inspired mod punk, psychedelic garage, deep funk, heavy psych, hard rock and soundtrack atmospherics” particularly appeals to your sensibilities — I can practically guarantee that you will dig every drop of The Wyldewood Green. You can pre-order the digital version of the record at their Bandcamp page (the tracks officially “drop” on August 7), but — as mentioned in the intro to this post — the limited-edition vinyl pressings (200 on green-colored vinyl, 300 on basic black) are already shipping. Both versions come housed in high-quality, vintage-style tip-on gatefold sleeves (which were designed by the multi-talented Scarsone), and I can personally attest that the green vinyl sounds warm, fat and punchy like good wax should. Take my tip and snap one of these babies up before they run out!

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