Reissues

This week's reissued CDs reviewed

DR STRANGELY STRANGE

Kip of the Serenes Hux ****

Released 40 years ago, and now remastered with bonus tracks, this is either a model for a Spinal Tap variation or a charming example of late 1960s Dublin middle-class hippie-folkie-psychedelic bohemia.

I prefer the latter, possibly because the spell it weaved on me at an impressionable age has never lifted. Hearing these gentle stabs of humour and oddity after such a long time recalls what a delightfully innocent and agreeable place Dublin once was. Rose-tinted hindsight, perhaps, but Tim Booth, Tim Goulding and the bespectacled, gentle genius Ivan Pawle left, for a short time, a calling card that endures. This magical happy amateur mix of Protestant hymn culture, classical and folk music, with sprinklings of chamber pop and a sense of the bizarre and the ridiculous, can’t but help leave a smile on your face. myspace/drstrangelystrange

Download tracks: Donnybrook Fair, Strangely Strange But Oddly Normal, Strings in the Earth and Air