Plain and Fancy: Paul Martin - It Happened (1966-67 us, captivating garage anthems, jangly folk rock, baroque psych, 2016 release)

New York singer-songwriter Paul Martin (born Paul Myerberg) released a couple of way-obscure singles in 1966-67, and recorded a lot of unreleased demos at the same time; many of these were collected for a 1996 release on Distortions.

This is a truly defining album of 60’s jangle pop and is as interesting as it is beautiful due to the fact it concentrates on the the three prevalent jangle-pop styles at the time with absolute ease. Initially tracks such as You Don’t Seem to Understand, It Happened and The Last Remains of Our Love present 60’s British pop jangle superbly marrying snotty vocals to big booming drums and baselines as the treble flutters about incidentally in the background offering brief chimes. In my mind and as much as I try and prevent the image, these are the sort of tracks that Austin Powers types should have been getting ‘groovy’ to in 60’s London.

Martin then moves on to the psyche-rock/folk end of the jangle-pop spectrum. In tracks such as You Were There and All That’s left. Here the song craft becomes more pronounced and the jangle impetus more insistent as it drives the tracks rather than being a mere compliment to the other dominant musical factors. The jangle becomes the Beef in the Beef Wellington rather than merely the pastry.

The standout tracks of the album are undoubtedly The Byrds inspired Your is the Life and How Many Tears Must I Cry which mimic their influences perhaps a bit too much, which is ultimately forgiven because it is done with such accomplishment.

However It is not a complete jangle-pop festival. Martin appears to be something of the complete 60’s artist forcing the listener to go through 5/6 tracks of Engelbert Humperdinck / Neil Diamond (I actually thought it was Neil Diamond singing on Without Your Love) style crooning on romantic ballads that wistfully confess love for an unknown wonder-lady. Extremely impotent. However it is worth sitting through the occasional dross to find the regular jangle-pop / psyche-folk nuggets.

Jungle-Pop-Hub