Course A002 XTC - The band and the music

Calm down, I’m nearly finished!

Andy Partridge, 1999

So there you have it. XTC. A body of work that, hard as I try, I can’t whittle down to anything less than all these pages of text.  They do that to you. In recent years, Partridge has branched out into his own recording company, Ape House, and is half-way through a long process of cleaning up and releasing the hundreds of great songs that only ever made it to demo stage. The process started with Homegrown and Homespun – the original demos of the two Apple Venus albums – and then carried on with the Fuzzy Warbles sets, which will eventually be a series of eight CDs of old demos and unreleased tracks. Definitely for the obsessive fan – or the connoisseur as I like to call myself.  However, conspicuous by its absence since 2001 is a new XTC album. Rumours abound of the demise of XTC: These guys are in their 50s; Andy is ensconced in Fuzzy Warbles and peeved because Colin didn’t want to be involved; Colin is enjoying his semi-retirement and hasn’t written a song for five years; Andy made up with Dave, invited him back, Colin was peeved Andy did this without asking him first, so Andy and Colin fell out . . . it goes on! Who knows the truth?

What is for sure is that in recent months Andy has been referring to a bunch of new songs that ‘may’ form the nucleus of a new album, workingly titled Tunes to Help You Breathe More Easily. A rave critical reception to Andy’s title music for the short-lived NBC show “Wonderfalls” (titled I Wonder Why The Wonderfalls) and the download-only US release of a recently re-mastered Moulding track from the Nonsuch era, Where Did The Ordinary People Go? suggest activity. But, knowing XTC, it just can’t be as simple as that. 

So we, the faithful, sit back and wait. We put on a back-catalogue that is unrivalled in modern British pop history and we revel. We luxuriate in the knowledge that, at a time when most pop stars are too scared to deviate one inch from this week’s media-created ‘norm’ here’s a band that have always done their own thing, their own way. Because it’s the only way they know. The fact that they’ve produced a body of work so consistently brilliant is really the only tribute that’s necessary. 

Perhaps this is why XTC seem destined never to truly break through into the mainstream – they're simply so good at what they do that the majority of people wouldn't be able to cope. After a diet of toenails and maggots, a top quality pie might be more than the average musical digestive system can take. 

But there’s no harm in trying . . . I think you know what I mean.