The Small Faces - There Are But Four Small Faces 1968

This is where the already-confusing Small Faces discography gets baffling. Designed for the American market in 1968, There Are But Four Small Faces is based upon their 1967 self-titled album for Immediate Records -- the album that should not be confused with the 1966 album called Small Faces on Decca -- but shuffles the running order considerably, cutting out seven songs from the 1967 LP and then adding five songs released on singles: the hits "Itchycoo Park," "Tin Soldier," and "Here Come the Nice," plus the B-sides "I'm Only Dreaming" and "I Feel Much Better." Contrary to the pastoral setting pictured on the album art, this rejiggering preserves the edgy mods of the 1967 album Small Faces, emphasizing their pop propulsion, artful soul, and furious rock & roll. By some measures, the 1967 Immediate LP is their best -- it's adventurous, bright, colorful, and concentrated, the brevity of the songs playing like snappy pop art -- and that essence is here, enhanced by "Tin Soldier," "Here Come the Nice," and "Itchycoo Park," the three greatest singles the band ever cut. As an introduction, it's first-rate, whether it was delivered in 1968 or decades later. [Charly's 2014 reissue of There Are But Four Small Faces contains the stereo mix on the first disc, supplemented by four bonus tracks, while the second contains the "promotional DJ version" mono mix of the album and three bonus tracks, all different than the cuts on the first CD. The stereo bonus tracks have alternate takes and mixes of "Eddie's Dreaming" and "Show Me the Way," an early mix of "Get Yourself Together," and an alternate take of "(Tell Me) Have You Ever Seen Me." The mono bonus tracks contain a TV backing track for "Tin Soldier," the "USA Version" of "Here Come the Nice," and an alternate mix of "Green Circles." Most of this is collector ephemera but the mono mix is indeed appealingly punchy and perhaps a better way to listen to this music.] AMG.

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The Small Faces - Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake 1968

There was no shortage of good psychedelic albums emerging from England in 1967-1968, but Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake is special even within their ranks. The Small Faces had already shown a surprising adaptability to psychedelia with the single "Itchycoo Park" and much of their other 1967 output, but Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake pretty much ripped the envelope. British bands had an unusual approach to psychedelia from the get-go, often preferring to assume different musical "personae" on their albums, either feigning actual "roles" in the context of a variety show (as on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album), or simply as storytellers in the manner of the Pretty Things on S.F. Sorrow, or actor/performers as on the Who's Tommy. The Small Faces tried a little bit of all of these approaches on Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake, but they never softened their sound.
Side one's material, in particular, would not have been out of place on any other Small Faces release -- "Afterglow (Of Your Love)" and "Rene" both have a pounding beat from Kenny Jones, and Ian McLagan's surging organ drives the former while his economical piano accompaniment embellishes the latter; and Steve Marriott's crunching guitar highlights "Song of a Baker." Marriott singing has him assuming two distinct "roles," neither unfamiliar -- the Cockney upstart on "Rene" and "Lazy Sunday," and the diminutive soul shouter on "Afterglow (Of Your Love)" and "Song of a Baker." Some of side two's production is more elaborate, with overdubbed harps and light orchestration here and there, and an array of more ambitious songs, all linked by a narration by comic dialect expert Stanley Unwin, about a character called "Happiness Stan." The core of the sound, however, is found in the pounding "Rollin' Over," which became a highlight of the group's stage act during its final days -- the song seems lean and mean with a mix in which Ronnie Lane's bass is louder than the overdubbed horns. Even "Mad John," which derives from folk influences, has a refreshingly muscular sound on its acoustic instruments. Overall, this was the ballsiest-sounding piece of full-length psychedelia to come out of England, and it rode the number one spot on the U.K. charts for six weeks in 1968, though not without some controversy surrounding advertisements by Immediate Records that parodied the Lord's Prayer. Still, Ogdens' was the group's crowning achievement -- it had even been Marriott's hope to do a stage presentation of Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake, though a television special might've been more in order. AMG.

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The Small Faces - Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake 1968

There was no shortage of good psychedelic albums emerging from England in 1967-1968, but Ogden's Nut Gone Flake is special even within their ranks. The Small Faces had already shown a surprising adaptability to psychedelia with the single "Itchycoo Park" and much of their other 1967 output, but Ogden's Nut Gone Flake pretty much ripped the envelope. British bands had an unusual approach to psychedelia from the get-go, often preferring to assume different musical "personae" on their albums, either feigning actual "roles" in the context of a variety show (as on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album), or simply as storytellers in the manner of the Pretty Things on S.F. Sorrow, or actor/performers as on the Who's Tommy. The Small Faces tried a little bit of all of these approaches on Ogden's Nut Gone Flake, but they never softened their sound. Side one's material, in particular, would not have been out of place on any other Small Faces release -- "Afterglow (Of Your Love)" and "Rene" both have a pounding beat from Kenny Jones, and Ian McLagan's surging organ drives the former while his economical piano accompaniment embellishes the latter; and Steve Marriott's crunching guitar highlights "Song of a Baker." Marriott singing has him assuming two distinct "roles," neither unfamiliar -- the Cockney upstart on "Rene" and "Lazy Sunday," and the diminutive soul shouter on "Afterglow (Of Your Love)" and "Song of a Baker." Some of side two's production is more elaborate, with overdubbed harps and light orchestration here and there, and an array of more ambitious songs, all linked by a narration by comic dialect expert Stanley Unwin, about a character called "Happiness Stan." The core of the sound, however, is found in the pounding "Rollin' Over," which became a highlight of the group's stage act during its final days -- the song seems lean and mean with a mix in which Ronnie Lane's bass is louder than the overdubbed horns. Even "Mad John," which derives from folk influences, has a refreshingly muscular sound on its acoustic instruments. Overall, this was the ballsiest-sounding piece of full-length psychedelia to come out of England, and it rode the number one spot on the U.K. charts for six weeks in 1968, though not without some controversy surrounding advertisements by Immediate Records that parodied the Lord's Prayer. Still, Ogden's was the group's crowning achievement -- it had even been Marriott's hope to do a stage presentation of Ogden's Nut Gone Flake, though a television special might've been more in order. As with most Immediate Records releases, it has gone through multiple reissue cycles on vinyl and CD; the original LP came in a circular sleeve in keeping with the design of the cover, and was reissued in a more convention jacket during the 1970s and early '80s. Most of the CD versions until the 1990s were, in keeping with the poor state of the Immediate Records tape library, substandard in sound, but since 1994 or so there has been a succession of good-sounding digital remasterings. AMG.

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