After his recent overview of the career of XTC, Mark Beaumont-Thomas looks at what Andy Partridge has been up to…
As an XTC fan in the 1980s you were never kept waiting long for a new release. And then there was a 7-year wait for the wonderful coda of the Apple Venus releases of the late nineties/early noughties. And since then, well in terms of what could called a ‘band’ release from Andy Partridge, nothing… until now. And even then, Partridge is keen to discount The 3 Clubmen as a band, preferring, in an interview for the latest edition of the excellent XTC podcast What Do You Call That Noise?, to refer to it as a ‘project’. And indeed, it’s a project with a long gestation, the 4-track Aviatrix EP being the first release of music from these ‘3 Clubmen’ (Andy Partridge, Stu Rowe and Jen Olive) since they started collaborating back in 2008. Apparently, the EP represents a dusting off, revisiting and reworking of material that has sat in the vaults for a while. In terms of artistic process, Andy Partridge describes this three-way collaboration on the Spotify biog for The 3 Clubman thus: “I throw paint, Jen throws paint, Stu throws paint…and we walk away. If, when we return, something in there calls to us, we’ll move heaven and earth to get it out and let it breath.”
The great news is that, on the basis of the lead track Aviatrix, the wait has been worth it. Something has clearly called to them and has been worked up to a satisfyingly fully realized track. Judgement on the full EP will have to wait until it is released at the end of June 2023, but this track is available to stream now. From the off we’re in XTC-ish territory, the delightful picked guitar intro reminding me of Love On A Farmboy’s Wages. Andy’s vocals start things off, but then the track is lifted aloft, aptly given its aeronautical theme, by the dreamy vocals of Jen Olive. These build in layers and with their jazz inflections remind me of Joni Mitchell around the time of the Court and Spark album. The whole thing has a wonderful lightness and playfulness that is beguiling and is sustained across its 5-minute duration, enhanced throughout by flute and sax. On this showing I’m keen to hear the other three tracks on the EP and would love a full album to get worked up from the improvisations that sit in the vaults.
Andy Partridge is one of England’s greatest songwriters and musicians, and to hear him in a band, sorry, project, context is thrilling once more. So, do yourself a favour and add Aviatrix by The 3 Clubmen to your Spotify library. Handily, the ‘3’ means it sits at the top, or near the top of any library listing, easy to go back to again, which I find myself already doing.
