First Release from Noel Redding's (Jim Hendrix Experience Bassist) Band.
CD Reviews
A pleasant surprise.
oldtimerocker | 05/07/2000
(4 out of 5 stars)
"This album answers the question of what happened to Noel Redding after he left the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The album is not that bad. "All Night Drinker," "She Came In The Morning," "Mr Moonshine," and "Magic Forest" are all very good songs. The sound of the group has a folk style to it. It is not what you might expect from somebody who just left the JHE. Still, there are nice harmonies, some exotic instruments (at least for rock and roll) and some decent songwriting. Overall, a pretty good album."
Noel Redding could play guitar too!!!
Jason Pumphrey | Falls Church, Virginia United States | 12/29/2003
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This great debut album from Fat Mattress has proof that the late Noel Redding could play some serious guitar not just bass (like He did with Jimi Hendrix)!!! This is a classic album!!! Magic Forest is the highlight but the rest of the tracks are great also. Traffic's Chris Wood plays flute on the song All Night Drinker. The other band members are great too,Eric Dillon's drumming is awesome(He is now an airline pilot!),so is James Laverton's bass and keyboard playing and Neil Landon's vocals!!! A true class act!!! Two thumbs up!!! A+"
Shimmering Work of British Post-Folk Pop
Captain_Pass | San Leandro, CA United States | 07/16/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I was born the year the first Fat Mattress album was committed to vinyl. I discovered it some twenty years later, and it has not left my frequent play list since that time. The fact is, this is both a wonderful period piece and a highly under-appreciated classic work of post-folk British psychedelia. Indeed, if you are looking for Hendrix, a la "Purple Haze," you will be sorely disappointed indeed. There is no fuzz guitar; and, in fact, you are more likely to hear the pickings of an acoustic guitar placed to a crack drum and bass section than anything truly from the Hendrix/Thirteenth- Floor Elevators vein. However, if you are willing to lend an ear to the generation that learned a thing or two from both Dylan and the British band-hall sound more broadly, you will love what you hear.
While some of the pieces admittedly wear their mint date on their sleeves (Walking Through a Garden; Everything Blue; She Came in the Morning; Magic Forest; all, not coincidently, on the second side of the album and all conspicuously about drugs and the purportedly beautiful experiences induced by drugs), others remain timelessly beautiful and transcend the limits of the genre. Witness "How Can I Live" which has a sonorous bass-line anchoring an otherwise lush three-part harmony (in the fine British choral tradition) about existential angst. It ends a beautiful album that begins with the driving, but acoustic, "All Night Drinker," which, shall we say, is hardly existential.
Even the pieces that wear the late 60s hard and heavy--Mr. Moonshine and the Magic Forest are lyrical psychedelic pieces--are nonetheless quite beautiful and manage to combine a gritty root folk, acoustic sensibility with some of the late 60s finest instrumentation (electric reverb, chorus, sustain). Indeed, for my own ears, what separates this first album from the generally inferior second album is not simply better arrangements, but superb, top-notch production. The haunting and catchy "Petrol Pump Assistant" is under-written by the careful reverb-driven guitar and thick, plump notes of the bass that were carefully channeled through what I would imagine were mere 8-track studio boards. It was the production that brought this element of the sound to the fore, and it is this element that is all but lacking in the very "garage" sounding second album (where instrument tracks are muddled and the drums sound like they were miked three doors down from the studio). In short, it is impossible not to note the careful love and care that went into arranging what might have otherwise been another druggy, folk band and bring a real glowing, glistening sound out of these musicians.
Do yourself a favor, buy it today and hear the sound of a generation that truly believed--for a few years--that youth, beauty, and congregations of beautiful youths in the parks could change the world. It is a classic."
The epitome of Sixties psychedelia
E. J. Ryan | South Africa | 07/30/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This album played an important role in my youth. I grew up in, of all places, Rhodesia. I had an elder brother who was one of a handful of hippies in the entire country which, while a fantastic place, was a good 20 years behind Europe. At that time, the mid Seventies, he introduced me to all the late-Sixties and early-Seventies, which today remains my preference - from Allman Brothers to Jimi Hendrix, and from Traffic to Led Zeppelin. Of all the many bands and albums I was introduced to, there is only one or two that I have ALWAYS had in my collection. Only Fat Mattress, and perhaps Who's Next still after all these years, give me a sense of excitement when I put it on today.
I have never been into drugs, and in fact am vociferously anti-drug, but I have come to love psychedlic music. Before the internet age, I never spoke much about music because every band I enjoyed was regarded by my peers as 'unknown' or off the wall. It was only when I came to trawl through Amazon that I realised my taste in music had a name - progressive rock and psychedelic rock.
But few people seem to have ever heard of Fat Mattress let alone like it. I love it, and always have. The whimsical, child-like lyrics (the way I prefer to view it as opposed to hallucegenic) have always represented for me what was best about the Sixties, as seen from a distance (in central Africa).
Every song is consistently excellent, and it troubles me that this band folded shortly after this album, and that their later stuff was pretty ordinary. I rate this right up there with Traffic in terms of composition, musical prowess and experimentation with instruments.
It always amazes me how some bands seem to produce an album miles superior to anything else they ever achieved. If ever I want to bring a smile to my face, all I have to think of is the opening words to "She came in the morning...""
