Fireball - Bachanalia/ I Dunno

Label: Spark

Year of Release: 1973

Do you remember that not too many entries ago we were talking about Graham Preskett, who recorded a pretty neat version of "Mellow Yellow" (backed with an equally superb version of "Disney Girls") for Spark Records? Well, it was by no means a one-off. Like many of the session musos who hung around the Spark stable, Preskett had his fingers in a number of their releases, and this is one such obscurity.

If you were being somewhat cynical, you could argue that "Bachanalia" was a cash-in on ELO's advances in orchestrated pomp rock, but it's not clear that this is where the main influence is from. Snappy, lively and with considerably more billy whizz in its bones than most of Lynne's releases, "Bachanalia" is hard to place anywhere. Clearly partly intended for the dancefloor and having a slight (and admittedly only slight) glam rock crunch about it, it's a likeable but peculiar anomaly, an aural tonic that gets the foot tapping but is hard to imagine being a huge hit.

The flip "I Dunno" sounds as if it could be a piece of library music, which for all I know may have been the original intention behind the work. Like the A-side, though, it's got a bit of a kick behind it.

Clearly Spark had high expectations for this one as it was granted a release in both the UK and America - nothing big came of either issue, though.