Cleaners from Venus

The most extensive of singer-songwriter Martin Newell's various projects, Cleaners from Venus recorded some of the finest -- and most neglected -- British pop/rock of the 1980s. Its failure to find a wider audience is due at least in part to its unconventional method of distribution. After a short, bitter experience in the music business recording for a large label, Newell retreated to his home studio in the beginning of the 1980s, determined not to have to play by the usual compromising music business rules. As the chief of Cleaners From Venus, he and cohorts recorded several albums on their own, and distributed them via self-produced cassettes that were chiefly available by mail. There are thousands of such acts working in this manner in the cassette underground, but most of them are either off-puttingly amateurish, or forebodingly avant-garde and experimental. Cleaners From Venus were distinguished from the usual lot because they specialized in extremely witty, cheery, and compact pop songs. But their choice to use underground distribution networks made sense. The musicians were too eccentric and, at times, experimental to withstand the homogenizing influence of record companies. What they lacked in technique--the early tapes often have a hissy sound and thumpy percussion--they more than made up for in pure heart. Newell, who wrote and sang virtually all of the material, is a tuneful British eccentric in the mold of Ray Davies or Andy Partridge of the XTC, with a humor akin to Monty Python or the Bonzo Dog Band. Cleaners From Venus couldn't be pigeonholed as revivalists, however, due to the '80s jangle of the guitars, and the expressively yearning qualities of Newell's vocals; the melodies were almost always infectious and bursting with harmonies. Newell's main...