Nonsuch (styled as NONSVCH.) is the twelfth studio album by the English band XTC, released 27 April 1992 on Virgin Records. The follow-up to Oranges & Lemons (1989), Nonsuch is a relatively less immediate and more restrained sounding album, carrying the band's psychedelic influences into new musical styles, and displaying a particular interest in orchestral arrangements. The LP received critical acclaim, charted at number 28 in the UK Albums Chart, and number 97 on the US Billboard 200, as well as topping Rolling Stone'''s College album chart.
Produced by Gus Dudgeon, 13 of the album's 17 tracks were written by guitarist/leader Andy Partridge, with the rest by bassist Colin Moulding, while Dave Mattacks of Fairport Convention was recruited on drums. Unlike previous XTC albums, Partridge composed many of his songs using a keyboard. Due to the album's lyric content, which covers topics ranging from love and humanity to the Gulf War and P. T. Barnum, Nonsuch has been described as the band's darkest and most political album. The cover depicts an illustration of the former Nonsuch Palace, chosen after the band had settled on the title "nonesuch", which Partridge felt summed up the album's variety of music. It was their third double album when issued on vinyl.
Lead single "The Disappointed" reached number 33 in the UK and was nominated for an Ivor Novello award, while "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" was the band's second single to top the US Modern Rock Tracks, later becoming a UK top 40 hit when covered by the Canadian band Crash Test Dummies. XTC soon left Virgin Records in the UK following a dispute over the cancelled third single, "Wrapped in Grey". Nonsuch was also nominated for the 1993 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album. In 2013, a remixed and expanded version of the album was released. Mixed by Steven Wilson, the edition included new stereo, surround sound and instrumental mixes of the original album along with various demos and outtakes.
Background After the band's double album Oranges & Lemons (1989) was released to acclaim from music critics and modest commercial success, XTC took a short break. Band leader Andy Partridge produced And Love For All (1989), the second album by The Lilac Time, while also compering for an unbroadcast children's game show named Matchmakers, and Dave Gregory played for Johnny Hates Jazz, Marc Almond and Francesco Messina whilst also producing for Cud, while Colin Moulding performed a special event concert with David Marx and the Refugees, a Swindon-based band that reunited him with former XTC member Barry Andrews. The band soon reunited and began writing their next, tenth album, the soon-to-become Nonsuch, determined to record their new compositions in their native England, as recording Oranges & Lemons in Los Angeles had made the band absent from their families back in England.
Having written some 32 songs for Nonsuch by 1991, it nonetheless took some time for the album to get off the ground. Initially, the band had issue with the musical director of their label Virgin Records, who, after seeing 32 songs written for Nonsuch, was convinced the band "could do better" and asked them to write other songs. Band leader Andy Partridge reflected: "We were ready [to record the album in 1990], but our English record company refused all our songs." In Partridge's recollection, the director threatened that Virgin would drop the band if the band don't write an album "of twelve Top Ten guaranteed singles," and noted that this attitude held the band up in recording Nonsuch, which they refused to rewrite, believing its songs to be among the greatest they had written. With the band sitting on the material, the director left the label a year later, and his replacement liked the band's content, hurrying the band to record the album.
Production
The band's initial choice of producers for the album were not available; they pursued Steve Lillywhite and Hugh Padgham, both of whom the band worked with before, to co-produce the album, but Lillywhite was unavailable due a holiday with his wife Kirsty MacColl and Padgham did not want to produce the album alone, while the band found that hiring John Paul Jones as producer would be too expensive, and a deal to work with Bill Bottrell, who had recently worked on Dangerous (1991) by Michael Jackson, fell through. With Partridge becoming so desperate to record Nonsuch that he "would have done it with the window cleaner," eccentric English producer Gus Dudgeon was the band's final choice, having been enticed by his work with the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. He produced the album, recorded at Chipping Norton Recording Studios, Oxfordshire, between July and October 1991.
When Dudgeon arrived in the studio and Partridge saw his attire and expensive lifestyle, he felt "he was wrong [for the job], but by that time it was difficult to go back." The band nicknamed him Guff Dungeon "because he was so flatulent." Partridge reflected: "Gus is old school, full of blusters and bluff [mimicking Dudgeon] 'Elton gave me this Rolls-Royce and I said, 'Oh Elton darling... Dudgeon had heard of the tense relationship between Partridge and producer Todd Rundgren during the Skylarking sessions, and "had come in armed with a heavy supply for vitriol"; Partridge, meanwhile, started to compare his relationship with Dudgeon to Rundgren, especially after Dudgeon suggested removing one of Partridge's favourite songs on the album, "Rook", though the recording sessions were civil and the two regularly exchanged banter. Dudgeon reportedly kept a tape of him and Partridge joking in the sessions and played it to party guests. Nonetheless, Partridge later commented that "ultimately he wasn't the right producer for us."
At Gregory's suggestion, Dave Mattacks of Fairport Convention played drums on the album. When discussing "what drummer, as a fantasy, [the band] would really like to work with," Mattacks was top of the band's list. The same week, a friend of the band saw him perform live with Fairport Convention and brought XTC back a tour programme, in which Mattacks stated Joni Mitchell and XTC were the artists he would most like to drum for. Partridge, speaking to Bob Harris in a radio interview, commented that he "just had to get on the phone to him straight away." Mattacks agreed to appear on the album because of the band's personality and the quality of the songs, and later reflected that although it was challenging fitting into the band, it was not difficult, elaborating that "the experience was enjoyable. Great songs." Meanwhile, Partridge felt that Dave Gregory improved at arranging musical structures during the sessions. During recording of the album, Moulding and Gregory "found themselves working at a car rental spot to sustain themselves between royalty checks."
The album was mixed at Rockfield Studios, South Wales in November and December 1991. The mixing was due to be done by Dudgeon, who instructed Partridge not to attend, but Partridge insisted he would appear anyway. At the studios, Dudgeon refuted suggestions from Partridge concerning the mix and insisted he mix the album as he desired. This was at odds with engineer Barry Hammond, who had listened to Partridge's suggestions. Both Partridge and Virgin Records were vocal in their dissatisfaction with the first three mixes that Dudgeon had created, with one Virgin executive even comparing one such mix to "ice blasts"; as a result, Dudgeon was subsequently fired, with Nick Davis, who had just finished mixing We Can't Dance by Genesis, being hired to mix the final version of Nonsuch, which he did in a comparatively fast space of two and a half weeks. The album was mastered by Bob Ludwig at Masterdisk, New York.
Music and lyrics The detailed sound of Nonsuch retains parts of the psychedelic flourishes that defined the band's late 1980s work, except here "integrated into an elaborate, lush pop setting that falls somewhere between Skylarking and Oranges & Lemons," according to critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic. Similarly, David Quantick of Vox found it to continue the jangle rock of the aforesaid albums. Compared to Oranges & Lemons, Partridge described Nonsuch as being less immediate and simpler sounding: "It's not as immediate, and that's the way we want it." Noting the album's eclecticism, music critic Greg Kot considered the album "a mix of Broadway pomp, McCartneyesque sing-song, lilting melodies, delightful odes to everyday pleasures and humbling introspection," while T.J. McGrath of Dirty Linen said Nonsuch "studiously explores jazz-fusion ("That Wave"), folk-rock ("Then She Appeared"), soundtrack muzak ("Bungalow"), cowboy punk ("Crocodile"), psychedelic-power swirl ("Humble Daisy"), and classical sad ballad ("Rook")." Guitar and keyboard textures on the album regularly shift, and strings, horns and piano are included in the album's instrumentation in a fashion that has been compared to the Beach Boys.
Thirteen of the songs are written by Partridge, with the remaining four written by Colin Moulding. In Isler's opinion, Partridge's songs are concerned with themes such as "love, politics and the human comedy," and noting songs which "[blur] these topical boundaries," while the NME noted lyrics about omnibuses, orchards and miscreants. Blogger Roger Friedman of Details noted lyrical content ranging from book burning, the Gulf War and P.T. Barnum and felt the album was a song cycle, while, citing themes of sad retirement in "Bungalow" and maddening alienation in "Rook", Martin Townsend of Vox called the album "precisely of its time," feeling it to reflect "the mental and physical landscape of the [then-current] recession," and felt it was arguably the band's darkest album. It has also been cited as the band's most political album. Unlike previous XTC albums, Partridge composed many of his songs on Nonsuch using the keyboard, an instrument Partridge referred to as "this grinning shark; stroke its teeth and any minute it'll swallow you up." He said he was so unfamiliar with the keyboard that he played it "by drumming on it, two fingers here, two fingers there."
Tracks 1–8 "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" is "relatively rocking" compared to most of the album, and has been called a "shaggy-dog story." It was inspired by a pumpkin that Partridge carved for Halloween, which he decided not to dispose of after the Halloween celebrations, and watched as it decomposed in his back garden. He immortalised it in the song, a ballad concerning a perfect, honest person with a pumpkin for a head and about "how perfect we all could be, and how scared people are of truth." Moulding's first song on the album, "My Bird Performs," is "a metaphor for feeling good about how life's going." He explained: "I hadn't got fond memories of my thirties and naivety got me through my twenties, but as I came closer to my forties it all started to come clear and this, I suppose, was the start of that awakening in me." It took a whole night to loop Mattacks' intricate drum shuffle into the four-minute song.
"Dear Madam Barnum" was written for, but unused by the Australian film The Crossing and is intended to sound like 1965, the year the film was set. Also intended to possess a "circus orchestra feel," Partridge and Mattacks took careful attention in writing the rhythmic feel for the song. The song has a traditional structure, but although Partridge wanted Mattacks to play "a real straight backbeat," he also asked he "put a little skip-and-drag in there that fell somewhere between dotted [time] and straight, because we both agreed that we liked the tension where you get dotted vs. straight, and straight vs. dotted." Mattacks used one of 50 special snare drums he owned for the song, while Gregory incorporates numerous subtle guitar arpeggios and a Hammond organ-based bridge.