Super Numeri 'The Welcome Table' album

In a world where a succession of shitty, manufactured pop bands hog the number one spot, Liverpool collective Super Numeri don’t so much seem from another era as from another dimension altogether. It’s one where the experimentalism of the sixties never stopped, where Altamont didn’t happen and Syd Barrett didn’t go mad, where tantric yoga is a staple of boardroom meetings and where, instead of splitting, the Beatles moved back to Liverpool and turned the city into a gigantic Ashram.

In this alternate universe, Super Numeri, after the platinum success of their first album, “Great Aviaries” and the EP which followed it, “The Coastal Bird Scene,” decided it was time to really go all out for the pop mainstream, to have the kind of hits which John Peel would never get tired of playing as he presented the Chart Rundown on a Sunday afternoon. Hence the epic, hypnotic 24 minute opener to “The Welcome Table”, “The First League Of Angels”. Nothing could set the tone better for the sort of cosmic rock that the group specialise in, rhythm and blues stretched out till it becomes abstract, a place where the beats are live but locked and the harpist is old enough to draw his pension.

And remember, this is a world where Prog rock never happened, where there’s no emphasis on virtuoso musicianship for its own sake, just a rather spaced out belief in groove and repetition, in texture and the ambience, in the emotional power of music.

Unless you write a very esoteric column in a very odd magazine, it’s unlikely that you’re going to come across many records like “The Welcome Table”. You may, however, have come across some of the group’s members in some of their other guises. Karl Webb is a member of Loka, who also record for Ninja. Snap Ant and Pop Levi both record and release records for Invicta Hi Fi Records, a label set up by Danny Hunt of Ladytron (the Snap Ant band recently supported them on tour). And if you’re very lucky you may have happened upon their “Enochian Way” mix cd on the Japanese Counter Records, possibly the only compilation to include Sonny Sharrock, Yoko One, Brigtte Bardot, Fairport Convention, Velvet Underground, the Beach Boys and John Lee Hooker.

And if you don’t live in the Numeri’s dimension - where Michael Moorcock is Prime Minister and schoolkids are given hallucinogens for lunch - well, here’s your chance to be a tourist for the day. All welcome…

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Super Numeri - The Welcome Table