Blue Orchids

Martin Bramah, lead guitarist in The Fall, was the final original musician to leave the band and inarguably the most important factor in the band's original sound.

What Bramah took with him on departure was a sort of hazy psychedelic vision featured so readily on The Fall's debut, 'Live At The Witch Trials', and continued through his work with Blue Orchids, even if that lineage was obscured somewhat by The Fall's popularity and consistent stream of releases. 'Magpie Heights' is an unexpected addition to Bramah's canon, which will have increased by three brilliant album in under a year. That's more music, in fact, than Bramah released in his first three decades after leaving The Fall. The Face Of Time harkens back to the psych-garage of The Magical Record Of Blue Orchids, As My Vision Cleared makes a case for Bramah's unique stylistic sense within the realm of lysergic folk balladry, a kind of dark glam in Tableau Vivant . . . and seven other wonders