Earlier in the year, coinciding with the release of the essential, and now out of print, An Introduction To The Chemistry Set, we traced a brief survey of the band’s career trajectory. The cult London psychedelic scientists have been at it – on and off – since 1987, and pretty consistently over the last decade and a half, much of the time in tandem with Fruits de Mer Records.

That anthology didn’t signal a halt to activities; Dave Mclean and Paul Lake are now back with a Christmas 7”. The double A-side presents two slabs of classic psych; ‘STP’ and ‘The Tragic Fridge Magnet’ bring with them all the feel-good tropes we’ve come to expect from this pair. From the title on ‘STP’ rushes us into an early Floyd-like trip with garage sensibilities akin to recent Minus 5/Luke Haines collisions, while ‘The Tragic Fridge Magnet’ is a Modish freakbeaty jaunt into the quirky macabre. Adding to the mood there’s rather splendid and appropriate videos which you can view below while reading Dave and Paul’s commentary.

THE TRAGIC FRIDGE MAGNET

Paul Lake explains…

“Whenever my wife and I go on holiday we always buy a fridge magnet. We’ve done this for many years from way back on family breaks when our kids were little and it’s become a bit of an obsession.

Now we have a fridge plastered with the things…which is great when they relate to somewhere you enjoyed, but a few remind you of a holiday that maybe was not so good, so I try not to look at those ones, but can’t bring myself to remove them.

Now suppose you bought one that was really an ancient amulet from the days of the Pharaohs that had been nicked from a tomb, stuck to a magnet, inscribed with the words “Hello from Cairo” and sold for a few quid in a local souk? It could happen, right? Now that would be tragic wouldn’t it? Both for the magnet with its terrible fall from grace and possibly for you…if it were cursed…..look what happened to Lord Carnarvon!”

STP

Over to Dave McLean…

“The lyrics are kind of a continuation of an earlier Chemistry Set song, ‘Paint Me A Dream’, with lots of visions from the skies, surrealism and a bit of comedy

A man takes a tab of (STP) LSD which was the variety known in the 1960’s as STP (and the tab had the STP motor oil decal on it). We are making a video and will have the STP typography but transformed into LSD

…then the trip begins…….

stars fall on the house, moonlight beaming, heart racing, rapid breathing, his eyes are open to new sensations. Then celestial beings appear from the sky with gleaming robes and golden eyes, all around him they appear but tell him not to fear.

…then he trips out to the idea of Space, Time, Perception, a heavy and deep but pleasant trip

In verse 2, he is a little scared and in a trembling voice, asks what do they seek? They came for him, they did say, told him never to turn away. Then he sees a gift, radiant in majesty. He tries to reach for the gift but his arms cannot lift. Then the twist is the celestial beings say, ‘we cannot give you what you deny’.

On the outro I say ‘is it safe, is it safe, is it safe. Which is a nod to a scene in the marathon man…I always loved that scene and although it doesn’t have anything to do with the rest of the song. I like the abstract nature of saying ‘is it safe, is it safe, is it safe’.

……A good old fashioned psychedelic trip!“

The single, with an official release date of 15th December, comes in two shades of vinyl and can be purchased from Fruits de Mer in the UK with other distributors covering wider territories. Sometime in January it’ll be available digitally via The Chemistry Set’s Bandcamp.