Mo’ Wax — Where Are They Now: Parsley Sound (2001)
Mo’ Wax was a record label started by James Lavelle in 1992, which closed about ten years later. Initially they released 12" singles and licensed a compilation from Japan of Japanese Hip Hop, until 1994 when they began releasing albums of their artists original work. While some of these artists such as DJ Shadow, DJ Krush, and Money Mark continued releasing music after Mo’ Wax closed, others have seemingly disappeared from the music scene. In this series I will look at each artist on Mo’ Wax and try to find out where are they now…
Parsley Sound are Preston Mead (aka Preston Davies) and Danny Sargassa (aka Daniel Lipman), who first met around 1991. Preston Mead played saxophone at a club in Camden, while Danny Sargassa also played saxophone and flute, and performed on releases from Hiroshi Fujiwara, Björk, Goldie, and Step, who released their song If on Mo’ Wax in 1993.
The duo spent several years trying to find a common ground within their musical interests, with Preston Mead interested in The Smith’s while Danny Sargassa leaned more towards Techno. Their first release would arrive in 1999 on Warp Records under the artist name Slum. Their single Twilight Mushrooms was recorded at the pairs Parsley Sound Studio, and was to be followed by a second single Keys For Frobisher in 2000, but this remained unreleased outside of a promo. Instead, following their two songs as Slum, the pair became Parsley Sound, taking their new alias from the name of their studio, Parsley Sound Studio, and they signed to Mo’ Wax.
Their first release on Mo’Wax arrived on October 22 2001 when Ease Yourself And Glide came out as a 10" single, and was described by Mo’ Wax as “a sneak preview of the weird world of Parsley Sound…A brand new, not retro psychedelic vision that takes in folk and funk, down tempo beats and drastic distortion.”
The single contained the new song Ease Yourself And Glide, as well as a different version of Temple Church Mansion which had previously appeared on the Keys For Frobisher promo. Ease Yourself And Glide earnt them features in Dazed & Confused and i-D magazines, and was named Single of the Week in NME, who wrote:
‘Ease Yourself And Glide’ is a thing of aching, immediate beauty. Hovering somewhere between Crosby, Stills & Nash and BDB at his most country-rock, it struggles into life before settling into this melancholy, surging state; all cracking falsetto, big, fat, bobbling bass and blunt lead guitar. By the time it turns into the home straight, and the strings are ushered in, you’re rushing to the shore on a wave of good feeling…It’s vintage, but a strange vintage…Who knows where it will all lead. For now though, ‘Ease Yourself And Glide’ is enough: a killer debut.
Their next single Platonic Rate followed on June 17 2002, and became their highest charting release, peaking at #151, outside of the UK’s Official Top 100 Singles Chart, and the CD single featured both tracks from their previous Ease Yourself And Glide 10".
With the release of Platonic Rate came the news that Parsley Sound were currently in the studio recording their debut album, and this would arrive in 2003 under the title of Parsley Sounds. The album received mostly good reviews, but Uncut weren’t fans, giving the album 1.5/5 stars, and writing:
With their somnambulistic folk shanties and spliffed-out beeps and blips, Parsley Sounds seem an unlikely acquisition to James Lavelle’s Mo’Wax empire. Neither trip nor hip hop, duo Danny Sargassa and Preston Mead drift in a melodic haze of wistful innocence, sounding like cub scout Stone Roses or wide-eyed Shack wannabes. That’s no bad thing either: even without electronic squelch and burp, tracks like the serenely sullen “Ocean House” stand unencumbered as great songs with proper tunes.
Elsewhere the album was reviewed much more kindly, and Glasgow’s The Herald (September 6, 2003) described it as “a delicately-structured album, with the usual intrusiveness of technology concealed behind deceptively simple arrangements”, while XLR8R wrote “Parsley Sound sound like they sipped tea spiked with Elliot Smith’s tears.” Stylus awarded the album a B+, while Pitchfork gave it 8.8/10 writing, “Debut albums rarely come this fully realized, but with Parsley Sounds, this Watford-based duo have stumbled onto the kind of uniquely inspired sound that could influence tomorrow’s indie rock as deeply as yesterday’s has inspired them.”
Following a remix of Abraham’s What Gives With You in 2002, and John Cale’s Reading My Mind in 2003, Parsley Sound weren’t heard from for several years, with Mo’ Wax closing in 2003. It wasn’t until October 2005 when Parsley Sound returned with the release of a new single 7hz Love on the record label Destructible. Music Week (October 8, 2005) called it a “Welcome return from the pastoral duo”, and it was followed by another single Astral Telephone in 2006 which was likewise reviewed by Music Week (January 6, 2007) who wrote:
Parsley Sound’s last Destructible single 7hz Love won them considerable acclaim in the fuzzy underground pop circles they work in. Astral Telephone may be even better, coming on like latter period John Lennon with Air on production duties.
Both songs had been leftovers from their Mo’ Wax album, and following their release Parsley Sound returned to their day jobs, and seemingly disappeared again. In 2009 they remixed a song from DJ Yoda and The Heritage Orchestra’s Concerto for Turntables & Orchestra, and this brought them to the attention of StopStart Records who then released a new Parsley Sound single Devotions in 2009. London’s The Daily Mirror (February 6 2009) gave Devotions 4/5 stars, writing:
Whatever happened to British psychedelia? Proving it didn’t just curl up and die when The Beta Band hung up their berets are this multitalented North London duo. Their MySpace site presents a kooky and not a little spooky voyage into the brain’s recesses. A tantalising taste of the album to come.
While fans and reviewers may have hoped a new album was coming soon, in 2011 Parsley Sound were still at work in the studio, and it was another two years later before Picnic On Mars arrived in 2013. The album included the previously released Devotions, though Indie Rock Mag noted the song “has been slightly revised in an efficient manner” since its MySpace debut, and all together there were eight songs included across approximately 35 minutes.
While StopStart Records had suggested they were going to release the album back in 2009, by 2012 the label seems to have closed, and Picnic On Mars was released without a label, and made available digitally with little press. One reviewer at the time wrote:
With Picnic On Mars, this elusive duo picks up exactly where they left off. It’s a gem of a modern psych-pop record, and I’m not sure why it hasn’t been reviewed by the major music websites that reviewed their first album. The tracks flow from easy breezy hushed harmonies to pure electronic pop. It tends to stray from the lo-fi folk feeling of their first album and veers towards Air territory. Great pop hooks and tripped-out beeps and bloops.
Lastly, there is this overwhelming feeling surrounding the entire album; the feeling of waiting and being in limbo. The tracks leave you almost frozen in time and hypnotize you to stay in the very moment. I just hope this isn’t a hidden message, because waiting 10 years to hear a new record by a band you love is quite a long time.
Unfortunately, following Picnic On Mars Parsley Sound have remained quiet, and Preston Davies has few music credits outside of the group, at least according to Discogs and from what I could gather while researching this article. Meanwhile his bandmate Daniel Lipman has remained busy and in the public eye. In 2020 he toured with the folk musician Allison Sleator, taught guitar lessons, appeared on an album from Collette Cooper, and has been recording and playing as part of Funkshy, a Funk and Soul group based in London.
As of 2021 it has been almost ten years since we last heard from Parsley Sound. Thankfully both of their albums are available to stream, which is more than can be said for a lot of the Mo’ Wax back catalogue, and while we can hope that the two“self confessed failed jazz musicians” might one day grace us with another collection of their unique sound, for now it seems that following their Picnic On Mars Parsley Sound have left that world behind.
