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Reign in Spain
From an unexpected corner of the world, comes a psych-pop psuccess pstory.
By Jim Irvin.
Hokus Poke’s Roger Clarke.
Rare earth: Hokus Poke rock Ealing Tech;
Guerssen Records (3)
LLEIDA, THE SMALLEST of Catalonia’s four provincial capital cities, doesn’t spring to mind as the place to base a hub for cultish psych, garage, folk and rock. But in 1995, that’s where Antoni Gorgues launched the wonderful Guerssen label, simply because that’s where he happened to be, staring at a future in a well-paid but boring office job, dreaming of doing something in music. “I was deep into the ’90s garage-Mod scene that was going on all through Europe, and I started releasing music by some of those acts,” he says. “The first album was by my Barcelona pals The Flashback Five, a very cool garage-psych band. I had no plan at all other than to follow the dream.”