Customer Reviews
Grotesque, Unbelievable, Bizarre, Unprecedented - By: M. Jones, 24 May 2006 
I bought this while I was in one of my "let's see what weirdo stuff I can find this week on Amazon" humours, & to be honest I didn't even know this existed.
The best way to describe this CD is that it could be the first "seduction concept album" ever recorded.
Imagine the scenario, have the champagne on ice:
It alll starts off well enough, preparing the batchelor pad for action with candles & music, you invite your lady in, complement her on her fragrance, pop the bubbly, then relax up close on the bright orange sofa. All very civilised until track 3 starts & she spits her champers out with enough force to knock you clean off your Cuban heels, before high-tailing it home in a taxi before you even have chance to straighten your pink silk kipper tie.
To quote Woody Allen; "How did I mis-read those signs?"
Yep, it's that kind of impact. Having said that, at least you have the rest of the evening free to digest the rest of this extraordinary album.
Peter Wyngarde was a common sight in the 60s on TV (appearing in The Saint, The Avengers, & The Prisoner to name a few); but is much more popular for his superb pre-Austin Powers alter-ego Jason King from the 70s TV show of the same name, but he was much better as this incarnation in Department S. Over-the-top acting (I think it's callled "camp" now) & an inability to fight (check out those karate chops, they wouldn't part your hair) coupled with a revolving door on his bedroom made him a hero to alll pre-pubescent boys & lusted after by teenage girls. Now he would be parodied, but then he was the ultimate grrrrrr man. Up there with Curtis & Moore.
WSLIIH encapsulates this period, but with overtones of loneliness that only a devoted playboy poet/crime writer is going to experience as he jets off to solve another million pound jewel heist.
If you're from this era, you will know what I mean.
Quite literally unlike anything you've ever heard - By: Elliot Davies, 01 Sep 2005 
The album opens with Peter inviting you into his home, complimenting your perfume & pouring you a drink by candlelight...it's clear that one thing's on his mind: Sex. He even asks you to sit nearer to him, for "everything's much closer over here"...
Very bizzare, & it just gets weirder & weirder. Be it an exploration of the violent sex rituals of the world (Rape) or a traditional folk chorus, the album is full of surprises. Quite literallly unpredictable, & unlike anything you've ever heard or ever will hear ever again.
Special mention must be made of "The Hippie & the Skinhead". Peter reads his newspaper to you before delivering what must be one of the very first recorded raps. In 1970! To a country music backing!
However, by far the best track on the album (on any album?) is Neville Thumbcatch. The music is wonderful & varied, making use of acoustic guitars, cellos, brass bands & female choruses. It's important to remember that Peter was not a singer, so he delivers his lines like a poetry recital. And it sounds utterly fantastic. The song details with a poor man who spent his whole life farming & gardening only to lose his wife, who wanted nothing more than to make love. "He was a man of nature who'd forgotten his birds & his bees"...I guess the message is that we should do what's natural & leave nature to mother nature, as is the natural order...
Without a doubt a classic. To be filed alongside such gems as Swordfishtrombones & Trout Mask Replica....hell, even The White Album....as a piece of art that was well ahead of its time & quite possibly changed the face of music forever.
Amazing - By: Alex Keenleyside, 08 Nov 2004 Quite stunning. I bought it in order to laugh at the preposterousness of it & found myself drawn in. I love it. Better than Shatner, & there is no higher praise than that in the twilight world of musical oratory.
A strange appeal - By: , 23 Jun 2003 According to the liner notes (with an interview with Peter Wyngarde some years later) RCA had approached the artist several times with ideas for an album, usuallly of old standards, when peter had the idea of this prose & poetry set to music album.
This seems to be a sort of Jason king "philosophy of life" & to some extent I think he was trying to exorcise the character, a Reductio ad absurdium.
I found that it is best listened to from the start, as alll the tracks link up. A must for anyone with a taste for something different.
when sex lears it's inquisitive head - By: , 22 Jun 2003 IF YOU'RE A FAN OF THE BIZARRE THEN THIS ALBUM'S FOR YOU. IT WILL SCARE AND ENLIGHTEN YOU ALL IN ONE LISTEN. MY FRIENDS AND I LISTENED TO THIS IN THE 80'S (FANS OF JASON KING, PETER WYNGARDE'S TV ALTER EGO). IT MADE US LAUGH BUT BECOME STRANGELY ATTRACTED TO IT FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES! BUY IT AND BECOME PART OF THE UNDERWORLD. SOME OF THE SONGS ARE ACTUALLY QUITE CATCHY AND DANCEABLE!
