Santa Sprees is an anglo-Japanese band Santa Sprees that have been advancing the art of unpopular song since 1994. Making questionable progress from the low-skilled, no-fidelity, no wave of their earliest cassettes to the largely futile primitive avant bubblegum of today, releasing nine collections to date on a trail of defunct labels and media.
Fanfare for Tonsils scooped the polls in 2021 and appeared either as no 1 or top ten of the greatest release of 2021.
A stage for the now and neverafter rendered in sponge and rubber bands with music written and performed by Santa Sprees, Anthony Dolphin and Kazuko Dolphin with Graham Darnell (rembetiko death banjo on ‘Visiting Hours Are Over’) & David Fair (co-writer of the lyric on ‘Harper’s Goldfish’).
Recorded upon Hillside Bamboo in Dartmouth between the 2nd of August, 2020 and the 21st of May, 2021. Church door and organ recorded at the Church Of The Holy Rood, Ampney Crucis. Speech fragments from Shirley MacLaine, Robert Bresson & Vladimir Nabokov.
You can make your own fanfare for tonsils with six coloured sponges, thirty two elastic bands, eight pieces of white card, eight sheets of Japanese paper, a lamp, a camera, a microphone, a sixteen-track recorder, two human voices, a radical tonsillectomy, drums with felt beaters and sticks, kitchen bowls, wood blocks, a clockwork panda drummer made of tin, shakers, finger cymbals, sleigh bells, a church door, driftwood wind chimes made by Rita Pacheco, a glockenspiel, a mouth harp, a bamboo flute, a plastic c-tuned recorder, a bombarde, a plastic soprano saxophone, a membranophone, an ocarina, a kazoo, an electric guitar with at least five strings, a distortion pedal, a friend who plays the banjo, a rubber band bass & koto, a church organ, a monophonic synthesizer, and a keyboard with synthetic piano, bandoneon, celeste plus pipe, reed and other vital organs."
Anthony Dolphin.
