Kollection

Practitioners of exquisitely lush pop ballads, the Korgis' moment in the (British) sun reached its cusp as 1979 slid into 1980. The band had emerged from the ashes of Stackridge, a highly entertaining underground group whose amusing antics and music were once memorably compared to a "pantomime hippie horse." Eighteen months after Stackridge's demise in late 1976, James Warren got back in touch with his former bandmate, Andy Davis, traveled down to Bath, and the pair immediately began co-writing songs. The Korgis' debut album, recorded in producer David Lord's Bath apartment, emerged in 1979, along with their first hit single, "If I Had You," that pushed into the Top 15. 1980s "Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime," took them all the way to number five, and in its wake, pulled the band's sophomore set, Dumb Waiters, into the Top 40. Unfortunately, their follow-up 45, "If It's Alright With You Baby," wasn't pulled into the charts by the same wake; it couldn't even break into the Top 50. A third album, Sticky George, passed by unnoticed, and the Korgis called it a day. A decade later, Warren and Davis reunited, and released one album, This World's for Everyone. Although a few collections of their work have been released over the years, none seem to have garnered much attention. Angel Air has released a collection to rectify the lack of readily available material. 2005's Kollection bundles up numbers from across the Korgis' career, including both the band's hit singles, tracks culled from all four of their albums, as well as five new songs, all of which slot impeccably and almost imperceptibly into this set. Of particular interest to fans are four bonus tracks, comprised of three early demos and the 1985 remix of "It Won't Be the Same Old Place." The lavish booklet provides a rather elliptical history, and follows the bandmembers' right up to 2005, the year Kollection was released. For fans of this ever-so-romantic group's lovely work, Kollection is a real boon. ~ Jo-Ann Greene