ROSPEL

Apparently a one-off
label, and one of the Plastic Fantastic family. Googling suggests
that an EP by Hush featuring 'Lily Ann' and three other tracks was Rospel's
only release. There's no date on the label, but the vender from whom I bought my copy had it
dated as 1978, which, given the involvement of Plastic Fantastic and
Pye, is not improbable. The catalogue number, PFE-101, indicates the Plastic Fantastic link: labels
associated with the company generally had 'PF' as part of their prefixes. The EP appears to
have been a DIY affair: producer Robert Pelosi is thanked on the reverse
of the picture sleeve (which is a lavish one, for a
home-financed record) and is addressed as 'Dad'. The music, which is
falsetto-voiced Pop / Rock, is a cut above the
usual Club / Cabaret fare. Bass player and lead vocalist
Renato Paoli, who wrote two of the tracks, went on
to be a director of Hush Music Publishing, of Eastbourne;
so that name lived on, if Rospel's didn't. His Linkedin page states that
he started the band Hush in August 1978 after leaving a group called 'Appianova', which suggests
that this EP could well have come out in the second half of
that year. As the label states, manufacturing was by Pye.
Copyright 2012 Robert Lyons.