Nonsuch (styled as NONSVCH.) is the twelfth studio album by the English band XTC, released 27 April 1992 on Virgin Records. The follow-up to Oranges & Lemons (1989), Nonsuch is a relatively less immediate and more restrained sounding album, carrying the band's psychedelic influences into new musical styles, and displaying a particular interest in orchestral arrangements. The LP received critical acclaim, charted at number 28 in the UK Albums Chart, and number 97 on the US Billboard 200, as well as topping Rolling Stones College album chart.
Produced by Gus Dudgeon, 13 of the album's 17 tracks were written by guitarist/leader Andy Partridge, with the rest by bassist Colin Moulding, while Dave Mattacks of Fairport Convention was recruited on drums. Unlike previous XTC albums, Partridge composed many of his songs using a keyboard. Due to the album's lyric content, which covers topics ranging from love and humanity to the Gulf War and P. T. Barnum, Nonsuch has been described as the band's darkest and most political album. The cover depicts an illustration of the former Nonsuch Palace, chosen after the band had settled on the title "nonesuch", which Partridge felt summed up the album's variety of music. It was their third double album when issued on vinyl.
Lead single "The Disappointed" reached number 33 in the UK and was nominated for an Ivor Novello award, while "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" was the band's second single to top the US Modern Rock Tracks, later becoming a UK top 40 hit when covered by the Canadian band Crash Test Dummies. XTC soon left Virgin Records in the UK following a dispute over the cancelled third single, "Wrapped in Grey". Nonsuch was also nominated for the 1993 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album. In 2013, a remixed and expanded version of the album was released. Mixed by Steven Wilson, the edition included new stereo, surround sound and instrumental mixes of the original album along with various demos and outtakes.
Background
After the band's double album Oranges & Lemons (1989) was released to acclaim from music critics and modest commercial success, XTC took a short break. Band leader Andy Partridge produced And Love For All (1989), the second album by The Lilac Time, while also compering for an unbroadcast children's game show named Matchmakers, and Dave Gregory played for Johnny Hates Jazz, Marc Almond and Francesco Messina whilst also producing for Cud, while Colin Moulding performed a special event concert with David Marx and the Refugees, a Swindon-based band that reunited him with former XTC member Barry Andrews. The band soon reunited and began writing their next, tenth album, the soon-to-become Nonsuch, determined to record their new compositions in their native England, as recording Oranges & Lemons in Los Angeles had made the band absent from their families back in England. With Partridge becoming so desperate to record Nonsuch that he "would have done it with the window cleaner,"
When Dudgeon arrived in the studio and Partridge saw his attire and expensive lifestyle, he felt "he was wrong [for the job], but by that time it was difficult to go back." The band nicknamed him Guff Dungeon "because he was so flatulent." Partridge reflected: "Gus is old school, full of blusters and bluff [mimicking Dudgeon] 'Elton gave me this Rolls-Royce and I said, 'Oh Elton darling... Mattacks agreed to appear on the album because of the band's personality and the quality of the songs, and later reflected that although it was challenging fitting into the band, it was not difficult, elaborating that "the experience was enjoyable. Great songs." Meanwhile, Partridge felt that Dave Gregory improved at arranging musical structures during the sessions. Compared to Oranges & Lemons, Partridge described Nonsuch as being less immediate and simpler sounding: "It's not as immediate, and that's the way we want it." Noting the album's eclecticism, music critic Greg Kot considered the album "a mix of Broadway pomp, McCartneyesque sing-song, lilting melodies, delightful odes to everyday pleasures and humbling introspection," Guitar and keyboard textures on the album regularly shift, while, citing themes of sad retirement in "Bungalow" and maddening alienation in "Rook", Martin Townsend of Vox called the album "precisely of its time," feeling it to reflect "the mental and physical landscape of the [then-current] recession," and felt it was arguably the band's darkest album. It has also been cited as the band's most political album.
Described by band biographer Neville Farmer as "a piece of near-Stratospheric psychedelia," "Humble Daisy" features multiple key changes and what Farmer perceives to be references to the Beach Boys and the Lovin' Spoonful in a musical structure Partridge described as "a piece of dream logic." Written by Moulding, "The Smartest Monkeys" was described by Johan Kugelberg of Spin as "the kind of social commentary that can only be born in a pub," and features jangley guitars. "The Disappointed" concerns itself with people who have been turned down romantically and come together to form an organisation "of the disappointed," while "Holly Up on Poppy" is about Partridge's daughter Holly, Poppy being the name of the rocking horse she had. In writing the song, Partridge hoped to avoid the saccharine nature he felt plagued songs with similar subjects. Featuring piano playing, strings and horns, it has been compared to classical music. Vox called it a powerful picture of "alienation verging on madness", Musically, the song was intended as a pastiche on West End musicals. "That Wave" combines Partridge's fear of water and the subject of love "into the sensation of drowning in a wave of love." Moulding described the song's music as a "psychedelic grenade."
Moulding's "War Dance" originated in 1983 for the Mummer sessions in the aftermath of the Falklands War, but Moulding would change the track drastically for its version on Nonsuch, recorded after the Gulf War which gave the song a new poignancy. The song features a synthesized clarinet that Partridge later dismissed as sounding "like a singing penis." "Wrapped in Grey" is about tapping into one's emotions in order to realise life "isn't all grey," while "The Ugly Underneath" concerns itself with politicians. It was inspired by his childhood holidays to Weymouth and is a tribute to British seaside holidays, featuring a Welsh male voice choir added by Gregory. Partridge considers the song to be the best song Moulding had written. Partridge said of the final title: "It is a very beautiful word, but also one of my favorite record companies, the American record company Nonesuch, which releases this old music I like a lot. I then discovered it was the most marvellous castle ever, covered with gold, sculptures and paints, it looked like a fairy tale's wedding cake. It was built by that tyrant, Henry VIII, who razed a village for it. The edifice quickly disappeared, it exists only on two second-rate drawings." He felt the album title was a good way to sum up the otherwise disparate content of the album and present them as an entirety, explaining to one interviewer how he picked the title: