Orang-Utan: The Album They Never Knew They Made

The Producer's Cut finally presents a cult heavy rock classic from the original master tape, speed-corrected for the first time. Lead single "Magic Playground" is streaming now.

Every collector knows the cover. A giant cartoon ape rampaging through the Manhattan skyline, fighter jets buzzing overhead, citizens fleeing into the harbor. It looks like a B-movie poster dreamed up on a pub napkin, and it has spent fifty-five years staring out from want lists and dealer tables, daring you to take a chance on whatever was inside. The answer, for those who did, was eight tracks of ferociously tight British heavy rock recorded in a single afternoon by five guys who never saw a penny for it, and who didn't even know the record existed until it was already in American shops.

Orang-Utan are one of those bands whose legend has always been bigger than their discography. One album on Bell Records in March of 1971, pressed in the US without the group's knowledge or consent, financed and titled by a young London music impresario named Adrian Millar who drove off in a Rolls-Royce after getting the publishing signed on a dustbin outside the studio. The band found out by accident. They never received a cent. They broke up. The tapes disappeared. And the album became a holy grail of early-seventies hard rock, bootlegged endlessly but never properly sourced.

Now Think Like A Key Music is changing that. Orang-Utan: The Producer's Cut (TLAK1229), a new instalment in The Adrian Millar Archive Series, presents all eight songs newly remixed and remastered from Millar's original one-inch, eight-track session tape, a reel that spent over forty years in a loft before being recovered in 2013. Every previous reissue and bootleg was sourced from an LP transfer. This is the first release from the multi-track master itself, and the first at the correct speed: the original tape ran approximately 2% slow, meaning the album the world knows has always been slightly flat and sluggish. Not anymore!

One Afternoon at De Lane Lea

The band started life as Hunter, assembled in North London by drummer and principal songwriter Jeff Seopardie and lead guitarist Mick Clarke, veterans of Freddie Mack's Extravaganza. Guitarist Sid Fairman, bassist Paul Roberts, and vocalist Terry "Nobby" Clark (formerly of psych-pop act Jason Crest) completed the lineup. Their manager, a caterer named Leslie Rapacioli, introduced them to Millar, who marched them into De Lane Lea Studios mid-July 1970. Engineer Louis Austin (early Fleetwood Mac, Queen) manned the board. Eight tracks, one afternoon, all done. As Guitarist, Mick Clarke later recalled: "Next thing we knew, we were in the studio recording the album. We did it all in one afternoon!"

What happened next is the stuff of rock'n'roll infamy. Legend has it that Millar peddled his production to Bell Records, who in turn pressed up an unknown quantity of LPs under the name Orang-Utan (a name the band never chose). Billboard gave it a mention. Cashbox ran a blurb. The band, back in London, knew nothing. Clarke's verdict, years later, was blunt: "We were completely left out of the loop."

24 Tracks, Three Ways In

The TLAK edition runs to 24 tracks across three sections, each offering a different way into the same legendary session. The Producer's Cut presents all eight songs remixed, speed-corrected and sequenced in a new running order. The Original Session strips the tracks back to their instrumental backing, in the order they were initially recorded that July afternoon, complete with studio chatter from the group and Louis Austin himself on the talkback. The LP Remix restores the commercial LP sequence with a faithful recreation of the original stereo image, at the original speed, preserving the album exactly as the world first heard it. It is a forensic, obsessive, deeply loving presentation of a single afternoon's work.

"Magic Playground"

Kicking off with a delightfully raw studio slate of "Magic Playground, take one," followed by a brisk "two, three, four!", this track launches immediately into a driving, jangly slice of prime psych-pop perfection. With its propulsive rhythm section, walking bassline, and swirling electric guitars, the song possesses a remarkably infectious, garage-tinged mod-rock energy. The vocalist delivers a breathless, wide-eyed narrative about a technicolor dreamscape "floating in the sky," populated by swings, roundabouts, and trees painted in vivid "red, white, silver and green". It captures a sense of wide-eyed, kaleidoscope-lensed optimism, complete with Millar's approving "very good indeed!" from the control room as the final chord rings out, a sentiment with which any right-minded listener will undoubtedly agree.

Millar died in December 2006. The session tape was recovered from his family's loft by music archivist Mark V. Perkins in 2013, professionally transferred, and heard properly for the first time: in tune, at the right speed, direct from the source. As Millar once reflected with characteristic understatement: "Although this is not big history, it is a colourful little mystery, and somewhat better late than never." Fifty-five years on, The Producer's Cut finally gives the music the presentation it deserves, from the only tape that matters.

Tracklist:

The Producer's Cut (new track order, speed corrected)

Magic Playground
I Can See Inside Your Head
Slipping Away
Love Queen
If You Leave
Country Hike
Fly Me High
Chocolate Piano

The Original Session (instrumentation only, speed corrected)

Slipping Away
I Can See Inside Your Head
Chocolate Piano
Flying High (aka Fly Me High)
Magic Playground
If You Leave
Country Hike
Love Queen

The LP Remix (original track order, speed unadulterated)

I Can See Inside Your Head
Slipping Away
Love Queen
Chocolate Piano
If You Leave
Fly Me High
Country Hike
Magic Playground

Personnel: Jeff Seopardie (drums), Mick Clarke (guitar), Sid Fairman (guitar), Paul Roberts (bass), Terry "Nobby" Clark (vocals).

Adrian Millar (Producer - 1970), Sean B. Perkins (Producer - 2026), Mark V. Perkins (Executive Producer), Louis Austin (Engineer)

Catalog: TLAK1229
Licensed from Pumpgate Music