I’d heard of Polyphonic Spree in rumours, whispers and the occasional collaboration with other artists like Yoko Ono and I wanted to hear more. So, during the Great Internet Download Free-for-All of 2007-2010 I was able to obtain a copy of Fragile Army.
I’ve always liked the concept of an ever increasing band, the community of music and the celebration of creativity fostered by bands like Polyphonic Spree and British folk band Bellowhead. Added to this, the open airiness and audible joy that emanated from what I’d heard of Polyphonic Spree’s music (notably You and I with Yoko Ono and Love My Way). However my joy was short lived as I started to realise that Polyphonic Spree was run like some sort of sinister cult like the Moonies or Hari Krishna led by a quasi-David Koresh figure. Furthermore, the sound becomes repetative, too similar and tracks become difficult to distinguish from.
That’s why my interest in Polyphonic Spree seems to tail off towards the middle of the album. Shame really.
This will be the last week of Music Project entries before a two week hiatus unless someone comes forth offering to write for two weeks while I’m on the other side of the planet.
Stegzy's Music Project 
Afflatus – The Polyphonic Spree[#671]
by stegzySo something bollocks happened between the last entry and this one. I had been mooching about on my PC exploring a box of old hard drives I had come across which contained quite a lot of music that had, for what ever reason known only to Apple Music, removed itself from my Apple Music Library. I copied some of what I found into my iTunes – album by album – before I got bored and tried to move several at once.
Bad mistake.
In doing so, iTunes decided to rejig my library, import folders from my usual drives that I had excluded and retag around about 100 albums to be under the tags VARIOUS ARTISTS and the album GOTHIC EROTICA .
Great.
I rage quit and did not dare look at my PC’s iTunes library again for several months until such time as I had completely forgotten what I’d done, logged back in and knackered up my library even more.
Even then it took me the best part of a year to get back to some normality. In the process of re-tagging well over 1000 tracks I started to notice I had albums I had no idea that I had – moreover albums I’d never even heard of before. One such album was Afflatus by The Polyphonic Spree
Afflatus was released in 2021 which kind of indicates to me that this isn’t one I’d downloaded back in the grand old days of YoHoHoery. I can only assume that Apple Music added it out of generosity – something I’ve noticed has happened a fair bit since the great Tagging Disaster of 2025. Never the less, the album is in the library so it must be included in the music project.
The album comprises of 10 tracks – all slightly jollified Spreesque cover versions of songs such as the Bee Gee’s Could It Be Magic and Rush’s Spirit of Radio. I’m not certain if it’s because the moment of cheesy tambourine clapping uplifting music has passed, much in the same way that long haired hippy “we’re all entering a new spiritual age” 1960s music did by the 1980s or if its just a terrible album – but Afflatus really does set the cringe glands on edge.
I don’t know, to me it just feels like the band lost a little “something” after Fragile Army but I can’t really put my finger – or ear – on it.
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2021 Good Records Recordings Plastic pop Polyphonic Spree Psychedelic