TreaTmenT formed in London in late 1979. Their remit was psychedelia. Not a fashion revival but the real thing - brought up to date, filtered through punk and the anarchist/hippie ideals of the free festival scene.

Originally a four piece: brothers Clive and Gordon Leach on bass and guitar, Paul MacWhinnie on keyboards and Graham Cronin on drums - with Adam Blake joining on second guitar in time for the first gig at the Basement Club in Covent Garden in February 1980.

Gordon had also been playing with Colchester’s Psycho Hamster - whose drummer Paul Ross replaced Graham at the end of 1980.

Playing only original material, TreaTmenT soon gathered a fan base in North London and began playing at free festivals such as Stonehenge, as well as the London Musicians Collective and clubs and pubs in and around London. Their uncompromising music and eccentric stage act began attracting attention - gaining a positive review in NME around the time they put out their first single: “Stamp Out Mutants” on their own label.

By 1981 they had incorporated Jonny Chubb and Bob Metrebian as sound engineers and were using the mixing desk as an instrument in itself - a dub approach, with space echo and stereo effects performed live along with the band.

In late 1981 they moved into a squat in Notting Hill and in early 1982 put out a mail order cassette album - “Intensive” - culled from live tapes and rehearsals - but by the Spring of 1983 the squat folded and the band broke up for the first time.

Invited to reform to play a Club Dog event, TreaTmenT played their first reunion gig in October 1984. From there, they were invited to play at the burgeoning Alice In Wonderland nightclub. This led to second lease of life as TreaTmenT played Alice’s events: Scala all nighters, Magical Mystery Trips etc.

They put out a second single - “Feeling Like A Ghost” in late 1987 but fell apart again. Reformed at the behest of Richard Allen to record “Cypher Caput” for Delerium Records which came out in 1993. During these sessions the band recorded the basic material that became “How Much Is Enough” - which sat in the can for over 30 years!

The tragic death of Gordon in 2021 from Covid proved the spur which has brought about the release of this material as a double vinyl in a strictly limited edition.

Never in 2000 light years, as I clung on to sanity, adrift on a blotter that had somehow escaped the clutches of operation Julie, did I ever think I would end up writing the sleeve notes to a Treatment album.

Back in 1986 leaving the swirling, oil blobbed interior of Deptford’s Crypt Club, in some kind of coherent state, was a hard enough task. Treatment were putting the acid dazed audience of assorted freaks through the prism of their lysergic mangle and a kind of panic had set in. Frozen to the spot; Treatment had my beautiful psychedelic experience by the neck, and were attempting to shove it down my throat.

It was an experience I will never forget.
Along with bands such as Ozric Tentacles, The Magic Mushroom Band, Webcore, Zodiac Mind Warp, The Spacemen 3 and Senser, Treatment were at the core of the blooming underground psychedelic / festival / crusty scene in mid ‘80’s London. Thatcher had just destroyed the free festival movement and the rave scene had not yet given birth to the egocentric DJ culture.

It was a wild beautiful time, an era that was mercifully ignored by the music press allowing a whole generation of minds to pass through the doors of perception, unhindered by such earthly thoughts as fashion and street credibility.
And just inside those Doors Treatment were waiting.....To show you the dark side of the psychedelic experience. To warn you that there were uncomfortable things in your mind, that you had to know about. And they were not about to let you forget. So lest you feel too groovy in your paisley shirt purchased from a hip emporium in Camden or Portobello road, they were there to remind you that perhaps the psychedelic experience had nothing to do with pop fashion. And that perhaps your world was not quite as comfortable and smug as you might like it to be, and that maybe that chemical doing strange things to your head might never wear off.

Now, in 2002, a psychedelic experience is a car advert and Treatment seem strangely prophetic. All those phoney thoughts have somehow became real. The alternative society really is about as alternative as a McDonalds veggie burger. And whilst those other ‘80’s psychedelic bands have come, been a bit “successful” and gone, Treatment never really did anything in the first place. They just made a statement.