Apple Venus Volume 1

By 1997 Partridge and Moulding had more than 40 new songs, mostly Partridge's. The eleven chosen for Volume 1 had been written between 1992 and 1994 and were built around strings, acoustic guitars and keyboards. Partridge called the result "orchustic". The plan was a double album, but the money ran out, so the orchestral songs came first and the rock songs were held back for a second volume. Haydn Bendall, who had engineered the band's 1977 EP, produced, and Prairie Prince returned on drums. It was the first album on their own Idea Records, distributed by Cooking Vinyl in the UK and TVT Records in the United States.

Sessions at Chris Difford's home studio in Sussex fell apart after two weeks, and the band reconvened at Chipping Norton Recording Studios in early 1998. A single rushed session with a 40-piece orchestra at Abbey Road was edited over three months. Dave Gregory quit in March 1998, a few weeks into the Chipping Norton sessions, and it was his last album with the band. Mike Batt wrote the orchestral arrangements and conducted on two songs, Greenman and I Can't Own Her.

Songs and reception

Much of the lyric writing circles around paganism, in River of Orchids, Easter Theatre, Greenman and Harvest Festival. Partridge counted Easter Theatre among the few perfect songs of his career. Moulding wrote only Fruit Nut and Frivolous Tonight. The album reached number 42 in the UK and 106 on the Billboard 200.

Pitchfork's Zach Hooker said it picks up where the band left off, bridging the gap between Oranges & Lemons and Skylarking. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic wrote that it ranks as one of XTC's greatest works. Mojo placed it at 47 on its 2003 list of eccentric albums. The demos came out in late 1999 as Homespun and the backing tracks in 2002 as Instruvenus.