Night's Bright Colors

Few artists are able to capture the mixture of loneliness, desperation and underpinning of bittersweet moments that Elliott Smith embodied. Almost any comparisons fall short and are merely handy reference points to try to point to a similar sound. Jason Smith certainly has the wistful delivery and musical capability to fall into these comparisons; but what clinches the comparison is that he really is a songwriter on the level that Elliott set so high. He and producer Matthew Mauney have created a masterful album, several actually. Night's Bright Colors latest pulls together the culmination of a project centering around Smith's protagonist "the patient." The project now ends with the release of the double album Love In The Asylum, a world-weary-frayed-threads run through mental health. Jason Smith's voice aches with the a reluctancy to let you into his mind but with the earnestness of a songwriter who has no other choice but to bleed for the sake of of the disease. Hope is a small raft that we cling to but its more solid than the surrounding waters.

Download:
[MP3] Night's Bright Colors -A Nice Dependency
[MP3] Night's Bright Colors -Nocturne #2
[MP3] Night's Bright Colors -Beautiful Disguise

Wooden Shjips

RSTB is not normally in the habit of posting videos but its rare that a band can so accurately capture the feelings their music evokes in film. Wooden Shjips play like some Velvet Underground/ Krautrock bad trip outtake that threatens to tear your soul from you by sheer force. The video for their song "Dance, California" is a perfect meld of vintage 60's footage all interwoven to create the feeling of feverish dance mania and apocalyptic hedonism. If I ever have foreknowledge of the impending end of the world I want this song playing as loud as possible wherever I may be. Wooden Shjips output has been strictly limited to one 10" and this new 7" for "Dance, California." Both can be purchased from Aquarius records. Haven't found much information about the band personally but the sound is so commanding it doesn't really matter. Below is an edit of a track from the 10" courtesy of their site. Act fast on this one. The 10" is limited to 300 and I'm sure the 7" isn't sticking around long either.

Download:
[MP3] Wooden Shjips -Shrinking Moon For You (Edit)

More tasty tidbits from the West Coast Psych sound. I've mentioned before that I have a predilection for this subset of psychedelia and happily it gives me a chance to mention one of my favorite records, the often overlooked Electric Music for the Mind and Body. A record that to this day encapsulates the sound of psychedelic America perfectly and in its most cohesive form.

	Country Joe and The Fish - Electric Music For the Mind and Body Ask most survivors of the sixties about Country Joe Macdonald and they'll babble on a bit regarding his most well known song, "I Feel Like I'm Fixing To Die Rag" which is
featured on the Woodstock compilation and was a barebones anti war rant. This is an incredible shame that this is how such great musician is remembered because though politics would always remain a part of the band's work the music was some of the most original to come out of the scene. The band's debut crystalizes a time and a place with such coherence that it should be issued to any one interested in the period musically. The songs range from politically pointed jabs at LBJ to country rock California classics to the albums core of dark psychedelic masterpieces. The best of these were acid fueled burners that seethed with the energy of the generation. The guitar work alone on this record leaves me speechless. Some songs it feels as if the strings are being attacked by those playing them to the point that you can feel them gasp for air. Death Sound is pure psych-blues fury and Bass Strings remains as the band's personal ode to LSD. A commanding record considering that this was the bands debut, utterly essential. Download: [MP3] Country Joe and The Fish - Death Sound [MP3] Country Joe and The Fish - Bass Strings Buy Country Joe and The Fish
	Ultimate Spinach - Ultimate Spinach Ultimate Spinach was hyped at the time as being part of the emerging Bosstown sound, but quite honestly their influences are pure West Coast. They are also known for having quite possibly one of the
most ridiculous band names in history. Ian Bruce-Douglas was a passable songwriter who just had a habit of possibly idolizing those who tread before him a bit too much. This album has a split of jangly upbeat rockers and Country Joe dark psyche homage moments. The latter being a point of contention among some critics as "Baroque #1 comes a little uncomfortably close to Macdonald's "Masked Marauders" sound. Bruce-Douglas also borrowed heavily from The Doors' Guitar sound. Nonetheless this album remains a nice mixture of politics and bits of the psychedelic era. The derivations while notable don't make the whole of the album any less enjoyable; not as classic as some but definitely worth checking out. Download: [MP3] Ultimate Spinach - Baroque #1 [MP3] Ultimate Spinach - Plastic Raincoat/ Hung Up Minds Buy Ultimate Spinach

Lucky Dragons

When you are a child it seems that there are so many sounds that you haven't heard that each new one is fresh and exciting. The world lies brimming with wonder that can't be contained. Most people lose this sense as they grow older. Sounds become the undercurrent of your life but no longer captivate you. Luke Fischbeck is not such a person. He has done everything possible to be constantly amazed at this world of sound and to capture the world as a five year old senses it. His newest album entitled Widows has just been released in tandem on Marriage Records and State's Rights Records. The album is the aural equivalent of spinning around in a circle until you get dizzy and fall down. Like having every good memory suddenly attack you too fast to interpret. It truly does capture the childlike sensibilities of wonder and innocence and lives up to Fischbeck's notion of not letting your music become jaded. This is trance music as filtered through the San Francisco folk community. Electronic surely, as the sounds couldn't possibly exist in nature but so organic that you'll wonder why it is that they don't. Marriage is releasing the LP version along with a remix CD entitled Mini Dream Island. Also I highly recommend you check out this interview with Luke on his influences and his music and what generally makes him happy.

Download:
[MP3] Lucky Dragons -New Alium
[MP3] Lucky Dragons -Dissolve Yourself

buy Widows

[MP3] Ferraby Lionheart - Tickets to Crickets I'm pretty intrigued by this guy. So far he's just got an EP out, but simply judging from these songs, you'd assume he'd be around the indie rock block a few times, so to speak. He's weathered and confident, inspired and extremely talented. "Tickets to Crickets" rolls along a bouncy piano line like a leaf-blown brit pop ballad, with enough rustiness and recklessness to keep it homegrown. [MP3] Ivy LeagueJune A cross between old country am radio and Simon and Garfunkel, "June" is a perfect song for the imminent fall; partly cloudy, blowing love around like brush in the park. For fans of Kings of Convenience and Acid House Kings. I'm pretty sure Hope Gangloff did the cover art too, which is fitting to the feel of the record. [MP3] SparklehorseMountains October in Texas is colder than you think, well, that year it was. I had moved back home for a brief time to be with friends. Growing up there, fall was always my favorite season, and it was a surreal time, leaving NY just weeks after Sept. 11, everything was charged with an incomparable energy of confusion, fear, and a desire for simplicity. My memories of that time have blended together as a collage of time and light and a chill that truly changed my life. I remember the lining of my sweatshirt and how it felt on my arms when the awkward wind blew through the car, our floors were strewn with pedals and tapes, guitar chords and broken keyboards we’d thought we could fix. Running through the woods before getting caught in the rain, green and grey skies, beer bottles and late nights, fighting the feeling that I had abandoned my city, and feeling love again from friends I’d been away from for so long. And Sparklehorse was there too. They were about all I listened to. To this day their songs still find me just as dooming, inspirational, mournful and homesick. Hearing them again is a huge treat, and I expect to have ‘Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain’ on repeat for quite awhile.

Hotel Alexis

With the elder Lindner brother's impending release of the aforementioned Flying Canyon record it seems almost too appropriate that his younger brother and former collaborator in Golden Hotel is set to release his follow-up to the 2004's luminous The Shining Example Is Lying on the Floor in September. Sidney Lindner definitely takes some influence from his older brother and his collaborators. The lazy folk strums found on Goliath, I'm On Your Side recall the whimsy that pervades the best of The Skygreen Leopards work. His songs, however add a touch backporch canyon country and dust it with the sweet yearn of steel pedal. Sidney's mellowed croon is a little less seasoned but just as earnest as any of the Jeweled Antler players. A passing of clouds over the sun that peeks through the trees; a peek into a quiet life happily lived quiet.

Download:
[MP3] Hotel Alexis -Owl
[MP3] Hotel Alexis-The Devil Knows My Handle

Flying Canyon

We here a RSTB dropped a hint of this record a while back and now through the generous people at Soft Abuse it has appeared on our desks and in our computers. Flying Canyon is the collective force of Cayce Lindner, Glenn Donaldson and Shayde Sartin with a little help from Skygreen Leopard Donnovan Quinn. Now admittedly Donaldson is a RSTB favorite and an incredible songwriter who usually contributes the brightest moments on any release he's involved in; but this is definitely Cayce's record and he owns it as such. His voice is affected and weathered from a lifetime hard lived but still as strong and clear as ever. It's as if he needed you to feel the reasons he's singing more than anything. The Neil Young influence can be felt heavy over the entire record but Lindner takes the humanity and soul that Young conveys and leaves out the impulsive politics that he gets lost in. They self describe themselves as California Doom Folk but even when the tones get dark, there's a hope that undercuts the despair. Lindner has been a cohort of the Jeweled Antler collective for some time now but this is their first real collaboration. He's made himself known though; playing with his younger brother Sidney in Golden Hotel and inducing states of mild dimensia with The Goodwill Tapes, his Hawkwind-Feedback-Drone-Folk Project. The record has no set release date yet but details can be found over at Soft Abuse and you can check into The Golden Hotel over at Aquarius.

Download:
[MP3] Flying Canyon -Crossing By Your Star
[MP3] Flying Canyon -The Bull Who Knew The Ring

The 60's perfected the art of the jam; an improvisational concept that gave birth to many of the finer moments in this decade of rock music and unfortunately to some of the more cliche moments in later years. Nonetheless some bands not only embraced this quality, they built their entire sound on it; loosening the boundries of what was considered pop music and ushering in a whole host of ideas from prog to noise.

	Hapshash and The Coloured Coat - Featuring the Human Host and the Heavy Metal Kids Hapshash was a collective of artists at first more renown for their contributions to psychedelic poster art than for their musical contributions. Two art students
teamed up with one DJ to record an entire record of freakout style 60's mayhem that turned out to have some glittering moments in amongst the squall. Guy Stevens, the DJ in question went on to be a producer for Island Records with his work for the band Art. Following his leave the band released a far less extreme record with the help of some other musicians in the scene; Ken Kesey even contributed bass to a later 1969 single. The band dissolved around this time. The Hapshash name still remains synonymous with their poster work. The shorter titles weren't as characteristic of their abilities but the album closer "Empires of the Sun" is an amazing testament to the 60's freakout. Download: [MP3] Hapshash and the Coloured Coat - H-O-P-P Why? [MP3] Hapshash and the Coloured Coat - A Mind Blown is a Mind Shown Buy Hapshash and the Coloured Coat
	Gong - You Gong, the brainchild of Australian guitarist Daevid Allen seemed to feature hundreds of musicians. This communal feeling was evident in their lyrical world of inside jokes. You is the third in a series of albums referred to as the Radion
Gnome Invisible series and was pretty much the last album that Allen took an active part in before leaving the group. Gong's sound centered abound an ability to fuse Piper at the Gates of dawn lyricism with a jazz-rock fusion and an incredibly off the cuff feeling. The album features three long jam type pieces that anchor some of the lighter tracks. The insanely spaced out "You'll Never Blow Your Trip Forever" and "Master Builder" serve as epic counterpoints to Allen's quirky lyrical jaunts on the shorter pieces. Allen had a way of evoking Syd Barrett if he had played with Miles Davis during the Bitches Brew period. A delightful thing indeed. Download: [MP3] Gong - Master Builder [MP3] Gong - Perfect Mystery

Buy Gong

Musical Morosity

David Pajo returns with 1968 on Drag City; a follow-up to last years self titled album under his surname moniker. Pajo was without question one of my favorite albums of 2005; 1968 is a poised expansion of the subdued fidelity and lyrical charm of his prior musings, with an off kilter carnival tinkering that flows through exquisite instrumentation, layering sound on sound with an inspired child-like quality. DOWNLOAD [MP3] Pajo - Who's That Knocking? [MP3] Pajo - I've Just Restored My Will To Live

Some albums truly exemplify the term lost gem. Their lack of acclaim notwithstanding, its their lack of availability in their original pressing that's sometimes heartbreaking. With the widespread popularity of folk and the relatively inexpensive ability of anyone to acquire an acoustic guitar easily; it seemed that everyone was a bedroom folk singer in the 60's. Many that fell by the wayside probably fell for a reason but a few folk singers crafted fragile beautiful testaments to be lost almost forever. Some of the most heartfelt of the genre belong to a certain breed of maudlin female singers with angelic voices and penchants for describing life with a sad eyed perspective. Thankfully someone cared enough to make their voices heard.

	Sibylle Baier - Colour Green This once lost album has garnered much acclaim not only in collector's circles but in the arena of indie rock as well thanks to the attention of Orange Twin records. Sibylle was able to take a particularly dark period in her life and translate it into
songs that capture the beautiful melancholy of daily life. Many of her songs deal with everyday occurrences and emotions without superfluous prose surrounding the meanings. Recorded in her home with a reel to reel recorder the sound is incredibly intimate like flipping through pages in a diary. Her honesty is almost overwhelming. Sybille never recorded the tracks with the idea of widespread acceptance and this translates into a complete lack of self-consciousness. Her songs are simply and extension of herself; beautiful, fragile, and true. Download: [MP3] Sibylle Baier - Wim [MP3] Sibylle Baier - Tonight Buy Sibylle Baier
	Linda Perhacs - Parallelograms Perhacs' record had become a bit of a collector's holy grail for some time. Recorded by a friend in and released in a small quantity in 1970. The original was pressed in very bad quality and reissued a few times with a needledrop transfer that did no
justice to the songs. Thankfully reissued by a longtime fan on Wild Places this year. Her voice is delicate and wistful much like Vashti Bunyan to whom she is often compared. Unlike Bunyan, however Perhacs music is imbued with an adventurous sense of psychedelia and sonic textures. Parallelograms is full of layered vocals and swirling effects. The whole album is sung from a distant perspective, humanly familiar but at the same time otherworldly as if the music were projected through an expanse of space and hushed to a whisper out of your speakers. Download: [MP3] Linda Perhacs - Moons and Cattails [MP3] Linda Perhacs - Parallelograms

Oh J

Ok so a friend of mine used to wait tables at a diner in Amherst; and one of the notable tales of his job involved the habitual frequenting of the diner by one J. Mascis, hunkered and awkward and for unknown reasons clad in brightly colored matching warm up suits. I can't help but have this image in my mind as I listen to the new Mascis project J. Mascis and Friends Sing and Chant For AMMA. Don't get me wrong we here at RSTB have been really digging the Witch record and I've been known to bring my Dinosaur Jr. records out on occasion and blast You're Living All Over Me at top volume when I need to but this album just hit me in such an odd way. Its happy, I mean not just happy that’s not the right word. This record is freaking jubilant, not a touch of angst in site. The record is a tribute to the living Indian Saint, Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi or AMMA as he is known. The songs are sunny and a bit repetitive at times but they're just celebratory. I guess I just don't know what to expect from Mascis sometimes. He's still full of surprises even if he is a bit quirky, like that uncle that makes unsettling comments you're not sure that he's kidding about. The full on Punjab language tracks can get a bit tiring after a while but the rest is really quite good and hey all the proceeds for the album go to tsunami relief so you can feel good about your purchase, right? Oh J. you crazy little imp, what will you think of next?

Download:
[MP3] J. Mascis & Friends -Please Rememeber That I'm Here
[MP3] J. Mascis & Friends -Take Me Home

Buy J. Mascis and Friends

[MP3] King Tuff - Staircase of Diamonds We really love King Tuff here at RSTB, and we finally got a hold of the entire album, Mindblow thanks to Fusetron here in Brooklyn. It's amazing; a pop rock treasure that feels as special as a locket in your pocket and oozes smiles and jumpkicks. "Staircase Of Diamonds" is the albums most reserved track, laying in lazy summer strums, watching with jealousy, the city you both love and hate, move unfazed without you, "Love's just a word that I can't explain, so I say I need you; Sometime's I feel like the only thing real is the city." Lou Reed would be so proud. [MP3] Elton John - Time Has Told Me A cover of Nick Drake's classic by Elton John. I'm not sure it could get much better. It's a jazzier piano driven (obviously) take on the original. Sir Elton John has an entire session of Nick Drake songs out there, I'm still trying to get my hands on it. The quality isn't that great, but the song makes up for it. [MP3] Nick Drake - Blues Run The Game A cover of Jackson C. Frank’s timeless track, "Blues Run The Game" performed by Nick Drake. It’s pretty comparable to the original but it's another chance to hear Drake display his everlasting talent. He has the power to speak to many people in a singular and personal way, and this still stands true through Frank’s words and music.

Loren MazzaCane Connors

Loren Connors has been a fixture of avant garde music for decades. He has collaborated with musicians that push the limits of recorded sound; Keiji Haino, Alan Licht, Jim O'Rourke, Chan Marshall, Darin Gray, Rafael Toral, John Fahey, Thurston Moore, Henry Kaiser and Dean Roberts to name a few. He is the kind of artist who treats his instrument like a brush; emitting color as much as sound. This may only come naturally since Connors was traditionally trained in the visual arts but gave it up stating that "my music is more original than my painting." I've never witnessed his painting but his music is certainly original. Connors can evoke strangled tin can blues or calm languid sojourns from the same six strings. Though he has released many albums over the years attention has come to him of late. Interest was peaked in the mid nineties and has increased steadily ever since. Recently he has had some incredible releases. Most notable of these are a career spanning retrospective and an album of solo recordings and collaborations with John Fahey.

	Night Through Family Vineyard has recently released a three disc retrospective of his work from 1976-2004 that collects tracks from out of print 7-inch singles, private issue CD-Rs, unreleased tracks and recordings with his wife Suzanne Langille. This compilation is a
great portrait of Connors' work as it stands. Shambolic blues, dusted buzztone creations and ethereal peace incantations all lurk side by side in a style that has influenced many and been matched by very few. His decidedly American music is imbued with a purity of tone heard even in his earliest recordings. The entire collection is remastered from the original tapes by Jim O'Rourke. Download: [MP3] Loren Connors -Ribbon O' Blues [MP3] Loren Connors -Deirdre of the Sorrows (Pt. 4) [MP3] Loren Connors -Battle of Clontarf (Pt. 6) [MP3] Loren Connors -Stars
	Sails Table of the Elements released Connors latest creation Sails late last year. The album features some of his most delicate and intimate compositions. The song Cycle Pretty as Ever I-VIII creaks and swells with the kind of poetry only Connors seems to be able
to wrangle from an inanimate object. At the same time his collaboration with Fahey is a sparse unnerving look into darkness laden with feelings of trepidation and unease. The entire double album is closed by the behemoth of white noise and raw tone excursions "Sails," sounding like a two day trek into a cave only to emerge with the bitter knowledge of who you really are. Download: [MP3] Loren Connors -Pretty As Ever (Pt. III) [MP3] Loren Connors w/ John Fahey -Dark Is The Night, Cold Is The Ground Buy Night Through - Buy Sails

Liberty Never Sounded So Good

There’s been something special brewing along the Delaware River the last few years, in a little town called Philadelphia. Being a New Yorker, I can imagine the draw. From the price of real estate, to the price of booze; bands pay for rehearsal space about the same as the B&T crowd spends for a night out in the LES. Good things never last though, so it's only a matter of time before there's a NOPHO or a Philita, and pristine condos dwarf modest and cozy brownstones. Track lighting will wash out the golden glow from behind lace curtains and there'll inevitably be ironic videos and articles making fun of the “ubiquitous” Philly hipster with an unmitigated and usually self deprecating distaste that I’ll never understand. Maybe, one day we'll give up the search for the affordable symbiotic artist/city relationship and head to a nice quiet spot in the Catskills where we can play our amps as loud as we want to, but for the time being, I think we should all embrace what's going on in the Liberty City. Philadelphia has a lot to offer, and I feel shorted that I haven’t been able to enjoy it properly. A large percentage of bands that I have really been digging, I later find out, are based in Philly, so needless to say, Philly’s awesome (I think), but the music there is even “awesomer”!

The Cobbs - Their album Sing The Deathcapades will be one of my favorite albums of 2006, and hopefully won't go unnoticed to the indie community. The band is rooted in Psychrock, but the album is textured with elements of hard rock, 80's Springsteen tenderness, and a little '90's grunge crunch. I've had this album on repeat for the last few days and it only gets better. Be sure to check them out. [MP3] The Cobbs - Say You Never Knew Me [MP3] The Cobbs - Hold On The Cobbs Homepage Black Pearl - I haven't heard too much about this band, but what I've seen and heard, I really like. This song "All The Pretty Girls" is saturated in psych sludge, akin to a poppier Dead Meadow. They've got a few more tracks available at their Myspace page. [MP3] Black Pearl - All The Pretty Girls If you know of any other great unsigned / undiscovered / underappreciated Philadelphia bands, let us know. And if you ever want a tour of the town, here's where to go.

Some bands just can't contain themselves. I don't mean that they have a history of outbursts. Sometimes the talent in a band can just be its own undoing and the members stray to other projects leaving a fully formed idea behind. The following bands both suffered from this problem. The ambitions of its members ended Scorpion after only one album, while the musical meanderings of members of Spirit led it to countless lineup changes that often times diminished the quality of the group.

	Scorpion - Scorpion What might have seemed like a great name choice at the time in hindsight now renders this Detroit combo even more obscured by history, sharing the essence of their moniker with 80's rockers Scorpions. Scorpion is far and away
a greater being than their latter day counterparts. Their sound fused funk, soul and explosive psych-rock into a powerful sound that led members to be highly sought after session musicians. Bob Babitt and Andrew Smith went on to play on albums with Jimi Hendrix, Alice Cooper, Yoko Ono and the Temptations while Ray Monette went on to join up with Rare Earth. Obviously their cumulative talents couldn't be contained by just one output but this single album stands as testament to why they were respected as musicians. Download: [MP3] Scorpion -Please Make My Mind Right [MP3] Scorpion -Great Day
	Spirit - Spirit Spirit achieved a modest amount of success during their career. Their debut produced by Lou Adler and released on his Ode Records imprint, was a mix of rock, folk and jazz. This amalgam of styles while ambitious sometimes thinned their
fanbase. Randy California formed the band along with his step-father Cassidy, a long time jazz drummer. California played for a bit with Hendrix's pre-experience band Jimmy James & the Blue Flames and was asked by the guitarist to accompany him to England but had to decline since he was only 15 at the time. Though only a teenager at the time of their debut, California developed a signature sound of heavy sustained tones. His ambitions eventually led him to stray from the band on the basis of starting a solo career. Other members of the band also followed suit over time. Mark Andes went on to play in Firefall and Heart while John Locke would join Nazareth. Other albums would achieve some higher level of success but their debut still stands as a powerful fusion of styles and sounds. Incidentally while most of the songs on the first album were not written by California, his touching acoustic track "Taurus" would go on to inspire the opening bars of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven." Download: [MP3] Spirit -Uncle Jack [MP3] Spirit -Taurus Buy Spirit

The North Sea & Ramses III

RSTB favorites Type Records reissue this out of print CD-r collaboration between ambient psych trio Ramses III and Digitalis label head Brad Rose aka The North Sea. The project, entitled Night Of The Ankou is comprised of two long ethereal drone based compositions reworked and traded back and forth over the Atlantic. Many coments on the album have described it as having a very otherworldly or spiritual quality to it. To me the two compositions feel as a great exercise in the process of loss and grief. The first track "Death of the Ankou" is somber and pensive, a gray cloud of emotion with a downward slope into darkness. This track, like it's title suggest captures the moments in and around the news of the death of someone particlarly close. It feels as if the abyss knows no bounds. The second track lightens the tone without shattering the mood. "Night Blossoms Written In Sanskrit" feels like the moment you let go. When you realize that despair is futile and that moments of brightness are still happening all around you. The drone here is intercut with delicate acoustic guitar. The weight is lifted and the clouds part for the first time in days. Beautifully packaged in digipak format the reissue also includes a remix of "Death of the Ankou" by Type label head Xela. As both tracks are extremely lengthy and the whole of the album is the two tracks plus the bonus the downloads below are only excerpts. Each original track spans over 17 minutes.
Download:
[MP3] The North Sea & Ramses III -Death Of The Ankou
[MP3] The North Sea & Ramses III -Night Blossoms Written In Sanskrit

[MP3] Rodriguez - Teresa Rodriguez is a forgetten piece of indie rock history. The long lost record, Swing Like A Metronome would put todays competition to shame. Created by some of the greatest names in indie rock, Matt Ward, Kyle Field (Little Wings), and Jason Lytle (Grandaddy) it's a wonder that we haven't seen a re-issue yet. "Teresa" is the third track on the album and is sung by Matt Ward, sounding like a discarded b-side to End of Amnesia or Transitor Radio and right at home in my heart next to Light Green Leaves and Transfiguration of Vincent. [MP3] Jay May - Gray or Blue Jay May is a Brooklyn girl recently getting some press for her EP titled Sea Green, See Blue. It's mostly comprised of songs like this one, though "Gray or Blue" is my favorite off the album. Stripped down guitars, sappy rain saturated memories and love gone bad and back to good again. [MP3] The Velvet Underground - I'm Sticking With You (Demo) Probably one of the sweetest songs I've heard in awhile. What could be more exciting than hear The VU go twee.

Thank You Pop Levi

This guy's really got his finger on the pulse of some authentic R&R. There's an unexpected touch of funk and soul, and a production quality that builds on the aesthetics of classic hard rock albums of the 70's, but mostly Pop Levi makes my girlfriend dance: on the couch, across the apartment, and in the shower. You know the kind of dance, with eyes closed, and an innocent smirk that belies her carnal obsession of Page and Plant. She's a child of the sound with a body that burns and bends with the oscillations of that sacred noise; hands in the air and hair everywhere, a roll of the hips and parted lips. Thank you Pop Levi. [MP3] Pop Levi - Mournin' Light Download more songs from his Myspace page.

OOIOO

So I can't help but love most forms of Japanese indie music. Call it culture shock or just something lost in translation but it seems like whatever current runs through the Japanese underground is definitely unique to Japan, and can't be replicated in music outside of the country. J-punk screams but with an exuberance that any American noise act would translate into aggression. Japanese psych is able to tap the spiritual core of their indigenous musical forms without feeling like they're dabbling in mysticism from an outside perspective. OOIOO, the brainchild of Boredoms drummer Yoshimi P-we, captures the clamor of J-punk and mixes it with elements of eastern psych and intense tribal drumming to create incredible albums of sound and fury. A great step forward in the face of any misogynists who think that women can't hack it in the forum of noise. The femininity is precisely the quality that tones down the overbearing aggression that noise so often becomes mired in. The group's new album Taiga will be out September 12th, reportedly in a holographic digipak, my copy only has a boring sleeve, ouch take that promo skimmers. Looks like I'll have to invest in September.

Download:
[MP3] OOIOO -UMA
[MP3] OOIOO -UMO

Tigs Tigs Tigs

Tigs is pretty good, I must admit. She's doing the whole “jangular” punk revival thing, but it's dark and brooding and even a little bit country; plus with help from Nick Zinner and producer Dimitri Tikovoi (The Horrors, Placebo, Ravonettes), she's likely to become a defining voice in a scene of mutes. It seems the only way to get a hold of any more songs is to join her fanclub where you can download the entire album after a nominal fanclub fee. Can’t wait to hear more. [MP3] Tigs - Mind Invader [MP3] Tigs - Do It [MP3] Tigs - Don't Tell Me The obligatory Myspace page.

Sometimes in musical history those who do things first get overshadowed by those who do it bigger or with more polish. Such is the case with the following two bands; The Pretty Things, whose credit for writing the first full length rock opera is often overshadowed by The Who's Tommy, and The Creation who were the first to adapt the violin bow to play a guitar. Bigger isn't always better and polish and money aren't always substitutions for ingenuity. So here's to those who did it first.

	The Pretty Things - S.F. Sorrow S.F. Sorrow is certainly The Pretty Things' masterpiece. Often left behind by their early garage tracks and later reputation as a harder touring band; the album is a somber ode to the common man. The album tells the tale of S.F. Sorrow a
working class nobody who endures the drudgery of British factory life, experiences the horror of war and the pain of loss only to eventually sink into madness. The album varies from psychedelic pop to mournful acoustic ballads undercut with an unmatched honesty towards man's mediocrity. The initial production suffered setbacks and was all but forgotten a year later when Townsend released Tommy to much acclaim. The recent CD reissue features many original tracks produced at the time but never released, now restored from original tapes. Download: [MP3] The Pretty Things -She Says Good Morning [MP3] The Pretty Things -The Loneliest Person Buy The Pretty things
	The Creation - Our Music Is Red - With Purple Flashes With the exception of The Who, no band better exemplifies Freakbeat than The Creation. The band is a prime example of mod punk attitude and style. Their sound is owed in part to the production of Shel
Talmy, who had a hand in the seminal sound of The Who as well. The Creation effortlessly integrated the sounds of psych and soul into their work and the originals on this collection are clearly the best examples of their recorded work. Due to the conventions of the time period, however the band was forced to record many unispiring covers that with the exception of the Wilson Pickett penned "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" fail to capture their bravado and candor. Still, originals such as the aforementioned "Painter Man" in which Eddie Phillips lays the groundwork for Jimmy Page's violin bow theatrics more than make up for the rest. This compilation culls together many of the band's singles and b-sides issued during their carrer. Responsible for the inspiration of many bands to come, this is quite possibly an essential collection. Download: [MP3] The Creation -Painter Man [MP3] The Creation -Mercy, Mercy, Mercy Buy The Creation