Fuzz - "Fuzz's Fourth Dream" Video

No frills, just Fuzz bein' Fuzz in this new video from the three piece. Laying down some jams at Burgerama and making it look easy. I tell ya every piece of the Fuzz puzzle that falls into place has this looking to be one hell of an album when it hits. Primed to see these guys live when the chance arrives as it looks like a hell of a show.

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James Blackshaw & Lubomyr Melnyk

This is a document of two artists speaking to one another through strings plucked and hammered simultaneously. Blackshaw, long a favorite around here, met Lubomyr Melnyk at a festival in 2008 and the two shared admiration of each others's work and made tentative plans to work together sometime in the future. That promise has finally come to fruition and the results are unflinchingly moving. It seems that James counts Melnyk as something of an influence and with his complex, polyrhytmic textures being something of a trademark; it’s easy to see what lessons he's taken away from the elder composer. The two perfectionists sat down to create something spontaneous by recording a set of improvisations, no more than two takes per recording, and both artists in their raw forms have plenty to say to each other over the course of The Watchers. Melnyk's speed, long documented, is underpinned only by his ability to channel virtuosity into emotion, tension and delicate shading - even in a piece that's so unrehearsed. Blackshaw proves a perfect foil for his style, tipping cascades of his own emotionally charged stringwork down between the eddies of Melnyk's furious notes. The two craft something akin to a sound painting, a final piece that would take multiple encounters to pick apart the brushwork, or rather the stringwork, here and the craft that goes into sounding this effortlessly intricate speaks volumes for both artists.

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	Ketamines - All The Colours of Your Heart 7" Ketamines' last album received a fair amount of play around RSTB's stereo last year, so new material comes with open arms. And though we hadn't heard about the band's Paul Lawton pissing off Canada, it seems they're having a
banner year in 2013. In addition to a new album, You Can't Serve Two Masters, on the way this summer the band's releasing a series of four 7"s across as many labels. The first up is "All The Colours of Your Heart" which leaps out of the gate with a scratchy garage funk that's not been attempted this well since Carter left office. With loping guitar and organg lines and a hell of a hook, this is some prime Ketamines here. The b-side kicks it back to the territory of jangles, and with good results as well. Its a nice first step into the series and certainly reason to be anxious for more to come. This first installment is out on Toronto's own Pleasance Records and limited to 300. Listen: Support the artist, buy it HERE

Messages

Root Strata digs into the archives to release Mirage, a long out of print CD-r recorded in 2008 from NY duo Messages. The band was first introduced to RSTB around the same time via Social Registry's excellent run of 7"s, of which theirs stood out as a highlight. This album captures the band in a similar floating drone bliss, mixing raga buzz with a meditative vibration that borders on ecstatic. It’s a full body kind of extrasensory exploration that drives the record, tuning into chant, tambura rhythms and appropriately spaced-out raga chords that chug along at a pace set to melt rather than incite. Warren's work with Psychic Ills might take front and center now (though Messages just kicked out a great new record that expands the concepts of packaging recently on De Stijl) but this record captures a time when Messages was just blossoming into a full fledged project and finding their footing in the realm of exploratory psych. Its a damn fine piece of their history to have back in print and lovingly cut to vinyl, as the medium ought to open up the ambient headspace of the album further than CD-r ever could. Limited to 500 though, so it’s not exactly plentiful, just enough for those with the right kinda ears to get a hold before it dissipates.

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Golden Gunn

Released during the rush and crush of Record Store Day, but there remain copies from more than a few sources still, this collaboration between Steve Gunn and Hiss Golden Messenger and the lead by the spirit of Dickie Silk is probably one you missed out while grubbing copies of limited vinyl fodder. It seems you should check back in the racks and stacks, as it’s a gem among the hastily packaged split 7"s and double bound reissues. The record rolls on a dusted country vibe, with Gunn's guitar sounding clear and clean as ever and pumping down double barrels and wide open stretches to the kind of rough shod territory that bound 70's troubadours to the FM dials and jukeboxes of the Southern watering holes oh so long ago. But it seems that the reception's hazy, or maybe that's just the vibe. There's a melting lilt to the record that lends it just a touch of that hot-tar highway haze. Mostly it plays through some instrumental stretches that feel reminiscent of the two halves of the whole that make the moniker of beast, and they play out sweet and low and plaintive; but when the sun dips right, the funk sinks its teeth into those country boys for the kind of burnin' end credit lothario jams that we all crave sometimes. Don't let the smooth taste fool ya this one's got bite to spare and its not letting go any time soon.

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Pangea - "Badillac" on Rollo & Grady Session

RSTB has shared plenty of love for Pangea this year and last and there's no doubt that any upcoming works will wind up high on our best of lists for the year. Check out the band laying down a killer version of "Badillac" for Rollo & Grady's session series. No blast of harmonica on this version but a searing guitar solo will do the trick. Missed this when it went up a little while ago but it fills the void of waiting for the news Pangea has promised on their Facebook.

	John Drendall & B.A. Thrower - Papa Never Let Me Sing the Blues The words "private press", usually followed by some miniscule run and tale of woe or mismanagement tend to elicit a tingle of excitement when it comes to reissues. Trouble is most reissue labels know this
and its a crapshoot. Sometimes records never received pressings because they were deserving of that obscurity, though when that gem shines through and a label, like the appropriately named Out-Sider, comes through with that rare find its worth the risk for the reward of an album like Papa Never Let Me Sing the Blues. After borrowing a friend's SG and learning to play at night at the risk of being discovered by his father, John Drendall dropped out of college at Ferris State in MI and relocated to East Lansing as a truck driver while shacking up with a few Michigan State students. There he met the players that would come to populate Papa including B.A. Thrower and drummer Dick "DD" Dunham. The crew cut the record in Kalamazoo with the help a few friends from the house throwing in takes on piano and flute and Bryce Robinson, a former chess sideman, at the boards. The result is a lean, bluesy album that stands in easy company with plenty of contemporaries from the time that got wider acclaim, distribution and support and fell from much higher ledges to obscurity. It was run in a pressing of 100 and one of the band's friends spread them across the country on a road trip, planting them at record stores along the way; other than that, no distribution at all, just a lucky gem heard by the right people. Its been repackaged and reissued on CD and LP a couple of times in the last few years and all with great reason as it was a record born of sweat between day jobs and difficulties. Sometimes that's all it takes to make it worth it.
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Useless Eaters

Taking his garage grind out of the lo-fi murk and into the studio, Seth Sutton pulls Useless Eaters into a new phase and it finally brings the potential bubbling below the hiss-crackled surface of those early records to the frontline. Hypertension still has the vein-bulging urgency of Sutton's past pursuits but now that urgency is practically fizzing in the wires trying to get out of your speakers. Hooks butt heads with tangled knots of spiky guitar, the occasional foray into buzzing, evil keys and even a bit of strum that winds down the pace for some pop bounce along the way. All the while Sutton runs down tales of alienation, relationship woes and childhood scars. It’s certainly more than a few steps forward for the prolific Sutton and hopefully a turning point out of the bedroom and into a new phase of clean cornered material with that same old bite.

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Date Palms

Date Palms have always brought a new level to the drift and float of drone. They craft tracks that float not so much in a stratospheric ether as level with your head, opening at the temples to swim languidly beyond the seawalls of consciousness. On their latest, The Dusted Sessions they still wade into the earthy, clay streaked waters that have marked their past work but now they break down a new wall with the addition of perfectly nuanced slide guitar strains and pulsing electric bass. The river imagery is more than just hyperbole though, as the band took inspiration in trips to California's Yuba River for much of the first half of the record, working the gently roiling waters into their repertoire with a stretch of drones that float into a sort of nirvanic tranquility. The peace doesn't last forever though as throat parched dunes and dark clouds seem to evoke dust bowl summers scratching at the second side of the album, giving it a bit of a dual tone of dread and ease; darkness and light. As with the majority of their work, Dusted Sessions cannot be pulled apart, its a rise and fall epic of an album, a journey through headphones fraught with tension and testament to the spirit of musicians reaching towards the edges of their craft. Taken as a whole its hard to let go of, until the last note spurs the listener West with a sense that the sun has set but the trip isn't over.

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Merchandise

I was lukewarm on the last Merchandise release. Everyone seemed so taken, and I was left wanting. Not wholly unimpressed but looking for something more. Their follow-up, Totale Nite definitely has taken deeper hold, and in unexpected ways. Nothing would have prepared me for the classic rock blast of harmonica in the opening seconds of "Who Are You?” a fizzing, frothing dirge of a song that feels overwhelmed with the high tide assault of afternoon and is in danger of dipping into darkness with the sun. They return to their post-punk bends elsewhere but with an openness that wasn't apparent previously; banging huge, room filling 80's drums like Bunnymen and twisting guitars through robotic and ethereal territories in the same song. It’s a hard feat to pull but they manage this with ease on centerpiece "Anxiety's Door". The studio sounds good on them and they use the record to play with a sense of space, dripping emotional grace and psychedelic nuance hand in hand. They've managed to find the line between dance and depression that rooted the best Reagan-era Rock firmly in place a few decades before their inception and they've managed to do it while holding staunchly to DIY spirit that keeps them hitting the basements rather than the stadiums. Totale Nite definitely perked my ears and I'd have to say, you've got my attention now. Eager to see how the story unfolds.

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Veronica Falls - "Waiting For Something To Happen" Video

Can't even explain how much I love this record. Its just a perfect pop gem that keeps on giving. Check out the video for the title track "Waiting for Something To Happen" up above. Simple concept but a nice visual for the song's wily charms. If this one isn't already in your collection, make no hesitations. Pick it up!

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GR

Over the years RSTB has found it hard to ignore the Gunslingers and the subsequent iterations of its enigmatic element GR. Gregory Raimo rides alone here, no Slingers, no Expansion, but he's still wobbling the tense edge of the psychedelic desert with the fury he brought to both of those outfits. Hell, maybe more so. Little tethers this to the ground, just a wild smash of drums and the heatsick guitars of Raimo flailing at the sky, begging onlookers to move along and leave him to his terrifying visions. Maybe the closest comparisons here are to Plastic Crimewave Sound but even they sometimes keep a foot on the terrestrial plane. A Reverse Age gets right into the murky stink of it, flaying open blues like hundred pound tunas and painting the walls with the deepest reserves of filth therein. Gas huffin' hippies and wannabe rockers got nothing on the Francofied assault of Raimo in his deepest states of guitar euphoria. Mexican Summer often takes a gamble on a hunch or obsession and this is certainly one of those times. I imagine those aren't the records that bankroll a good year in music, but I'm damn glad that they make them. This is one of those fine gems, a psychedelic outlier in a field of pop that'll get those with the right kinda ears through the night.

Listen:
[stream] GR - Low-Born

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Dark Bells - "Wildflower" Video

Sydney three piece Dark Bells lay down a single for UK label Tape Club Records that blends psych and shoegaze into a swirling mass that's only matched by the video's visual drainpipe. The single pulses and washes before a delicate breakdown and subsequent return to euphoric haze. Pick it up below before it vanishes.

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Super Wild Horses

Super Wild Horses return with a follow-up to their HoZac debut and its just as taut and darkly rambunctious as their previous effort. Crosswords steps up production ever so slightly but still hearkens to an era of 90's femme fatale girl groups while wading into a new dark edge of guitar rock that rubs shoulders with post-punk in ways their debut didn't. They've still got that insistent wall of dual vocals that can feel like an attack at some times, a coo at others and more than often explode into a celebration; though they always seem to demand that you celebrate with them (and why the hell wouldn't you?). The band follows a creeping trend of throwing a cover in among the originals and giving it a new shade, something I've always thought worked better in b-sides but here the nod to Smokey Robinson doesn't totally break up the action. A nice step toward maturity, full of shades of blues and greys and while the brattiness Fifteen hits the spot everytime, its good to see them grow.

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Dick Diver - "Calendar Days" Video

Dick Diver work up a charming video for their equally charming track "Calendar Days". Just the kind of sunny afternoon strumming that we'd love to think about (especially on a rainy NY afternoon). If you haven't delved into the album yet, do yourself a favor and pick it up. Definitely one of our favorites this year.

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	Windian Records - Subscription Series #1 5x7" Windian Records has put together one of the first essential 7" subscriptions of the year, and good news is even if you didn't subscibe there's still time to get in on this gem. The box opens with a
double side of power pop fury from Barreracudas, whose anthemic bubblegum hasn't lost a step since their album on Douchemaster. There's also a great double shot from Heavy Times, who blow thinigs down with their fiery a-side "K-9". Milwaukee's Static Eyes bring some old fashioned rock n' roll stomp while Suns of Guns cross the fidelity barrier into fuzz tangled twang. Capped with a double shot from Terry Malts that sees them in fine form as well this box is definitely worth the scratch and its packed in a nice minimal design. Singles can also be picked up individually but come on, you know you want the box. Listen: Support the artist, buy it HERE

Jon Collin

Brit tape-slingers Winebox Press, who have the awesome habit of recycling wooden furniture into small press tape casings, occasionally also take a few forays into the world of small press vinyl as well. Here they make such a press for Jon Collin, a UK slide guitar improviser who lays down a set of live six-string improv that floats, picks, rings and quivers with the tortured soul at the heart of the experimental delta. His tracks may seem unmoored but they ebb and flow with a kind of nighttime intensity that's only companion seems to be the tape hiss that creeps steadily under the set. High Peak Selections is raw but not impenetrable, feeling like the spaces between runs on intense finkerpicked records; it acts as an exercise in halting downtime, a celebration of cracks in the surface. As with all of Winbox's releases, this is not long for the world and the quantities are slim.

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Cool Ghouls

San Francisco's hills still seem ripe for the plucking, with no end in sight to the wealth of bands that spring up amongst the nooks and neighborhoods of its cloud-shrouded bay. Cool Ghouls seem to take a mainline to the city's heritage and the city's current wave and knock the mixture for a whirl with a splash of three part harmonies and some damn fine songs at the heart of their eponymous new record. Its no surprise that Empty Cellar has Tim Cohen throw some words of praise in the band's bio as they seem to share Fresh & Onlys sense of reverence for influences with an ability to consume and craft them into that kind of tip-of-the-tongue feeling that makes them instantly relatable. This one takes a tour through more than a few stops we've touched on in the re-released column in the past few years, roping some of the 60's finest underground miscreants into their quiver of touchstones, but I'll be damned if there isn't as much chance that there's a Dead fan among the Ghouls' ranks as a Count Five or Standells fan laying down some burnt sunburst soul on this one. What's it all mean? It means that Cool Ghouls have shot a West Coast classic out of the past and onto your turntable. They've time-traveled backward and forward to make a fine mash that yelps, jangles and throws down hib-toned and hip boned swagger in equal measure. As Cohen mentions, call it retro at your own peril because to do so is to discount the quality of the record the band has crafted together with a sly precision that dances.

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	The Dentists - Some People Are On The Pitch They Think It's All Over It Is Now! Niche market vinyl reissues have been steadily saving obscurities from the dollar bins and collector's circles in the past few years and the reemergence of The Dentists
can only be testament to that. Released to little acclaim on the tiny Spruck label in 1985, the album was originally written off as rehashed flower-pop by plenty of reviewers owing largely to some over-the-top titles that, honestly, don't really downplay that impression. However, on closer listen the band had a lot more to do with what would later emerge as Britpop, mixed with a jangled sense of emerging American college rock that was forming across the pond right around the same time. Yes, admittedly a love for The Byrds filtered through, but with a punk edge underneath that would contrast their bright, sunny disposition. Its that sense of edge underneath the jangle that's made this a much more enduring record than it was thought on its first go 'round and more than likely why Trouble in Mind have sought to put it back on shelves in 2013. The band kept at it through lineup changes and some shaky introduction to American audiences until 1995 when their Wharton Tiers produced album Deep Six did just that to the band's efforts at commercial acceptance and they dissolved. Good to have this back in print though to remind a newly jangle-conscious public what a great band they were and how their journey got started. Listen: [MP3] The Dentists - Tangerine Support the artist, buy it HERE

The Hussy

Madison duo The Hussy returns to the fray with a new album of compact garage punkers that barely start on the rails, let along stay on them for very long. The record focuses on what The Hussy does best, high-octane shake with a hard dose of pop roiling underneath. The band keeps it short and sweet, tempos in the realm of frenzied and the guy / girl shout-a-longs careening across your speakers like bumper cars out of control. Recorded again by Bobby Hussy himself, the record's no rehash of their previous album, Weed Seizure, instead it adds a fleshed out bit of production without ever losing any of the immediacy in the impact. Guest appearances by Jordan Davis on organ, RSTB fave Dead Luke on guitar and recorder and Justin Aten on violin break open the double attack of guitar and drums that's been a staple of The Hussy previously. Wrapped up in another eye catcher of a cover, Pagan Hiss makes for a pretty nice vinyl pickup to add to your no doubt mounting pile in 2013.

Listen:
[MP3] The Hussy - Blame

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	Fuzz - Sleigh Ride 7" After a year that seemed exhausting even from a bystander's perspective, Ty Segall seems to be slowing the pace in 2013 and focusing all his energies on Fuzz with partner in crime Charlie Mootheart. The band amps up
its monikered aesthetic and locks down a Sabbath level of stomp into the kind of three minute garage flayers that can never come often enough around these parts. Just as with the Trouble in Mind split this one lays down two tracks that seem both acceptable a-side fodder, which bodes well for an album hopefully on the way this fall. The title track, "Sleigh Ride" doesn't exactly conjure Christmas cheer, rather barreling down a hill at top speed with little to no regard for self or safety. Its a chuggin' bit of proto-metal blast that feels choked in exhaust and redlined to the core. The flip somehow turns the guitar doom up higher with the aforementioned Sabbath-isms frothing from the gate on the guitar grooves, though instead of Ozzie's high octane yowl, its Ty keeping things slacker sinister over the top of the instrumental fury they create. The first single peaked interest, but this one practically begs for more. Its on now. 2013 is the year the Fuzz descends. Listen over at SPIN: It seems that SPIN has a lock on this track so go over there for a face melting. Support the artist, buy it HERE

Human Eye

Just months after Timmy Vulger brought down the sleaze with his project Timmy's Organism, Detroit's sickest scuzz monger returns to take the insanity soaked Human Eye out for another ride through the tortured soul of rock n roll. The band's still stroking the consciousness of the cosmos on their fourth album proper and its a welcomed sound for those in need of a little bit of psychotic boogie in their daily lives. Though, what is this? A softer side of Human Eye pokes its head through the fog on a few midpoint tracks. Is this a new leaf? Not to worry, the band still brings the froth and furor of old for the majority of the album. Vulger is a Detroit institution at this point and if you've never had the pleasure of seeing the Eye live on stage in all their paper-mache-shark-head-glory, burning down riffs like so much kindling, then you're at a disadvantage I'm afraid. Get out and experience Human Eye where they're meant to be - on stage, ripping the universe a new one! In the meantime pick up 4: Into Unknown to at least give your hi-fi speakers a taste of the action and rattle a few cages with the home edition.

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Lee Noble

Following on the progressive creep from the shadows on Horrorism, Lee Noble returns with a new album for Bathetic that's locked into a tape scratched corner of the subconscious rife with unease and ennui in equal measure. Its good to see that someone's tending to the light flickering behind the curtain on hypnogogic pop these days as Ruiner floats in on photo album dust and creeps its way through the negative space between haunted synths and beds of echo bent guitar shoved through enough pedals to make them resemble little more than iced breath by the time Noble's had his way with them. He layers a fair amount of plaintive plucks, mechanical churns and heartbreaking drones over the top of each track that no one piece feels like the center of his aural collages of loss and ache, adding to a gauzy air that seems ready to dissipate on a moment's notice. There's no way that Noble's escaping an onslaught of Grouper comparisons, and he's had his fair share in the past, but this certainly puts him in his own boat and paddling away from Liz Harris despite launching themselves into the same river aesthetically. Noble really is perfecting his pain on each album and this one seems to be battling Horrorism for bright moments, ethereal vibes and a serious case of headphone nirvana.

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	Ill Wind - Flashes This Boston band only issued one album, but it was an unsung powerhouse of folk rock from 1968 that bore more than a passing resemblance to Jefferson Airplane, Ivory or Fairport Convention. They relied on sunny strums and a male /
female vocal split that tended towards the strongest when Connie DeVanney took the reigns, belting out Grace Slick indebted powerful folk vox. Though the record was released on ABC Records, it suffered a lack of promotion, and as with many albums of the time, this ultimately led to its getting overlooked amongst a sea of similar releases. The record has found a new life in collector's circles and reissue circuits and rightfully so, as even though it suffers from a few overbearing social-issue focused lyrics of the time, its still a powerful piece of the 60's subculture. Listen: [MP3] Ill Wind - High Flyin' Bird Support the artist, buy it HERE

Mikal Cronin

Not that he needs any more accolades, as there are about to be a ton coming down on MCII, but the album is a pretty hefty jump from Cronin's debut. On top of the psycheleia and power pop crunch that pervaded his previous work, Mikal's added a whole slew of lush pop touches, as evident in the building piano trills on opener "Weight". It’s a softer side that shows a bit of a departure from the guitar whiplash he's wrought with Ty over the last few years. Previous single "Am I Wrong" rears its head again, and in context it makes much more sense than as an addendum to the debut. Here it nestles nicely between the bombast of guitar swirling underneath "See It My Way" and the sweet pop hangover of first single "Shout It Out". Everything about MCII is bigger, grander and more swooningly delivered than before and the change looks good on Cronin. It has him headed for bigger territory than even I would have imagined on the debut. Scrappy no more, the boy makes good on any expectations that could have been levied after his eponymous breakout.

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