the of mirror eye

* Micah Blue Smaldone: More Than I Can Bear (3.0 mb) | Tatterdemalion Stomp (2.5 mb) | A Winter’s Truce (2.5 mb)
From Hither And Thither : North East Indie : NEI 39

Last year I had the wonderful experience of Portland, ME coming to me instead of me coming to it. Cerberus Shoal were touring and played a show at the University Of Chicago. Along with them was this fellow, Micah Blue Smaldone who just absolutely blew me away. It was a very intimate performance, with just him, surrounded by a couple of acoustic/steel guitars and his voice. There was no amplification, which made it that much more intimate. At first, his voice was a bit of a shock to me, as he sings in a warbling sort of tenor voice. But I quickly became accustomed to it and after awhile, I couldn’t imagine the music without it. For those of you who are into this style of music, it definitely won’t disappoint. And for those of you unfamilar with olde timey, this could be a great place to start that journey.

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* Soul Swingers: Brighter Tomorrow (3.0 mb)
* The Overton Berry Trio: Hey Jude (5.0 mb)
* Cookin’ Bag: The Song I Sing (3.0 mb)
From Wheedle’s Groove : Light In The Attic Records : LITA 009

Wow! Who’d a thunk that Seattle, synonymous with grunge and garage rock would produce anything like this. Apparently, along with birthing the Sonics, the Wailers, Nirvana and Pearl Jam, the Seattle music scene was full of soul/funk combos trying their best to groove up the city. And this here compilation collects the cream of the crop from 1965-75. And the surprising part is, this stuff totally cooks! So, big thanks to Light In The Attic for shedding the, um, light on the subject.

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* Danielson: Ship The Majestic Suffix (4.0 mb) | Bloodbrook On The Half Shell (7.0 mb) | Two Sitting Ducks (7.0 mb)
From Ships : Secretly Canadian : SC103

Under a variety of names, Daniel Smith (aka Danielson Famile, Br. Danielson, Tri-Danielson & Danielson) has been mining his singular musical vision since 1995. Originally started as both an art school thesis project and a way to celebrate his relationship with God, his music has become much more than that. The band, composed of family and friends play an odd sort of quirky pop music, with Daniel’s even more odd, falsetto screech on top of it all. And then there’s the visual spectacle that they create. The Famile often perform in scrubs and nurses uniforms, while Br. Danielson has been known to perform in a tree costume. To be honest, while I’ve appreciated him conceptually, his music can be very tiring and is not stomething that I’ve been a huge fan of, until now.

For some reason, Ships has really captured my attention. And I’m not really sure why. All of his trademark elements are in play, but for some reason, this time it all makes sense to me. Maybe it’s because he’s drawn together a much larger group (20) of people to contribute their musical visions. With that many people, there’s always the fear of everything just breaking down into an incoherent slime, but not this time. There is nothing out of place on this album because everyone here is totally focused on the songs.

Opening arms wider than ever, Daniel made a long list of artists who have worked with Danielson over the years and other folks who planned to work together at some point. This list led to working with family, making new friends, and keeping the old. All joined together - both the well-known (Deerhoof, Sufjan Stevens, Why?) and not as well-known artists (Sereena Maneesh, Leopulde, Half-handed Cloud) - each bringing his or her own skills and ideas to Daniel’s songs and voice, resulting in this crowning achievement.

(from the website)

Listening to this album makes me think that I should reassess my feelings about this fine fellow. He has an incredible musical world, full of joy and weirdness, that is totally drawing me in.

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* The Honeys: Pray For Surf (4.0 mb)
* The Laughing Gravy: Vegetables (2.5 mb)
* Glen Campbell: Guess I’m Dumb (2.5 mb)
* Sharon Marie: Story Of My Life (3.0 mb)
From Pet Projects: The Brian Wilson Productions : Ace Records : CDCHD 851

Well, this is a cool little compilation. Apparently, musical genius couldn’t be constrained by just one band, so a couple of years before Brian Wilson released his masterpiece, Pet Sounds, he persuaded Capitol Records to sign a couple of groups and cash in on the surf rock craze that was going on at the time. Lending his incredible production talents to these groups, Brian created a bunch of songs that still sound stunning to this day. There are some amazing Phil Spector insired work ups, some surf songs and some 50’s era crooner-pop.

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* Major Stars: On (21.5 mb)
From The Rock Revival : Twisted Village : TW-1044 CD

In addition to running Twisted Village, a record label and one of the best record stores I’ve ever been to, Wayne Rogers and Kate Village are incredibly awesome musicians coming from the psychedelic vein. For over 20 years, they’ve been forging their own musical paths and making the music that they want to make. Their longest running, most consistent project is the rock behemoth otherwise known as Major Stars.

Wayne Rogers and Kate Bigger’s vast output is an essential touchstone for psych heads, but they’re often snubbed in scene round-ups and other psychedelic primers. If discussed at all, mentions barely move beyond standard-issue guitar freak-out metaphors. Worse, the two are spoken of in the past tense. It’s particularly surprising that their excellent current project, Major Stars, hasn’t noticeably benefited from the renewed interest in Blue Cheer raucousness and distended fret shredding. They did collaborate on Live In Europa, a split LP with Comets on Fire, but otherwise seem to be shuffling along a murky path toward underground respect sans popular recognition.

(from Pitchfork)

This track is from their debut album and is totally great, two guitar inspired raucousness. This song starts relatively simply, with the first couple minutes or so sounding almost like a regular pop song. This doesn’t last for long though before they get down and dirty, deconstructing the song for the next ten minutes. Of course, all the guitar psychedelia in the world would sound like crap without a rock solid rhythm section anchoring the whole thing down. Which is definitely what we have here, with Tom Leonard on bass and Dave Lynch on monster drums.

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* Mclusky: Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues (3.5 mb) | To Hell With Good Intentions (4.5 mb) | Alan Is A Cowboy Killer (7.0 mb)
From Mclusky Do Dallas : Too Pure : PURE117CD

It’s too bad that I only heard about Mclusky after they split up. Because these guys totally rock. From 1999 to 2005, this Welsh based trio combined Pixies-like spasticity with monster riffs and incredibly obnoxious humor.

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