Download: quixodelic.com/site/impaled-peach/
It’s been a while so you know this must be important. Remember Impaled Peach and his ‘Helicobbler’ EP from early last year? 8 songs of melancholy pop goodness, oddities thrown together in the shape of a record, completely unplanned and yet brilliantly coherent. Well this time he’s only gone and done it again, but full-album length this time around, a staggering 17 track masterpiece, completely unplanned and yet… if this record wasn’t designed to fall together like this, then it really should have been.
Design is the key to describing what Ed (the guy behind the music) does. Songs are carefully crafted, odd and atmospheric, brimming with pop melodies, often intricate and bursting with good-old fashioned dark-humored soul. Heavily influenced by modern psychedelic bands like The Olivia Tremor Control, ‘Impaled Peach’ flies the same fuzzy path, but it has a much softer underbelly, kept up in the air at all times with soft 60s vocals, an orchestra of Beatle-esque guitars, and ukuleles. The word ‘Quixodelic’ was invented for records like this.
First listen I f**king loved it. Second listen I started to wonder if I wasn’t underrating what Impaled Peach has carefully crafted and thrown together in his front room. As far as lo-fi goes it is possibly fated to be one of those undiscovered gems that would have shone interstellar with the right people behind it. In the greater scheme of things you somehow feel like as many ears follow its magical trails across the skies, that it will always be one of those records you’ll proudly cherish in a lucky minority.
My favourite tracks? Oh, too many. I promise that there is not a weak song among the 17 and even the instrumental psychedelic interludes play their part. Try the undeniably epic ‘Moonless Sonata For Sun’ if you want to dip your toes in at the deep end and I’ll wager that you’ll want to go swimming around the rest of ‘Impaled Peach’ immediately afterwards.
11 out of 10.
‘Impaled Peach’ can be downloaded from Bandcamp for free and hand-made CDs are in the process of being… well, hand-made. More info to follow.
So that’s where he’s been!
Having suitably blown everyone away with last year’s whirlwind ‘Exercises In Futility’, Bobby Rogan and THE Fig Mints are back with not one, but TWO records – ‘Say Okay’ and ‘Songs For My Friends & Those Girls’. ‘Say Okay’ has been at the mastering stage for quite some time, so I’ve already had a sneak preview and a review will follow. Needless to say it is very good and a little bit different from previous Figs. ‘Songs…’ on the other hand has fallen from the sky as unexpectedly as a tiny meteor and is available for free download over at CLLCT (links below). I’ve had a quick listen and have a feeling that this might be an under-the-radar gem in the ever-expanding catalogue. Here’s what Senor Bobby has to say for himself:
Alright, everybody! At long last, there are new Figs tracks available for purchase and download, both from the music section of the site.
Say Okay is the culmination of a year of songwriting and ridiculously tedious mixing throughout 2010. It’s been done for nearly a year now, and finally after all the mixing, remixing and monetary hangups, we’re able to bring it to you for a measly 5 buxxx! Of course I think it’s worth more, but be honest: who’s gonna pay more than 5 bucks for a DIY CD-R, no matter how fancy it looks?
Well, if you just said, “Why, I’d most certainly pay more than 5 dollars for your new songs, but thank you for being such a cheap date,” then I’ve got some news for ya. If you can scare up some more scratch, go to my Band Camp page here and buy the download with the option to donate a little more to the cause. Of course, you’ll still get the real CD in the mail; just make sure you drop a line and let me know where to send it!
Songs For My Friends And Those Girls is the newest of the new, and was written in a month or so between November and December of 2010. Not much time spent behind the wheel of this one; it mostly just spilled out of the various wounds that this past winter has inflicted, which are just now starting to heal. Read all about it at the Figs’ cllct page and download it for free in the music section.
This will be the Fig Mints farewell to cassettes and tape machines as the main recording tools. Of course, there will still be some lo-fi one offs and the like, including the upcoming releases of the two soundtracks for Zombek films that were recorded over the past couple years, but for the most part we’re going big!
So make sure you mosey on over to the music section of the site and scoop up some quality tunes for your summer.
Stay tuned, kiddies!
Free download: sydlane.bandcamp.com/album/solstice
Syd Lane has done it again. While some songwriters furiously vomit up hours of garbage in the hope that something, anything redeemable might happen, and others sit chewing on their guitar strings waiting for inspiration, she has been quietly amassing an increasingly awesome body of songs, honing and refining them until, like golden apples they are ready to drop from the tree.
‘Solstice’ is the second apple of a whirlwind year but three months old. Already we have seen the utterly compelling ‘Hypatia’ make all the right ripples in the deep end of the pond. Everyone I know who has heard that album says it is mesmerising, and if you missed it then please check out what the Godfathers of bedroom-indie-pop The Streetlamp Doesn’t Cast Her Shadow Anymore said about it here: thestreetlampdoesntcast.blogspot.com/2011/03/griff-says-hypatia-beautiful-brilliant.html To be brutally honest I’ve barely had a chance to digest it myself – three or four listens on the run, safe in the knowledge that together with Jason Raspa on mastering duties, she’s produced another impeccable shimmering poetic work of art, undoubtedly more polished than its equally lovable predecessors like the epic ‘It Begins In Beauty’.
The ‘Hypatia’ mastering process and Jason’s well-trained ear for detail meant that while it was still being cut and spliced, polished and diced on the other side of the Atlantic, Syd could return to and forge on with a record we first glimpsed as ‘The Solstice Sessions’ back in January 2010. With the creative hard work done, it seems that ‘Solstice’ was ready for consumption fairly quickly, and here we are, only a few weeks later with a second Syd Lane to digest. My gut feeling when I heard it was available for free dowload was that my brain just wasn’t ready for more. Songs like these should be treasured, and experience tells me that with Syd records being crammed so full of wonderful melodies and soaring vocals, it is really easy to miss songs that you can later fall hopelessly in love with (eg. ‘Astride a Grave’, and ‘Not A Poet Be’).
But here I am, listening to ‘Solstice’ on the run. I just couldn’t help myself. And yes, it is indeed another masterpiece. Frighteningly so, for everyone but Syd who no doubt is quietly building more songs from daydreams, somewhere out there. My first impressions on individual tracks are invariably wrong, but from this one I dig ‘I Couldn’t Tell Her’, ‘Simple Pleasure For The Complex’, ‘The Moon and The Liar’, ‘Their World of Fear’, ‘My Reach Exceeds My Grasp’ and… really, who am I kidding? I love this whole record from start to finish. There are no weak links in the daisy chain, the voice soars crisp and clear as it always does, the harmonies if anything are even bigger, the BJM-esque guitar carries us on waves while the piano rings out its mini concertos, and it is familiarly Syd-like… because you sense that she is slowly and surely carving out a sound that with every record is becoming more and more her own. Budge up Mr Barrett, someday someone will describe a song as ‘Syd-like’ and not mean you.
There are only so many superlatives you can throw at some artists, before they become meaningless. Awesome, it is. Brilliant, it is. Emotionally charged, yip. Catchy, yes. Epic, most definitely. Unintentionally cool, it is always that too. For those of you who are being sucked dry by life, I hope you find some space to catch ‘Solstice’ on the run like I did, and for those of you who have all the space that you need then I hope you can set some aside for both ‘Solstice’ and ‘Hypatia’… and ‘It Begins In Beauty’… and all The Loaded Whisper’s albums. The trajectory is upwards and it sounds (insert flurry of superlatives), so catch it while you can.
Well done Syd and thank you for doing what you do.
quixodelic.com/site/uberfuzz-live-now/
Ever wished you could go and get your head frazzled by the one and only Uberfuzz, but you can’t because they live in Rugby, and that’s like… thousands of miles away from wherever you are?
Well now, through the power of free digital downloads you can (sort of) be there. Just follow the link, grabbing classic Uberfuzz tracks like ‘Epistle to a Wayward Mother’ and ‘Oh, Child’ on your way, close your eyes and imagine you are there while Paul and Kelly do all the work. Believe me, it really works!
