UBERFUZZ
“Uberfuzz currently consists of just Paul & Kelly who are in the beginning stages of a seventh album album. The record has a more dazed, springtime feel to it than previous albums and features several sitar-lead tunes as well as covers of The Rolling Stones ‘Play With Fire’, ‘Summer Wine’ by Lee Hazlewood and ‘Lonely Avenue’ by Ray Charles.’ Originally planned as a stripped down guitar/organ/vocal album, it is now multi-layered and ‘wall of sound’ in nature…. oh, well.” – PLK, 13th April 2009
FIG MINTS (OF YOUR IMAGINATION)
Not heard from Bobby for a bit, but what with Cozy Home Records to be run and the brilliant new Figs album “Exercizes In Futility” to be promoting, I’m expecting he’s probably having a well-deserved lie down. Or working insane hours. You should definitely check out the record if you haven’t already – upbeat guitars and melancholy songs from one of the most under-rated but brilliant lyricists around. If philosophical drunken musings and self-depreciating humour with a Guided By Voices-esque vibe sounds good to you, then you’ll definitely dig it. Or check out this – thefigmints.com – I don’t know if it’s old or new, but it’s as good a place as any to start.
WARCHALKING
It’s been 1 year and 2 months since Warchalking kicked off Quixodelic Records with the collosal acoustic masterpiece that is “Stratum”. Word on Daydream Boulevard is that having being hi-jacked by Kaleidonauts for last summer’s “Tigermouse” record, and a winter of essays, drinking, live shows and bicycle crashes, he is finally holed up sweating a new record out in the bathroom recording studio. It is unclear at this stage whether this collaborative project will be under a new moniker or whether it will form the third in a trilogy of Warchalking records. (Some day I will convince him to release the eponymous debut record that is arguably one of the greatest unreleased records I know about). Early twitterings from the bathroom are very positive – expect a subtle shift in sound direction, with the voice still tackling head on the ancient riddles of humanity, and the rebus of the present, and maybe if we’re lucky something new by the end of the summer.
SIMON PILER
Coming your way in the next couple of days… a brand new self-titled Simon Piler and The Atom Band record! Recorded in the spring in Florida, it bristles and shimmies in staggering lo-fidelity experiementally poetic sound whorls. It sounded so weirdly brilliant to me that we’ve just finished a typically in-depth and actually pretty inspirational interview/discussion about the record that I’ll be posting to accompany its release. Simon and his Atomic band of science-soundmaker’s records are really just the tip of the iceberg, and hopefully in some way the interview might stretch towards letting you see the abyss of thought that unfolds out for a long, long way beneath his musings. Your dreams will never be the same again.
THE LOADED WHISPERS
Thanks to everyone who has downloaded Syd and Jer’s last record and first Quixodelic offering “All Artists Use Lies To Tell The Truth”. General concensus is that it really is as beautiful as I suspected it was when I first heard it – stripped back psychedelia with emotionally charged poetry and all sung by the voice that haunts your ears long after the record has finished playing. Syd has been hiding out in her home studio writing and recording a new record that looks like it will be released under a new moniker, but I’ll let her spill that as and when she sees fit. I’ve heard a few tracks from it and it is more of the same and then some – simply in one word staggeringstuff.
DEAD CANARIES
First there was the battle of the winged and the legged ones, then there was something else completely, and now there is a new record brewing in Ithica NY potentially called “Golden Sounds”. More than any other artist Jon of the Atom has the ability to surprise me with his musical offerings – a sneak peek at some of the tracks that may or may not end up on the finished record were no different. I’ll not spoil it for you, but keep your eyes on the Cozy Home for this one to break as JOTA and Co continue to hone and tinker endlessly with the living breathing hurdy gurdy of brains. The all-singing, all-bell-pepper-ringing, madly scientific Canaries collective are potentially relocating to the South sometime soon and who knows what the change of climate will do for future recordings – but expect it to be nothing at all like you expect.
KALEIDONAUTS
I feel like I’ve been saying that the third and final Kaleidonauts record “K2″ has been done for about half a year, before discovering to my horror that it still has pieces missing, or isn’t quite right. But now I can safely say that it is done and ready to go, probably sometime in late August. Plans for a 3-disc lo-fi all or nothing recording have been thankfully scrapped and only the tracks that involve collective contributions remain. Much of it is old – cut tracks from “Spaniard” and “Tigermouse” or alternative versions, and some of it is new (or at least unheard) with tracks completed from November 08 onwards being included. I’d love to say it will be as good as the first two records, but with me at the wheel it’s undoubtedly going to have that ragged, unpolished feel to it that inevitably happens whenever I attempt to put something together. All is not lost however – many of the artists who have helped out will make it worth downloading for their contributions alone – Jon of the Atom, Warchalking, Jane Gilmore, Katie Saul, Becky N and the legendary Tim Schram are just some of the names to expect to see on the inside cover.
ROLLERCOASTER
Last I heard from the master of sonic psychedelic song assaults (Helter Skelter) he was wrestling with a four-track attempting to salvage some tracks. I heard a couple of new cover versions not so long ago that were are usual scuzzy, fuzzy, and fucking brilliant. But then you wouldn’t expect anything less would you?
JANE GILMORE
Is very busy with genuinely important things as always and has probably forgotten her guitar, hence no new songs that we are aware of.
BROKEN MONO
I revisted the brilliant “Tulk” just last week and realised I’d forgotten how oddly brilliant that record is, so be prepared for a long-overdue review that I started writing towards the end of last year, but lost in my pockets and subsequently the bomb-site of DG HQ in amongst the half drunk cups of coffee, spilled tobacco, obscure CDs stacked to the ceiling and endless sheets of paper with indecipherable etchings concerning track running orders and the likes. OR if you’re impatient you can just visit the downloads link at the top of the page and get “Tulk” yourself for FREE, make your own mind up. Everyone knows that Mono Mike has since set down the foundations of psychedelic songwriting wizardry, and has been courted by numerous record labels and acclaimed psych podcasts, so it’s only a matter of time before the post “Tulk” material sees the light of day. When it does you can hold your head above the lip of the trenches and yell “I found Stanley!” to the world.
BECKY N
Everyone’s favourite lo-fi folk poet moves around so much that it’s impossible to know whether it’s even possible for her to work on new material or not. Back in the Spring I heard from her that she’d “…started writing music with a girl who I used to work with. Her band is really good, it’s just her and her brother. If you get a chance check it out, they’re called Arrows From The Sun and they’re on myspace. Our band is called The Caravan and the Maria Terrae. It’s just me on accordian and her on charango (a bolivian mandolin/uke). We’ve got a couple of songs…”. Arrows From The Sun are definitely worth checking out, but here’s hoping some of that accordian stuff starts circulating soon. In the meantime, as mentioned before you’ll be able to get your Becky fix by downloading the new Kaleidonauts album for her take on The Wheelies’ “Song To You”.
THE ORANGE DROP
Are they dead? Have they reformed? Did they ever exist at all? After arguably one of the finest Quixodelic offerings to date (the psych-rock derrangement of “The Orange Album”), they appeared to spiral their separate ways, and promises of someday being “the biggest band in the world” lay in torn up betting slips at the feet of anyone lucky enough to have heard them. Creative driving force Marc B, in the meantime went off and found himself in the brilliant female-led psychedelic outfit STELLIUM (well worth a flying visit). But then as recently as last month, The Orange Drop MySpace page reappeared magically from the aether and all has been quiet on the Orange front ever since. Recording? Let’s hope so.
SUCKS TO LALA LAND
After the brilliant Bob Dylan covers record “Well Under Thirty”, Keith has vanished back into the happening Visalia music scene to write new songs, get involved in collaboration projects, and continue on the accidental path to super-stardom. I’ve heard a couple of new original songs and they are nothing short of budding genius. Dylan continues to ignore our telephone calls (as he has done since 2006), but we’d like to think if he knew about Sucks To LaLa Land that he would knowlingly approve in a Dylanesque manner.
JAMES REDMOND
The elusive Liverpudlian songwriter oracle is another one wrestling with a four track. New old songs may hopefully be uncovered should suitable software be found that can adequately handle the hiss of too many years neglect. However it sounds as if brand new material is also being captures in between rounds, and from what I’ve heard so far it’s simply more two minute bluesy pop nuggets of musical wizardry. Yahay.
CODY HIGH SCHOOL
So one minute Gil De Ray and his rabble of musical troublemakers are kicking up fuck in the classroom, storming through a volatile gem of a record called “Super New Nashville Fuzz”, and the next minute he falls off the face of the earth. I expect this may have something to do with Earth Calling Music Management and a certain little band called “Magic Magic” featuring Dylan Gough from the Daydream Generation compilations on a second drum kit. I guess sometimes in life a more pressing purpose lands in your lap. On the one hand it’s shit because here I am digging a record since before Christmas that I suspect none of you have heard, and on the other it’s maybe not quite as shit as it seems, because as long as the record is out there then I guess there’s a chance that someday you might here it.
THE WHEELIES
Last and least. Couple of months ago I wrote this: “ The Wheelies have been clumsily blasted into the furthest reaches of obscurity, cryogenically frozen by their very drunk quantum physicist lead guitarist, and presently orbit a small forgotten blue moon in the brains of anyone who was ever unfortunate enough to accidentally download one of their records. Born in the days of shoegaze, they originally slipped into a drug-induced coma in 1998 having recorded numerous thankfully long-lost tapes of themselves dancing in fur coats with improvised wailing and wild lettuce laughter on a shitty little portable cassette player that had a name nobody can remember. The “band” was resurrected in 2006 and over the following 15 months spewed up 5 of the most audio sound quality challenged albums known in the history of song-writing (all available through Cozy Home). In another dimension altogether, Smally continues to collaborate with anyone weird enough to be up for it (Kaleidonauts, The Utica Flower Company, and The Painted Shuts), Moppy is busy working on a new album with The People, Martin may or may not still be cartwheeling with Shaved Goldfish, and the “other two” have seemingly dropped off the musical edge of the earth completely. Sources close to the band when pressed at gunpoint refuse to comment whether The Wheelies will ever make another record together again, but all the signs point thankfully to them remaining frozen immobile indefinitely. ” Now I’m sitting with a brand new Wheelies record on my iPod called “Holy Shit The Sky Is Really Blue”, and am working my way through four old records that will hopefully be available sometime soon. The summer sun has a lot to answer for.
Until the next time comrades
overnoot
p.s keep watching the site for another new record that I honestly think might just be this generation’s “White Album”. I shit you not.