[ aquarius records — Rock Pop ]

Before Ween were the soundtrack to every frathouse in the land, Windy and Andee worshipped at the altar of God Ween Satan. Less poppy, and WAY less polished, God Ween Satan is their first record and is full of catchy sloppy punky silliness and stupidly

RealAudio clip: Birthday Boy
RealAudio clip: Fat Lenny

Awwwww Weeeeeeeeen! Love to hate 'em? Hate to love 'em? So dorky. So damaged. So fucked up. So fun. For the erratic Ween no musical style is out of the question nor out of their league. On La Cucaracha they unflinchingly navigate through country, reggae, blues rock, and AOR balladry. Once they catch wind of smartypants/dumbass songs like "Object", "Lullaby" and "My Own Bare Hands", Tenacious D fans might take a shine to this specific Ween album too! As usual not for everyone, but those who dig it will dig in good! (Yes the vinyl version is insanely expensive.)

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MPEG stream: My Own Bare Hands

Gene and Dean Ween are back, which is sure to be a cause for jubilation among many. However, we're not diehard Ween fans, and while there's titles in the Ween catalog we definitely enjoy, Quebec's not high up on that list. The best thing about it is the Motorhead pastiche that leads off the album. After that, they do what they do, but it's just not as funny as old Ween, although still quite as proficient musically. Total studio musician/songwriting hack chopsism. There's no easily-discerned theme, and we quickly lost interest after that Motorhead bit, as we said. *However*, had a hardcore Ween fan reviewed this for us, there's always the chance that they'd say we were missing something, so don't let us stop you from Ween-ing out with this one.

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With tons of cash for studio musicians and recording time you'd think a couple of creative stoners like Gene and Dean Ween could come up with gem after gem of sugary sweet and entertaining pop, but for some reason this ain't happening. The production is great, the musicians are great, but the joke is tired. Never the less, if you want a grandly produced effort of mock early eighties radio rock (a la Bread or America), this is your bag.

No one with a pop bone in their bodies can argue that the first Weezer record (the Blue album) is anything but an all time classic pop record, a practically perfect slab of indie rock / power pop. Most of those same folks loved Pinkerton too, record number two, flawed, but in an awesomely idiosyncratic and crazy catchy way. Even the Green album, record #3, had some great songs, the Weezer sound was still intact, and sure there were some misfires, but those were made up for by some serious gems. Maladroit was an underdog record, revisiting it now, it's pretty dang good, but at the time, it was, to Weezer fans, all but the most obsessive, the beginning of the end. Make Believe is where most of us gave up, the insipid hit single "Beverly Hills" the worst offender, but the record, as well as the one that followed, the Red album, were pretty much total writeoffs. Mainman Rivers Cuomo was more of a novelty song writer and occasional tabloid personality. Then something happened with Raditude. The last record, awesomely stupid cover art, and some lame collaborations, but there were some seriously almost classic Weezer jams hidden in there. And now we come to Hurley, their latest, and maybe best in a long while, weirdly enough, it's also their first NOT on a major label, but whatever, the important thing is, this record is pretty good. That classic Weezer sound in full effect, the thick chugging guitars, the vocal harmonies, the soaring power pop choruses, the goofy pop culture referencing lyrics, but for the first time in a long time it actually works, and even the weird experimental bits, acoustic ballads, some synth drum machine drive groovers, they all sort of work. It's no masterpiece, that's for sure, if you want a Weezer masterpiece, go get the self titled debut, or if you want some Weezerish perfect pop, check out the Ovens, but if you've been dying for a great Weezer record, well then this might be the one. Or if not great, pretty dang good. And we're digging it more and more with every listen! And did we mention the awesomely ridiculous cover art, a picture of Hurley from the TV show Lost! Recommended, mostly for longtime Weezer fans, but heck, it's definitely good enough that it might win over some new fans for sure...

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Oh Weezer, we read and hear so much about Rivers Cuomo and his dysfunctional band, and all the lineup changes and how he's giving up music to go back to school and he's going to be celibate but then WAIT, a new record is in the works, but the band hates each other, but he is still the master of pop music, and they're on the cover of Rolling Stone and on and on and on. You think with that kind of drama and attention this 5 years in the works new Weezer record would be tense and intense and emotionally fragile and darkly aggressive and maybe the pop record to end all pop records. But it's not. Not even close. It's tepid, Weezer-by-the-numbers, the single "Beverly Hills" is the most anemic pop song we've heard in ages, with embarassingly trite lyrics and a hook that has been used in no less than 5 other Weezer songs. But wait, things definitely pick up after that, a return to Weezer of old? Not quite, but it's not all that bad, in fact some of the songs are pretty darn good. It's no blue album, it's no Pinkerton, it's no green album either. But that's a whole lot to hope for. And while he may be a pop genius, anyone so distracted by school and personal insecurity and band unrest would be hard pressed to squeeze out a masterpiece. But a masterpiece is what we expect, and we know he's capable of it. He's pulled it off at least three times! It just feels like the passion is gone, the fire, the emotion, like Weezer is no longer something he NEEDS to do, just something he has to do. It still sounds great, in fact better than ever, BIG Rick Rubin production, big guitars, lush harmonies, but the songs just don't live up to the sound. That said, we still LOVE Weezer, we've been dying for this record to come out, and we'll hang on to this, and listen to it over and over, hoping that the pop genius is of the slow growing variety, and eventually it will just hit us, and then we'll feel pretty dumb for writing this review. Here's hoping!

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I have to be honest, I sort of outgrew Weezer (or maybe they outgrew me) after their second record, Pinkerton, which while not a bad record at all, in fact a fantastic record, definitely showed signs of, how can I say this, a sort of laziness, a "the sound is there but where are the songs?" sort of thing. I think one of the problems is that they set the bar so high with the first record, where EVERY song was, or could have been a huge hit. Pinkerton was about half and half, and after that they seemd to just be going through the motions. That said, there -were- some kick ass tunes on the 'green' record, and there are some awesome tracks on this here record too. Check out the sound clip for 'Keep Fishin', kind of Cheap Trick and the Sweet with a sort of MTV pop punk vibe. Fans already obviously have this, but newcomers to the land of Weezer would be better served picking up the first two Weezer records before venturing into records three and four.

RealAudio clip: American Gigolo
RealAudio clip: Dope Nose
RealAudio clip: Keep Fishin'

The first peep from these guys after a five year absence! And sure as heck it's full of those familiar power guitar melodies and sunshine-y, super-boy vocal harmonies. So why don't I feel any better? What's wrong? What's missing? Well for one thing the

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Just knowing that this band made Pinkerton makes the fact that this record sounds like a weird mash up of Sugar Ray and The Offspring that much more depressing. Though the YouTube based single/video "Frank and Beans" is pretty funny.

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This 1973 krautrock rarity was reissued a few years ago as a deluxe box set complete with reproductions of the Tarot cards designed by German gypsy painter Walter Wegmuller. That uber-expensive deluxe version quickly went out of print, and now we have a

RealAudio clip: Die Hohepriesterin
RealAudio clip: Der Hohepriester

One of the most gleefully eccentric albums around right now is a re-issue from 1970! Fans of the bizarre genius of Bruce Haack and Raymond Scott gather 'round! Heck, you're undoubtedly already more than familiar with Mr. Fred Weinberg, but for those of us who missed it the first time around... Here's 18 tinkly twinky twisted compositions (including 7 bonus tracks) that would probably be deadringers for television theme songs and commercial jingles if they were being performed on a more - ahem! - traditional array of instruments, but such is not the case! The Weinberg Method involves the electronic manipulation and mutation of "natural" sounds (y'know, from the world around you: car horns honking, sirens squealing, toilets flushing, hearts beating, etc). These sounds are then inserted where those of the string, horn or percussion instruments would have been. Incredibly strange music indeed! We should also note that the liner notes suggest "this album be played at 33, 45 and 78 rpm." Kinda hard to do on a cd, but probably well worth the effort!

RealAudio clip: A Child's Life
RealAudio clip: Animosity
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Aka the Scene Creamers.

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Now on Vinyl! We listed the latest record by Texas folk pop ensemble the Weird Weeds a few lists back, and everybody dug it like crazy, so we got in touch with the band and got a handful of their first record, Hold Me. Which is just as good! A dizzying blend of random ethereal popness and shimmery dreamlike folkiness with a healthy heaping of arty angularity. Slightly confusional and a little schizophrenic, but the Weird Weeds' off kilter playfulness is exactly what makes this combo so totally appealing. Fun and freaked out, but always soft and dreamy, even at their most convoluted. One side of the band's sound is all fluttery flutes and swoonsome strings, little bits of strum and twang wrapped into perfect little nuggets of sunshine-y West Coast pop. A little country, a little hippy, all super sun dappled with plaintive vocals and simple minor key strumming. The other side of their sound is a much more obtuse assemblage of stumbling drums, twinkling guitar harmonics, lots of tangled squiggly almost metallic guitar solos over wildly strummed acoustic guitars, a constant angular Deerhoof art-rockiness that perfectly plays to the interaction between super high sad boy vocals and dreamy angelic female vocals. While these guys are definitely far out, and these songs are not at all straight forward, the weirdness never overshadows their pop sense, which makes Hold Me a total delight for pop kidz and artrock nerds alike.

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While we have been fans of most of Kurt Weisman's previous projects (Feathers, Witch, King Tuff), this first solo outing on Important has really thrown us for a loop. Spazzy sped up strings, sprightly jigs, woodwind-led free jazz and wincing pitch-shifted vocals remind us more of Cocorosie than the Van Dyke Parks comparisons touted on the label. Weird? Definitely. Wonderful? Not so much.

MPEG stream: The Young Pioneers Discover Magic
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We had Kurt from Feathers' solo cd-r in stock a while ago and we loved it. A warbly and weird lo-fi folk, but it sounded like his little brother was constantly fucking with the knobs on his 4-track while he was recording it. Slowing down, speeding up, weird little glitchy hiccups. It added a whole 'nother layer of weirdness to what was essentially dreamy fey folk. On this most recent 7", everything we loved about the cd-r is pushed even farther out. The high reedy vocals are now even higher and sound almost like the Chipmunks. The sonic irregularities and recording glitches that peppered the cd-r, are now EVERYWHERE, the whole record is buried under strange effects, warbling warpage, squiggles of psychedelic guitar are splattered all over the place. This is seriously druggy and tripped out stuff. The first things that came to mind when we threw this on were: Ariel Pink, Christmas carols and It's A Small World After All. That should give you a good idea of the glorious strangeness we're talking about here. A glitchy lo fi psychedelia equal parts Feathers, Tiny Tim, Daniel Johnston, Ariel Pink, nursery rhymes and lots and lots of weed! Packaged in a goofy comic book style sleeve with a hot pink insert/lyric sheet. SUPER LIMITED. WE ONLY GOT 10 COPIES FROM THE BAND WHEN THEY WERE HERE ON TOUR...

This Seattle band has a name and album title ripe for an Abbott & Costello skit. Welcome! Sirs! Polite niceties aside, this is some tweaked, disjointed retro-pop that seems deeply indebted to The Soft Boys, The Pixies, The Breeders, Pavement and oh, maybe a little (or a lot) of The Beatles too. The ten tunes are played out on lanky electric guitar and loosely slung bass with singers who could almost convince us that they're the rambunctious offspring of Kim Deal and Robyn Hitchcock.

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Isobel Campbell seems to be making the most of her post Belle & Sebastian music making days. Exploring different sides of herself and collaborating with a range of artists. After her recent outings with Mark Lanegan she now takes off the boots and and handkerchief and trades them in for some dim light, red wine and her take on some lesser know Billy Holiday gems. Bill Wells, a great piano player who has released some great records on Geographic as well as Leaf lays down the keys, guitar and some tasteful electronics that allow Campbell's totally enticing voice to create the tender mood that these songs call for. Like the best kind of covers these songs use just a skeleton of the original's in making something that stand's on its own while bowing gracefully to legacy of Billie Holiday. This recording was actually made a few years ago and was pretty much impossible to get hands on but luckily it has finally been made available. This melts so deliciously!

MPEG stream: Who Needs You?
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For a Scottish so-called jazz pianist, Bill Wells sure has lots of indie-rock cred, having had help at times in making his dreamy, mellow music from members of Belle and Sebastian and The Pastels, fellow Glaswegians to be sure. But with this new Osaka Bridge album he taps into the willfully naive soundworld of one of our very favorite underground Japanese psych-pop ensembles, the one and only Maher Shalal Hash Baz, teaming up with them presumably thanks to their shared connection with The Pastels' Geographic label. The music here is mostly written by Wells, but when filtered through the playing of his Japanese friends, it sounds so much like theirs. MSHB's childlike, almost Shaggsy musicianship semi-struggles playfully with Wells' compositions, making each track all the more beautiful for its fragility and simplicity of execution. Their approach, however lacking in musical chops, is perfect for what we know of Wells' penchant for melodious sound-sketches. In collaboration with MSHB, this is slow, languid, rainy day music... even the poppiest moments have a bittersweet aura. MSHB's trademark wavering horns are in full not-quite-jazz mode, and some of this sort of sounds like a '60s or '70 TV show theme music in spots, like Love American Style or a sitcom or something -- but that's not a diss, it's really pretty. Even prettier, are the tracks featuring beautiful, sad singing from Reiko Kudo, wife of MSHB leader Tori Kudo. Exquisite.

MPEG stream: Liquorice Tics
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Whoa! The Bill Wells Trio are pouring out some smooth, easy-listenin' jazz full of mellow piano, baritone sax, trumpet, and harmonica. It immediately transported me back to the highschool years. Y'know, the kind of dinner jazz performed by the school's senior ensemble at the year-end assembly that made the brass players' parents beam with pride and want to dance the night away? There's even a song called "Jab The Chemistry Teacher"! In indie circles, this may succeed in doing for soft jazz just what Rachel's did a few years back for chamber music. The lone track that differs in pace among the ten - much more antsy and perked up - is "New Ascending Staircase" (catch that Marcel Duchamp/Salvador Dali reference?). The guest list runs the music gamut, from avant-jazz multi-instrumentalist Lindsay Cooper (playing tuba on "Presentation Piece #1" and bass on "D.A.D.E.") to The Pastels' Stephen and Katrina (providing keyboards and vocals respectively on "D.A.D.E.").

RealAudio clip: Presentation Piece #1
RealAudio clip: New Ascending Staircase
RealAudio clip: D.A.D.E.

A refreshing surprise from the Geographic label out of Scotland (said label headed by Stephen of the Pastels), the Bill Wells Trio is an instrumental outfit composed primarily of piano, trumpet, and harmonica. While this is certainly not jazz, or even jazz lite, there's something in the delicate evocative quietness of this group that nonetheless reminds us of late '50s cool jazz -- unhurried, purposeful, swirling pastoral sketches that wouldn't be out of place in some arthouse film about a boy coming of age, or "Love Story", or a French new wave film set in a fishing village. Heartbreaking chord changes. Modest grandiosity. Stevie Jackson (Belle and Sebastian second guitarist) contributes just gorgeous, wistful, Morricone-worthy harmonica. It's lovely! Fans of the Rachels, Halifax Pier -- heads up! We can only hope for another album, and soon, 'cause our only complaint about this one is that it's way too short (20 minutes or so!)...

RealAudio clip: Incorrect Practice
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Another ultra limited cd-r from Root Strata, only 100 copies, most of which are already gone, so we'll be brief, but grab one of these before they're gone, it's quite lovely. A mere 20 minutes long, a series of hushed barely there ultra delicate guitarscapes, all drift and shimmer, breathless and minimal, a glacial swirl of muted tones, and subtle overtones, no attack, just decay, notes left to hang as they slowly fade out, only to have another hazy note laid over the top. Dreamy and ethereal and ephemeral, strap on some headphones to truly get lost in these blurred stretches of soft focus guitar, you'll most likely end up setting your player on repeat, laying back, and letting these sounds carry you away. So gorgeous. As is the packaging, brown chipboard, sleeves with a hole cut out, each one displaying a water colored insert, every one unique, all done by hand, and LIMITED TO 100 COPIES...

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Ex-Monster Magnet member and 2 ex-Soundgarden folks delve into 60's psyche-pop. Includes covers of obscure Japanese beat groups. Limited lp version on Super-Electro also available. The tastemakers at Ptolemaic Terrascope are big fans of this group.

Third record from the duo of Matt Cameron (ex-Soundgarden) and Jon McBain (ex-Monster Magnet). Wellwater Conspiracy is their sort of retro sixties psych pop band, complete with tamborines and jangly guitars, but a little harder edged and heavier. Like a mix of

RealAudio clip: I Got Nightmares
RealAudio clip: Tidepool Telegraph

The return of the groovy, fuzzy sixties psych rock side project of John McBain formerly of Monster Magnet, and Matt Cameron, formerly of Soundgarden. But those formerly's can only mean one thing, that Wellwater Conspiracy is a side project no more! We've sort of known that for a while now, but it becomes more evident with each successive record, as they just keep getting better and better. A ragged, psychedelic sixties jangle groove filtered through Cameron and McBain's elite stoner/space/cock rock pedigree with lots of meandering, spacy shimmer, bizarre production, loping, walking bass lines, lots of super affected, weirdly squiggly leads, harmonies, tamborine and even bongos. Think a slightly heavier, more well produced Kinks, Who, Blues Magoos, Fuzztones or Pretty Things. Heavy enough to still hit the spot for all you Monster Magnet / Soundgarden fans, but druggy and psychedelic enough for all you Ptolemaic Terrascopers / lo-fi psych-folkers!

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Really mellow soft-pop from 1969, the sole album by teenage San Francisco sisters Wendy and Bonnie Flower (ages 17 and 13 respectively, at the time this album was cut). Very pretty and summery, but NOT super happy, it's got a melancholy sadness (and sweetness) to it, evoking late afternoon, end of summer feelings. Maybe they're a bit like a more folky, psychedelic 5th

RealAudio clip: Five O'Clock In The Morning
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THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY.

A few months ago we obtained those long-awaited cd issues of the WCPAEB's four albums, remember? Well when it rains it pours: this is the official reissue of the legendary pop outfit's FIRST, SELFRELEASED album, which places it chronologically *prior* to the four albums fans have known and loved (and traded for large sums of money) for 20 years. Features radically different (more lush and sunny, less VU-ish) versions of songs that appeared, reworked on the latter four albums, plus *eight* previously unissued pieces.

The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band is one of those groups whose status in the collectorskum underground means that I once spent $75 on one of their LPs. Ouch. Thankfully most of their recorded output has finally been put out on cd by the excellent The voluminous liner notes (different in each of the three discs) are super interesting. I had no idea that what looks like the main guy in the band (he's in the middle in all the pictures) was this eccentric trust fund millionaire who kind of took over the band by buying them a big ole psychedelic light show system (their live shows were famous for this) and who was so annoying and odd that the other guys in the band tried to not let him do anything else on stage but play tambourine. The other band members, interviewed in the notes, say they hated him and feel like they would've been a better more popular band without him etc. Sour grapes! But perhaps that's what made the band so amazing, the push and pull of varying aesthetics resulting in a beautiful music.

RealAudio clip: Shifting Sands
RealAudio clip: I Won't Hurt You
RealAudio clip: Scuse Me, Miss Rose

The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band is one of those groups whose status in the collectorskum underground means that I once spent $75 on one of their LPs. Ouch. Thankfully most of their recorded output has finally been put out on cd by the excellent The voluminous liner notes (different in each of the three discs) are super interesting. I had no idea that what looks like the main guy in the band (he's in the middle in all the pictures) was this eccentric trust fund millionaire who kind of took over the band by buying them a big ole psychedelic light show system (their live shows were famous for this) and who was so annoying and odd that the other guys in the band tried to not let him do anything else on stage but play tambourine. The other band members, interviewed in the notes, say they hated him and feel like they would've been a better more popular band without him etc. Sour grapes! But perhaps that's what made the band so amazing, the push and pull of varying aesthetics resulting in a beautiful music.

RealAudio clip: In the Arena
RealAudio clip: Delicate Fawn

The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band is one of those groups whose status in the collectorskum underground means that I once spent $75 on one of their LPs. Ouch. Thankfully most of their recorded output has finally been put out on cd by the excellent The voluminous liner notes (different in each of the three discs) are super interesting. I had no idea that what looks like the main guy in the band (he's in the middle in all the pictures) was this eccentric trust fund millionaire who kind of took over the band by buying them a big ole psychedelic light show system (their live shows were famous for this) and who was so annoying and odd that the other guys in the band tried to not let him do anything else on stage but play tambourine. The other band members, interviewed in the notes, say they hated him and feel like they would've been a better more popular band without him etc. Sour grapes! But perhaps that's what made the band so amazing, the push and pull of varying aesthetics resulting in a beautiful music.

RealAudio clip: As the World Rises and Falls
RealAudio clip: Eighteen is Over the Hill
RealAudio clip: In the Country

The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band is one of those groups whose status in the collectorskum underground means that plenty of folks found themselves forking over HUGE sums for copies of the original releases. Thankfully most of their recorded output was reissued on cd by the excellent reissue label Sundazed. And now released on vinyl by Reprise / Rhino. This band never quite made it big, never had a hit record, but god were they good. They were stalwarts on the LA pop scene in the late '60s and released six albums (we think). The music is arty and psychedelic but also totally appealing and approachable, like a weird mix of Capt Beefheart and the Association or the Byrds. Very fun and very "of its time" - with several anti-Vietnam War songs, the requisite sitars, Fifth Dimension-style vocals, lyrics invoking fairies and dwarves, etc. Their sound was alternately sweet and silly, epic and serious... and you must hear it! We recently discovered that what looks like the main guy in the band (he's in the middle in all the pictures) was this eccentric trust fund millionaire who kind of took over the band by buying them a big ole psychedelic light show system (their live performances were famous for this) and who was so annoying and odd that the other guys in the band tried to not let him do anything else on stage but play tambourine. The other band members, say they hated him and feel like they would've been a better more popular band without him etc. Sour grapes! But perhaps that's what made the band so amazing, the push and pull of varying aesthetics resulting in a beautiful music. Needless to say, all three of these albums are essential listening, and these reissues are super swank, done up right, and not all that expensive. Definitely Recommended. ----* ----* Compilations : ----*

Yes, we have to admit we've found his last few releases to be sorta hit-or-miss, love/hate, however with the amusingly titled Besterberg it's nothing but love love LOVE for Mr. Westerberg. Ah, that endearingly hoarse voice, those unmistakable guitar melodies -- it's like getting together with an old friend from your college days. Diehard fans will surely already have all of the older material compiled on this cd, and will probably have their own gripes over their personal fave tunes that might not have been included. Alas, such is always the case with best ofs, innit? However, amid the plentiful twenty career-spanning songs there's an added bonus to pique the interest of Westerberg's completists -- a trio of previously unreleased songs! "All That I Had", "C'mon, C'mon, C'mon" and an alternate mix of "Once Around The Weekend".

MPEG stream: Dyslexic Heart
MPEG stream: All That I Had

Those of us who loved the Replacements, hung on to post-Replacements Paul Westerberg for dear life, convinced that somewhere underneath all that shitty adult contemporary soft rock and schmaltzy balladry beat a heart soaked in booze and kept in a hot van and just bursting with rock and roll! So finally, after years of diappointment, Come Feel Me Tremble comes along to keep us all from feeling like jilted schmucks. This is some really good stuff. Not classics Replacements caliber classics by any stretch, but there are glimmers of that glorious booze adled rock-and-roll-brilliance that once shone so brightly. A little sloppy, a little rocking, and a little catchy, vocals buried in the mix, honky tonk Stones guitars way up in the mix, and songs that actually stick in your head. Not all of em, but enough to keep Replacements fans from having to listen to Let It Be or Tim for the five millionth time!

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The ever-prolific Paul Westerberg continues to keep his songwriting floodgates open with his fifth solo full length, Folker, recorded in his basement. In the string of his homespun releases, this is by far the most cohesive and focussed. Previous ones (released under his own name as well as his alter ego Grandpaboy) tended to ramble and stumble without direction, but this time the only cringe inducer is the title. Ouch. Frequently though, as he's done on his past few releases, the devil-may-care rock rogue Westerberg does sacrifice pitch perfection in favor of capturing ragged off-the-cuff immediacy. That said, fortunately it usually makes a song all the more scruffily engaging ("$100 Groom"). Although the vocal comparisons used to be the reverse, oddly enough Westerberg now sounds more like Wilco's Jeff Tweedy than Jeff Tweedy. Highlights include the very Beatles-y "Now I Wonder" and the abovementioned "$100 Groom".

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This very strange new "Stereo" from rock vet Paul Westerberg finds its home on emo-boy haven Vagrant Records. And although many of the youngsters on that label owe a great deal to the former Replacement's amazing songwriting pen, we're not so sure if this

RealAudio clip: Baby Learns To Crawl
RealAudio clip: Got You Down
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RealAudio clip: Between Love & Like

If you were sad to hear the end of Iowa City's Raccoo-oo-oon, have no fear, for Shawn Reed and Ryan Garbes have returned to the trance-punk altar with a new band, Wet Hair. With two synths, a drum kit, and some hazy distorted vocals the duo offer up Dream, their debut lp, a kraut punk offering of free synth meanderings and cosmic filth, all thrown together in some dusty garage. Pretty cool sunny day avant-punk improv for the deep dreamers, already out of print from Not Not Fun, we managed to get our grubby hands on a few, so act quick if you want one.

Latest from this post Raccoo-oo-oon duo, and like the records before, these two continue to confound, moving ever further away from the sonic chaos that was Raccoo-oo-oon, their sound a barrage of Dead C style noise rock melded to fractured outsider folk, all caustic and abrasive, freaked out and dementedly psychedelic, hell we even made one of their albums our Record Of The Week. And while we have dug most of the Wet Hair stuff, it never had the same impact that their old band did. Sort of more meandery and jammy, which is not a bad thing at all, but at times, it definitely seems confusional, and a bit aimless, but on In Vogue Spirit, it sounds like these guys have finally figured out where this Wet Hair thing was meant to be going, and apparently it was meant to be some sort of trippy, psychedelic krautrock, all motorik rhythms, woozy dreamlike melodies, buried in the mix Spacemen 3 like vox, pulsing low slung basslines, all woven into long stretches of spacey, trippy hypnorock. The sort of thing that should definitely appeal to fans of Wooden Shjips, Spacemen 3, Cave, Circle, Silver Apples, Moon Duo, and various other space/psych rockers. There's plenty of Stereolab/Neu! worship happening too, but filtered through Wet Hair's decidedly cracked post-whatever sensibilities. There is still plenty of schizophrenic weirdness, bizarre sonic detours, from skittery, echo drenched lo-fi outsider calypso exotica, circusy organ driven echoplexed ambience, lo-fi eighties style electro pop, squiggly effects drenched hazy blissouts, but even those strange moments don't sound as far removed as before, still droney and hypnotic in their own way, and thus tied to the core of Wet Hair's sound, which at least for now, is a fantastically spaced out, shimmery, droney, druggy spacekraut hypno rock. Awesome.

MPEG stream: Echo Lady
MPEG stream: The Garden Room
MPEG stream: My Heart Is The Spider My Mind Is The Fly

The first thing you'll notice most likely is the $18 price tag, FOR A 7"!! But it's not just a 7", it's also a thick 7" x 7" art book, filled with super striking full color images, with a glossy cover. It's too bad the price is so steep, cuz even without the artbook, this is a pretty great single. Which finds Wet Hair, formerly Raccoo-oo-oon, taking their previously synthy krautrocky sound in a much more buzzy and garagey direction. And it definitely suits them. Starting off with some carnivalesque lo-fi synth prog, the sound gradually begins to blur and buzz and transform into some hazy tripped out space rock, not all that far removed from Spacemen 3 or Wooden Shjips, the same sort of looped mesmer, and psychedelic trance, shuffling stuttery rhythms, echoey vox, deep and bellowed, a little Suicide thrown into the mix, the whole thing doused in thick washes of noisy buzzy keys, lysergic and seriously mesmerizing. The other side starts out a bit more electro poppy, cascading melodies, percolating sc-fi FX, a skeletal robotic beat, lilting synths, the vocals laid back and weary, again washed out and druggy and trippy and hypnotically heavy in its own way. Like we mentioned, comes in a thick 7" sided art book, filled with all sorts of tripped out paintings and collages, that definitely offer a visual analogue to the psychedelic sounds within.

These Iowa psychpop-kraudrone-WTFwave weirdos return with their second full length for De Stijl, the group now expanded from a duo to a trio, with a sound that while still weird, continues to move further away from the twisted noiseness of the early releases, toward something distinctly more melodic and much more accessible. Mixing their psych-kraut tendencies with something that sounds much more like some lost new wave /cold wave artifact, due in no small part to the deep dramatic crooned vox of frontman Shawn Reed, he of the late great Raccoo-oo-oon, but the band get all wave-y too, weaving a lush twisted backdrop of synth buzz, and driving drums, the bass thick and fuzzy and sinewy, the sound rife with playful almost carnivalesque melodies, the sound often blossoming into sun dappled prismatic clouds of swirling synth shimmer, but just as often locking into a tranced out hypnorock mesmer, if these guys were an instrumental band, they'd definitely be a whole different beast, some sort of heady, druggy psych-kraut-prog combo that would fall more in line with groups like Cave, Lumerians, Gnod and the like, cuz the instrumental stretches here get downright blissy and trancey and dreamily psychedelic, the vocals though give it a distinctly goth-pop cast, adding some Suicide and Spacemen 3 and Interpol to Wet Hair's sonic equation, and transforming this into something much weirder, and in its own twisted way, much cooler.

MPEG stream: Grey Pallisades
MPEG stream: Color And Shape
MPEG stream: Camouflage