Kill West - Smoke Beach (2015)

To the attentive follower of this blog a few things about this album will be quickly familiar. Beyond it being a lo-fi psychedelic rock album, which is such a normal thing for me to write these days it is competing with my signature for top motion memory, it should be that they've been featured in an EP Grab Bag previously, but also that this album is released via the indie label/music blog Ongakubaka. And if you were really paying attention you'll recall that Ongakubaka doesn't put out shitty albums. Like never. Just don't know how to, I suppose.

The lo-fi outfit known as Kill West are from Buenos Aires. They seem honed their sound from what I recall hearing on their self-titled EP, shedding some of the more garage and surf sounds for a more dreamy style. That said, Smoke Beach is exactly what I hope for out of a hazy psychedelic rock album. It has enough droning/shoegazing elements to provide a fine trace-like quality for the listener while maintaining enough energy and bursts of excitement to not be able to fade from the forefront of one's thoughts. The nailed it, plain and simple. I'm not afraid even at this early date to call this one of the best psychedelic albums of the summer.

Finally, I can't think of a better way to celebrate the United State's Independence Day than by continuing to read Uruguayan writer Felisberto Hernández, drink Spanish and German wines and listen to Argentine rock and roll. Really making the most of globalization and modern American imperialism. So get drunk, shut your mouths and open your ears up.

To be had here:
Kill West - Smoke Beach

Baby Jesus - Baby Jesus (2015)

Glorious low fidelity, how I cherish thee. Organs wailing and droning, crashing cymbals, guitars fuzzed to perfection and a singer you couldn't dream of understanding without having hear the tracks nearly a dozen times. The building blocks of a wonderful garage rock album, here executed by the cleverly named Baby Jesus. 

Baby Jesus hail from Sweden and are a newer release from the blog-turned-label, Ongakubaka Records. And that's right, back to back Swedish write-ups (might be time for an examination of a scene). The music of this self-titled album is raw garage, though clearly not amateur, rather it bears a groomed level of dissonance and psychedelia. Heavy hitting too, the band doesn't let up on the intensity anywhere in these songs. Moreover, the organ most especially, added by same wild guitar licks, creates a retro feeling that is very easy to get behind. As if a band from a Nuggets of 4-Wheels 1960s compilations really cut fucking loose and made something powerfully lo-fi. There's nods to 60s surf rock as well, such as the Dick Dale-esque "Nice Walk." Not an album to be ignored by a fans of garage, new or old, or anyone seeking to hear an excitedly washed out sound.

To be had here:
Baby Jesus - Baby Jesus

EP Grab Bag vol. 87

So, after a prolonged period of of LPs there, it is finally time for me to come back to these EPs that have been burning a hole in my metaphorical pocket. I haven't much to say as a preliminary except that I am so happy that these tunes keep pouring and are so fucking good.

To be had here:

LOVEBYRD - LOVEBYRD (2015)

Ongakubaka Records, the blog turned indie label, has another EP out that is, of course, impeccable. LOVEBYRD is a German band that makes psychedelic music. It's hard to tell whether the near-hallucinogenic instrumentation or the amazing vocalist are more mesmerizing. She can really sing, the guitars are damned trippy and it all comes together for five otherwordly tracks. Fits in a fine middle ground of modern psych, incorporating enough retro and eastern sound but not so much as to be a rehash. It's a wonderful EP, and I told you before that Ongakubaka knows what the fuck is up. If they were printing money instead of issuing records it'd be as good as gold.

H. Grimace - Material EP (2015)

These songs mingle somewhere between garage rock and dream pop, sort of a space usually occupied by shoegaze in my mind, but I wouldn't necessarily categorize H. Grimace as such. It isn't about tags, as much as I like to throw them around. What matter is that the songs are good, and this is definitely the case on their Material EP. This is EP is put out by the United Kingdom's Soft Power Records, a label I should like to provide more attention to in the days to come. Looks like they've got a good catalog to pick over.

The Clearwings - The Outskirts EP (2014)

The Denver-based folk duo the Clearwings make some fine duets. That's right, they sing together and it is quite impressive how well the female and male voices meld and play off one another in these short songs. The call themselves alt-folk, but who knows what that means, what I can say is that they do mix in some blues and pop elements in, depending on which track you pick. Being quite partial to the blues myself, I found the songs "Long Way Down" and "Armies" to be my favorites on the EP. However, there isn't a dud among them, and it is a highly enjoyable release.

Dhruva Krishna - The Great Skedaddle (2013)

More folk, of a far more stripped down variety. Just a man playing his guitar, or sometimes tapping on a piano, and making you think about shit. Upbeat and bluegrass-infused folk makes up most of the songs, yet in the middle of it "Crazy" is a bare-bones piano piece that really resonated with me. Only the last track, a cover of the Beatles classic "Yesterday," has any vocals at all.  If the quality of the folk coming in keeps up with Clearwings and what Mr. Krishna have sent in, I welcome much more.

Sväva - We Have Just The Life We Want (2014)

Another Dutch band from the city of Leeuwarden. Sväva makes melodic, ethereal music with strong female vocals. The songs aren't very complex, but they needed be as Sväva seems to be aiming for a more emotional reaction to their music. I spent quite a bit of time listening to this EP as I tried to plow my way into a novel I decided to begin the other day. I kept putting down the book, not because I didn't like it, but because I kept check which track I was hearing. Turns out I am really digging the final song of this release, "Blue Moon." It's totally worth a whirl.

EP Grab Bag vol. 80

So here is a very psychedelic heavy mix of EPs, and percentage-wise a good deal British as well. I am getting so fucking many EPs in lately that if you haven't seen the one you sent in surface yet it is that I am combing through the backlog while not trying to ignore the full-lengths either (which obviously take more time to hear). Anyhow, I might even need to do two Grab Bags in the same week to get all of them out, but I can only hear so many in so many days, time being as it is with the physics, laws of nature and so on. These are what I got to hearing first, so they're in no particular order.

To be had here:

Yosa Buson - Dark Noontide (2014)

The triumphant return of Yosa Buson with a new three track EP of noisy experimentation. Blurring psychedelic and progressive aspects together they've produced pleasurably strange as well as starkly abrupt songs. Plus there's the short folk track that is the title song that they nailed the fuck out of. So throw some bones to Old Monster Records and remember that our own darling Elvis Dracula, in his slightly less vampiric persona, is a member of this Californian outfit.

Wett Nurse - Hissy Fit (2014)

Long time follow blogger, Ongakubaka, has made the leap into running a small label. He's not the first of my blogging colleagues to do so, but more the merrier and my faith in his taste is unshakable (for we often post the same things, and what else I find over there is impeccable). Wett Nurse is the first band one this new label and is a fantastic garage rock band making sensationally loud and lo-fi tunes. Everything about it is what you'd hope for a collaboration of a garage band and an underground music blogger. And that organ fucking rocks.

Carl Lewis: Track and Field - Whoever Wins, We All Lose (2014)

A folk punk band from the United Kingdom. I am pretty down with that concept right from the get-go. Folk punk does hold a special place for me, it being the most enjoyable sort of show to me attend despite my decidedly not punk personal style. So as you hear these pessimistic and cheeky, witty lyrics think of kids with black patches bearing white lettering, no leased dogs wandering around and an excessive amount of cigarette smoke.  Excellent stuff and liberating to hear the sweet sound of nihilism.

qualchan. - vertumnus. (2014)

This is a sound collage artist that I've shared previously in a Grab Bag, who is back with another two of schizophrenic samplings. The experience of hearing all these odd instrumental tidbits strung together out of context and with the fidelity reduced creates a very unusual reaction for me. All I can imagine is a dude chilling by an old boxy stereo ready to punch the record button on the tape deck as soon as something weird comes on, for some 10 to 25 seconds and then back to waiting. I am oddly jealous of this fictitious man, and that provides some insight as to what sort of crazy rich person I would make.

White Owl - Bad Luck Is Really All That I've Got Left EP

Our pal Brin and his buddies are back at it again, releasing another EP from their most superior Bristol-based psychedelic band, White Owl. I hope you heard the last two EPs, as you're sorely missing out if you haven't yet. This new effort holds up the high standard of the bluesy, washed out psych sound that've made all the White Owl songs fucking awesome. I find that all these EPs have a fine blend of the 60s psychedelic sound with the more modern lo-fi rock, and they invoke many happy memories of hearing British Invasion songs as a music pirating younger man. Nevertheless, I find this band unique and fresh in their style as those motherfuckers didn't buzzed like this then.