-valis Pick of the Week

Hail Voyagers! This is our final Pick of the year 2012 and we've made it a great one: from Detroit, Michigan, Infinity People ! Their double LP, In Love With The Light, came out via numerous outlets -notably our great friends at Burger Records . (The album is a split release W/ UFO FACTORY, CASS RECORDS, X! RECORDS, ITALY RECORDS & LIFE LIKE.)

Covering 13 tracks and thousands of miles of inner space the group craft an amzing sonic space.
Brilliant Youtube video here and another track via Burger Records' Soundcloud page for the effectiveness of their efforts. Highest recommend.

***
You can listen to the archived stream here ; or, hear it this Friday, on The Dead Man's Turn Me On, Dead Man show on Live365, where it's heard every Friday at noon eastern time, as well as Mr. Atavist's Sunrise Ocean Bender show, heard every Monday from 1 to 3 am eastern, on WRIR in Richmond, VA.

-valis Pick of the Week

Hail Voyagers! Our Pick this week comes from the northlands, Toronto, Canada!
Deep Space Cowboys , a four-piece comprised of Pete - Guitar/Vox, Aaron - Guitar, David - Bass/Vox, and Sina- Drums. Their EP, Your Mind Is Your Sound , is available via Bandcamp.

To quote great friend and fellow psych-oriented DJ, Mr. Atavist, of Sunrise Ocean Bender:

"Deep tasty psychedelic shoegaze from Toronto’s Deep Space Cowboys, spearheaded by Pete da Silva of The Auras. Packed full of hooks and swirl, Your Mind Is Your Mind has the space and stride to accommodate the cowboy swagger."

Sums it up quite well. Try this:



Best wishes to the band. We're looking forward to more!

***
You can listen to the archived stream here ; or, hear it this Friday, on The Dead Man's Turn Me On, Dead Man show on Live365, where it's heard every Friday at noon eastern time, as well as Mr. Atavist's Sunrise Ocean Bender show, heard every Monday from 1 to 3 am eastern, on WRIR in Richmond, VA.

-valis Pick of the Week

Hail Voyagers! Our pick this week comes from Sydney, Australia. I've waited a long time to highlight this group! (Their Candy Flu album , from 2011, has been played quite a lot since I first heard it. I can't get enough of it actually.)

The Walking Who! Their new single, Have You Seen The Colours?, is available as a free download at their Bandcamp page.

Rohin Brown - guitar + vocals, Jay Bird - bass guitar, and Paul Mclean - drums, have created a two-and-one-half minute swirl of the good stuff as a lead-up to a new album coming next year. I'm chuffed.



Get excited! They're making an album's worth of this!

***
You can listen to the archived stream here ; or, hear it this Friday, on The Dead Man's Turn Me On, Dead Man show on Live365, where it's heard every Friday at noon eastern time, as well as Mr. Atavist's Sunrise Ocean Bender show, heard every Monday from 1 to 3 am eastern, on WRIR in Richmond, VA.

-valis Pick of the Week

Hail Voyagers! Back with a new Pick from a band who are no strangers at all to these pages. They've had a prior Pick of the Week and one of their members has plunged headlong into the abyss of the 10 Questions survey .

From New Hampshire comes the latest album from Mmoss , Only Children, out now on Trouble In Mind Records , who says:

From the damp and misty woods of New Hampshire emerges the second full length from psychedelic jam warriors MMOSS. The minute we heard the band's 2011 debut on Burger Records they immediately rocketed to the front of our release "wish list". Recorded by the band themselves at home "Only Children" is everything we could have hoped for.

MORE INFO >
The songs swirl and shimmer as the vocals waver and glide together like the trippiest acid test light show. 'Only Children' is a decidedly heavier trip than the debut album paring down the sheer number of tracks in favor of expanded blasts of musical mayhem. 'War Sux' has the motoric kraut of modern acts like Cave while 'Marty Hills' lays down the drone and hand drum a'la Swedish hippies 'Parson Sound'. That being said, MMOSS hasn't lost their pop sensibility - 'Another Day' and 'Another Dream' take you (literally) from mono to stereo with cascading vocal harmonies so sweet, you won't even notice that the hooks have already sunken in. Their vocal interplay affirms an affection for the group vocal stylings of 60's west coast acts like The Rose Garden, Comfortable Chair & The Peanut Butter Conspiracy, taking their melancholic & bittersweet recollections and bringing them to a plugged-in generation. MMOSS is the sound of hippies that took the brown acid and liked it. Live free or die. The vinyl edition of "Only Children" is pressed on 150gram, randomly mixed vinyl & includes an 18 x 24 poster, & download code.

Me, I'm going with: ridiculously laden with great tracks showing off their capabilities in coming at your mind from different touchstones of this nebulous thing we love as psychedelia; "War Sux," as mentioned above is an astonishing ride on a motorik chassis, while opener "Spoiled Sun" has been in my headphones for so long it seems an old friend already. No sophmore slump this effort, far from it. Like the distance from where you sit to Aldebaran. Dead cert' for Top 10-20 Lists everywhere, if they manage to hear it. imho. (Oh, and abso' no knock on the Tame Impala lovers out there but why you're not falling all over THIS band beggars my rather large belief skills.)

Go on then, give 'em a listen!

Hail Mmoss! Forever!

***
You can listen to the archived stream here ; or, hear it this Friday, on The Dead Man's Turn Me On, Dead Man show on Live365, where it's heard every Friday at noon eastern time, as well as Mr. Atavist's Sunrise Ocean Bender show, heard every Monday from 1 to 3 am eastern, on WRIR in Richmond, VA.

-valis Pick of the Week

Hail Voyagers! Our Pick this week is already one week old, having established a hold on cortical systems the world over via Domino Records: Liverpool's own masked psych'sters Clinic !

The album, titled Free Reign, is yet another in an already established canon of quality musical ideas esteemed by those who know. (One wonders how many more albums we may get from the lads given this "state of the state" interview with Ade. ) His surrealist slur is in full gale on this outing, though maybe my tuning apparatus has got better or he's toned down the slur. He's damnably understandable. No less menacing though.



The band have also scheduled themselves to be in Austin, Texas, for the 2013 model Psych Fest !
Five months, four days...launch modules being prepared.

Toss that apple a day and get thee to a Clinic. You've got Free Reign!

***
You can listen to the archived stream here ; or, hear it this Friday, on The Dead Man's show on Live365 - here , where it's heard every Friday at noon eastern time, as well as Mr. Atavist's Sunrise Ocean Bender show, heard every Monday from 1 to 3 am eastern, on WRIR in Richmond, VA.

-valis Pick of the Week

Hail Voyagers y viajero! Our Pick this week calls Barcelona, Spain, home. (We call it one of the coolest cities on the planet.) Celestial Bums have released their self-titled debut with four tracks of pure pineal extract. (Decidedly not an EP, as this one clocks in at near 40 minutes.)

Try it at their Bandcamp page . Comprised of:
Japhy Ryder: Vocals & Guitar
David InFurs: Guitar
Charlie "fuzz" Segura: Guitar & Keyboards
Augusto J. Marchetti: Drums & Percussion
Lotte Blum: Backing Vocals, Keyboards & Percussion

Here's a great video done by our brother-in-psychedelia, bloodmeridian, of their track "The Starry Night"...

***

You can listen to the archived stream here or, hear it this Friday, on The Dead Man's Turn Me On, Dead Man show on Live365, where it's heard every Friday at noon eastern time, as well as Mr. Atavist's Sunrise Ocean Bender show, heard every Monday from 1 to 3 am eastern, on WRIR ; in Richmond, VA.

-valis Pick of the Week

Hail Voyagers! Our Pick, this week, comes from the borough of Brooklyn, New York:
Prince Rupert's Drops ! Their album, Run Slow, is out on the newly-created Beyond Beyond is Beyond label, headed by good man/good friend Mike Newman.

The band's bio:

At the inspired urging of original bassist Brad Truax (Home, Dan Melchior's Broke Revue, Interpol, to name a few) the somewhat secretive Prince Ruperts Drops were formed in the Brooklyn of 2005, comprised of acclaimed comics-artist Leslie Stein (guitar, vox), fellow former Broke Revue-er Bruno Meyrick-Jones (guitar, vox), and former Osprey Steve McGuirl (drums, percussion). The band soon drew comparisons to the likes of The Groundhogs & Captain Beefheart- a sound that quickly developed and broadened to accommodate the emerging song-writing styles of each member. Following Brad's departure in 2008 to focus on high-end tour-managing, the band were joined by longtime friend and multi-talented bass-player Chad Laird (Land of Tomorrow, Jantar), thus adding another powerful cylinder to the songwriting engine. Their increasingly versatile and engaging approach has won them occupying support slots for acts broad in scope as psychedelic noiseniks Black Dice to country rockers Oakley Hall (to whom Steve has lent his talents on occasion). In 2012 PRD has been joined on stage and in the studio by another longtime-friend and former guest-musician, synthesizer-sorceress Kirsten Nordine (Jantar), turning the musical feast into a rich sonic banquet set to wow the ears of one and all.

 

So, what do they sound like? Try this !

The album drops next Tuesday, November 13th, but pre-orders are being taken. Now.

 

( Also, there's a great show of theirs on NYC Taper, here )

 

***

You can listen to the archived stream herehttp://kdhx.org/play/radio-shows/trip-inside-this-house">here

>; or, hear it this Friday, on The Dead Man's Turn">http://www.turnmeondeadman.net/">Turn Me On, Dead Man show on Live365, where it's heard every Friday at noon eastern time, as well as Mr. Atavist's Sunrise">http://mratavist.wordpress.com/the-sunrise-ocean-bender/">Sunrise Ocean Bender show, heard every Monday from 1 to 3 am eastern, on WRIRhttp://www.wrir.org/">WRIR> in Richmond, VA.

 

 

-valis Pick of the Week

Hail Voyagers! WOW! Have we got a Pick for you this week! None other than psychedelic guitar god Gary Ramon -under the banner of the mighty Sun Dial , are set to release their latest, titled Mind Control !

After a couple of runs through the Sennheisers I was thinking Gary must've been on a long krautrock kick prior to these sessions; sounds like Can & Ash Ra Tempel on a few, especially the nearly-nine minute title track! (Speaking of the sessions, it's been published on several of the online record distribution sites that none other than Hugo Chavez-Smith was brought back in to helm the production. He who did same for the now-classic, must-have/must-hear Other Way Out!

Nothing but raucous applause here for a group who've been at it for a long time and still make us happy they are!

TRACKLISTING:


01. MOUNTAIN OF FIRE & MIRACLES

02. RADIATION

03. BURNED IN

04. MIND CONTROL

05. LAST RAYS OF THE SUN

06. IN EVERY DREAM HOME A HEARTACHE

(No YouTube/SoundCloud/Bandcamp, etc., page exists. You can -and should, give a listen to the streaming archive of my show from today at KDHX. Link below.)   *** You can listen to the archived stream here; or, hear it this Friday, on The Dead Man's Turn Me On, Dead Man show on Live365, where it's heard every Friday at noon eastern time, as well as Mr. Atavist's Sunrise Ocean Bender show, heard every Monday from 1 to 3 am eastern, on WRIR in Richmond, VA.

-valis Pick of the Week

Hail Voyagers!

There was really no contest this week. None whatsoever. As I see it, (and the way you should as well, imho,) the very fact there's a new release unleashed on us by this week's Pick is cause for international celebration. Add to that the label which has chosen to release said music and you & I are doubly-blessed.

The Chemistry Set have just released a double-A side 7" single, coloured vinyl (!), on the Fruits De Mer subsidiary Regal Crabomophone this past Saturday, October 13th!

Compromised of two fantastic originals and an astonishing cover version, David Mclean and Paul Lake have once again demonstrated it ain't what you do, it's how you do it. And they do it very well. They belong in that pantheon which counts bands such as Plasticland, The Rain Parade, The Grip Weeds and Green Pajamas among their ranks. Venerated. Venerable. Valued.  
As I said, upon hearing a demo' version of Time to Breathe...."sounding like Sun, Moon, Stars-era Love & Rockets backed by The Rain Parade...........timeless.........an instant classic............"



Add to that their updated remake/remodel of Tomorrow's Hallucinations, yet another in a line establishing they're true students and fans of the genre:





You should need no further convincing. Get to Fruits De Mer as this is another assured sold-out item. Also:
"To make the new single even more lovely, not only does it come in 2 colours of vinyl and a beautiful gatefold sleeve but 100 lucky people will get a glossy autographed postcard inside the single."

***

You can listen to the archived stream here; or, hear it this Friday, on The Dead Man's Turn Me On, Dead Man show on Live365, where it's heard every Friday at noon eastern time, as well as Mr. Atavist's Sunrise Ocean Bender show, heard every Monday from 1 to 3 am eastern, on WRIR in Richmond, VA.

-valis Pick of the Week

Hail Voyagers! We're going way out, musically and locale-wise, for our Pick this week: (their words here)  a collective who hail from a small and very remote village called Korpolombolo in deepest darkest Sweden. Goat!
Their album, World Music, is out on Rocket Recordings, the Bristol-based label with a long line of tasteful stormbringers and hazmat musical offerings.

Sounding like a collision between Ofo & The Black Company and Fela Kuti, (ca. '75 and "Expensive Shit"), with some Bunalim thrown in for good measure, they've seemingly spent their youth collecting exotic instrumentation and hoarding it for the right moment in this space-time continuum to unleash this hybridization of distilled strange upon us. (All the more reason to hole up near the top of the planet.) That terrarium with their Bufo seems to be keeping the toad quite warm enough.

For those of us in the U.S. the CD & LP are available via Forced Exposure , and Rocket handles the rest.

Turn off your heater, watch an endless loop of the Northern Lights and put THIS ON!

***

You can listen to the archived stream here; or, hear it this Friday, on The Dead Man's Turn Me On, Dead Man show on Live365, where it's heard every Friday at noon eastern time, as well as Mr. Atavist's Sunrise Ocean Bender show, heard every Monday from 1 to 3 am eastern, on WRIR in Richmond, VA.

-valis Pick of the Week

Hail Voyagers! And, Hail Chicago!!! Unsure if the city is getting quite the international due, (let alone within the borders of the U.S.,) but it's always had its own share of psychedelic bands throughout the years.

So, today we celebrate by recognizing yet another great band from the Windy City: The Luck of Eden Hall !
Messrs. Curvey, Lofgren, Mendoza, and Licka have recently released their fifth (? by my count) album, Alligators Eat Gumdrops , this past August.

The album proves, to these ears, they're solidly built for inner space flights at high altitudes. Opener "High Heeled Flippers" provides the right amount of trickery to let you know you're in for an aural treat, which is further confirmed with second track "Bangalore." Sitars wafting, guitars ablaze. And crunchy. Later on The Luck of.., pay their own homage, (a trend this year seemingly,) to the mysteries of absinthe in their "Green Faery." Perhaps my favorite track, "A Carney's Delerium", seems to bring to mind so many of my favorite bands in the genre, and that's no small feat as I have hundreds.





Also, if you find yourself in Chicago next week, The Luck of Eden Hall are playing The Burlington next Thursday, October 11th. Dtop in and say "High?"

***
You can listen to the archived stream here; or, hear it this Friday, on The Dead Man's Turn Me On, Dead Man show on Live365, where it's heard every Friday at noon eastern time, as well as Mr. Atavist's Sunrise Ocean Bender show, heard every Monday from 1 to 3 am eastern, on WRIR in Richmond, VA.

-valis Pick of the Week

Hail Voyagers! Our Pick this weeks comes from the banks of the Mersey, Liverpool to be exact: The Balcony Stars ! Their debut album, The Sound Of The Balcony Stars , is a whirlwind of '60s sound meets '00's production, with a sprinkling of the '80s sound which brought us all another Liverpudlian band of some reknown - Echo & The Bunnymen.

The band lineup is: ALAN SULLIVAN - VOCALS,MARIMBAS ,MELLOTRON, ... ANDY PRINGLE - GUITAR ,BASS , TAMBOURINE,STYLOPHONE ... TONY ALLESIS - DRUMS .... GARY THOMAS - GUITAR, ENGINEER , ATMOSPHERICS, TEA MAKING ,CIGGIE ROLLING ,TAXIING...

Mr. Sullivan doing his damnedest to bring forth the memory of Ian Mc' on this track especially:



...and a taste of their own style:



As a "name your price" disc this one is probably worth double whatever you're thinking. Give their bandcamp link a try, above, and hear for yourself what I'm so excited about. A certified band to watch!

***
You can listen to the archived stream here; or, hear it this Friday, on The Dead Man's Turn Me On, Dead Man show on Live365, where it's heard every Friday at noon eastern time, as well as Mr. Atavist's Sunrise Ocean Bender show, heard every Monday from 1 to 3 am eastern, on WRIR in Richmond, VA.

-valis Pick of the Week

Hail Voyagers and happy Tuesday once again! (The planet is flying!)

Our Pick this week comes from the New England area of the U.S., Boston specifically, in the form of Magic Shoppe! No strangers to this blog or its readers, they opened the Summer salvo of psychedelia on our 2011, Vol. IV, compilation . Their new EP, titled Triangulum Australe , is now available via their Bandcamp page with an assist from the evr-growing pulsating brain that is Toronto's Optical Sounds label.

At four tracks it won't wear out any welcome. It might wear out your speakers. Josiah Webb & Co., in the form of Kevin Seidel and Dale Nixon, serve up a fuzz n' reverb'd recipe for your earbuds, your taste buds, and your buds with good taste. (I'm sure there are more angles to this "bud" thing but I'm not going there.)

To wit, try "Shangri-La In Reverse".....



At $4.- it's ridiculously well worth the coins, imho. (Seems less than quite a few other things which are decidedly NOT worth their coins.) Perhaps if enough of us put some in that porcine coin-containment device they'll build a long player next time 'round the Sun. Then we can all say: "..well done voyagers!"

***
You can listen to the archived stream here; or, hear it this Friday, on The Dead Man's Turn Me On, Dead Man show on Live365, where it's heard every Friday at noon eastern time, as well as Mr. Atavist's Sunrise Ocean Bender show, heard every Monday from 1 to 3 am eastern, on WRIR in Richmond, VA.

-valis Pick of the Week

Hail Voyagers! Further explorations of the music we're inclined to has led us to Saarbrücken, Germany, where Sebastian Haas & Christian Berghoff create sounds together as Pretty Lightning !

Their album, There Are Witches in the Woods, is out on Finnish label Fonal Records, (both as a CD and vinyl.) The record, to these ears, seems haunted. Haunted by the spirits of old blues wailers, dusty back rooms and the roads which lead there, the smell of burning wire, and the propulsive effects of drumming dating back to Celtic founding of their city. Compared, quite often, to The Black Keys, perhaps more due to their two-man setup, I do hear the Wooden Shjips/Moon Duo/Dead Meadow comparisons more. Again, by way of propulsion...
Proof? Here or, an overview of the album:



For those who choose to cross this Alte Brücke there'll be no coming back the same way. You've changed.

***
You can listen to the archived stream here; or, hear it this Friday, on The Dead Man's Turn Me On, Dead Man show on Live365, where it's heard every Friday at noon eastern time, as well as Mr. Atavist's Sunrise Ocean Bender show, heard every Monday from 1 to 3 am eastern, on WRIR in Richmond, VA.

-valis Pick of the Week

Hail Voyagers! There's a welter of choice albums dropping today but for the Trip Inside This House crowd I'm recommending Puerto Rico's own Fantasmes ! (No strangers to those who enjoyed last Summer's Vol. IV of the annual Solstice compilation , they contributed the final two tracks on it.)
Their new album, Redness Moon , is out on Last Bummer Records ...

Long-time friends Mario Negrón and Darío Morales have created a hazy, sometimes woozy, document sure to please the hookah and lava lamp crowd, or those on the go. (I know. It hasn't left my vehicle for a few weeks.) Not unlike the palette used by The Sun Blindness, Fantasmes accomplish that same sense of detachment whilst the music itself engages the sparking portions of your brain. To wit, the title track:



I'd stomp along with it but at the risk of spilling my rum..........

New video, too:

Fantasmes - Dance In The Shadows from Last Bummer Records on Vimeo.

Mario answers questions here. Perhaps both, here ....


Bottom line: this one has grit, depth, and a heart full of soul. Perhaps a rubber soul. See how they fly. Try it!

******

You can listen to the archived stream here; or, hear it this Friday, on The Dead Man's Turn Me On, Dead Man show on Live365, where it's heard every Friday at noon eastern time, as well as Mr. Atavist's Sunrise Ocean Bender show, heard every Monday from 1 to 3 am eastern, on WRIR in Richmond, VA.

-valis Pick of the Week

Hail Voyagers! Our Pick this week comes from ancient Pengwern, Shrewsbury, England, to you & I in this current time-stream: Dirty Blonde Asylum ! The work of one man, Jack Chamberlain, he's created a rather damned good EP, self-titled.

Though only five tracks, it still clocks in at around 41 minutes. (Longer than some "LP" releases of late.)
The five tracks don't cheat you either. Jack has an idea of where he wants to go and how to get there, too.
Imagine this guy with a full band and a top-end studio! His FB page hints he's begun work on a new full-length album and it'll pay dividends to keep watching what he's come up with! I am.

Here's the pair I aired on the radio show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYGqXEmpqCY&feature=share&list=ULpYGqXEmpqCY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6AMIyA6SoA&feature=share&list=ULY6AMIyA6SoA

GO JACK! Floreat Salopia!

***
You can listen to the archived stream here; or, hear it this Friday, on The Dead Man's Turn Me On, Dead Man show on Live365, where it's heard every Friday at noon eastern time, as well as Mr. Atavist's Sunrise Ocean Bender show, heard every Monday from 1 to 3 am eastern, on WRIR in Richmond, VA.

-valis Pick of the Week

Hail Voyagers! With one of the strongest albums I've heard all of this year, our Pick this week comes from Dublin, Ireland: House of Dolls ! Their just-released album, titled Welcome To The Department Of Nuclear Medicine , is out on the German label, Noisolution . (Though I'll be damned if I can find it anywhere via their site; there's mention of the band's video but that's it. So far.)

The record? Comes on like a hurricane and leaves like a monsoon...........wet, wild, and full of menacing power. Such as:



or:

A serious tip o' the helmet to Stephen White (Vocals/Bass), Stuart Curran (Guitar), Conor Paxton (Guitar) & Jimmy Cullen (Drums)! Éire go breá !!!

You can listen to the archived stream here; or, hear it this Friday, on The Dead Man's Turn Me On, Dead Man show on Live365, where it's heard every Friday at noon eastern time, as well as Mr. Atavist's Sunrise Ocean Bender show, heard every Monday from 1 to 3 am eastern, on WRIR in Richmond, VA.

-valis Pick of the Week

Hail Voyagers! Our Pick this week are no strangers to those long-time readers of this effluvium we keep posting around here.  From Stockholm, Sweden.......The Janitors ! They're unleashed their new EP, Head Honcho , as a pre-release special NOW, (vs. the intergalactic availability set for August 29th.)

Five tracks of pure pineal extract! This stuff gets straight on top of you! "A-Bow" is a twelve-minute dose that'd make a Bufo Alvarius proud to lick his own head. So are we. For the possession of ears and Sennheisers over 'em! The cover art is no accident. This stuff is propellant for journeys to the depths of your brain circuitry. (Now all we need is for these fine gentlemen to strap themselves in their lab and come out with a full length trip to Aldebaran or somesuch...)





If this isn't enough, they're appearing at the very first Stockholm Psych Fest on September 22nd! With The Dead Skeletons! And Audionom!

Hylla Sverige!!!

You can listen to the archived stream here; or, hear it this Friday, on The Dead Man's Turn Me On, Dead Man show on Live365, where it's heard every Friday at noon eastern time, as well as Mr. Atavist's Sunrise Ocean Bender show, heard every Monday from 1 to 3 am eastern, on WRIR in Richmond, VA.

-valis Pick of the Week

Hail Voyagers! Our Pick this week comes from Santa Cruz, California, (that's "Surf City" to you & me,*) Spanish Moss ! Their debut album, KELP, is out on the cool new label Spot-On Sounds  in translucent pink vinyl.

Six tracks all as tasty as the damned vinyl they've been seared to. That searing then is transferred to your amygdala.....believe it! It's a "Fuzz Puzzle"!



Yes. Like that. Go get some.

More? Here's what Mr. Atavist said. And, that Ape in Revolt.

You can listen to the archived stream here; or, hear it this Friday, on The Dead Man's Turn Me On, Dead Man show on Live365, where it's heard every Friday at noon eastern time, as well as Mr. Atavist's Sunrise Ocean Bender show, heard every Monday from 1 to 3 am eastern, on WRIR in Richmond, VA.

* Huntington Beach's claim as "Surf City USA" notwithstanding.

(The band also claim Brooklyn as a part-time home base for the operations into the swirl-o-sphere. They could be from Vladivostok for all I care.  Or Petaluma.They're still rippin'. Much.)

-valis Pick of the Week

Hail Voyagers! Apologies for the delay in posting but I'm having a devil of a time with this "war for browser ascent." (IE9 sucks; and Google's Chrome -per research, just runs background utilities constantly. I need neither yet they want a decision.) Anyway, our Pick of the Week hails from Portland. Portland, Maine. It's one-man, with help from (a lot of) friends, Jeff Beam.

Jeff's new album, Be Your Own Mirror, is self-described as "kaleidoscope sounds," and he's right. By half. For a home recording, if we're being honest, there are some who are more adept at getting the sounds right AND capturing said sounds. In other words, we hear what he wants us to. More difficult to do than to write. (I'm once again reminded of what for me is a pinnacle of home-recorded albums: Local Honey by The General Store. And stylistically these two aren't that far apart either, less the overall sadness which wrought the album by Tam Johnstone. Jeff's "Now" could fit on Local Honey.) "Lo-fi" may be bandied about a bit too much of late, with what seems to me an incongruous definition. This, in my earholes, is anything but. Full, rich, wide-screened: "kaleidoscopic" indeed. Jeff Beam's the smart guy in the room among all the many home-recorders. Listen to "Existentially Speaking" and tell me that'd be outta' place on The White Album. It's actually an embarrassment of riches that compels multiple listens just for the sheer joy of the craftsmanship. And don't get me started on "Hospital Patience." This is the kind of musician we celebrate and encourage at Trip Inside This House. My sincere applause. You can listen to the archived stream here; or, hear it this Friday, on The Dead Man's Turn Me On, Dead Man show on Live365, where it's heard every Friday at noon eastern time, as well as Mr. Atavist's Sunrise Ocean Bender show, heard every Friday from 3 to 6am eastern, on WRIR in Richmond, VA.