Saturday 9 July 2022

Silver Biplanes - Parallel World

Parallel World is Forever Changes mariachi psychedelia meets bewitching English folk. When they pressed record, the sun was setting, home made wine had been drunk and whatever they're smoking wasn't sold over the counter. An instant hit (the music, not what the band were taking).

Think Again elevates the rarefied atmos to, well, let's call it Cosmic English Music. Because they remind me most of Red Chair Fadeaway, once of the Cosmic English Music stable, who numbered the Biplanes Tim Vass, now joined by Vanessa Turner, ex-Melons.

So you know there's pop pedigree, but this is something new (as well as being something old). It's a lathe cut so search auction houses for your fix, or just buy the songs from bandcamp. There's an album next year, and on the basis of these tasters it's going to be pretty sweet.

Friday 8 July 2022

番長 Taste - Passed Out In Petals

Can a 3-minute instrumental be epic? Yes, yes it can. This is an interpretation of the US underground where grunge never happened, the SST and Homestead labels are the gold standard and those early Guided By Voices albums are scripture.

Passed Out In Petals is one dirty, nagging riff run through a 10-cent distortion pedal. There's no great mystery, no puzzle to complete: it starts, bulldozes everything in its way, then ends abruptly because it's finished. As you might be. Your only job is to play it again. And again.

You want biography and discography? Unimportant. Apart from they're from New Zealand so I'm sure correctly prefer The Gordons to Sonic Youth, and they're based in Japan. There are other records under other names, but Passed Out In Petals by Taste is the only one that counts now.

On the ever-reliable I Dischi Del Barone label.