Clouddead - Clouddead

Culled from a series of limited 10" releases, Clouddead's eponymous debut isn't so much a fully formed album as it is a well-executed exercise in seasick, proggist psychedelia. With background textures that rival Boards of Canada in pastoral, tree-lined opacity and an obvious predilection for boggy atmospherics, Clouddead handily distances themselves from the rest of their hip-hop brethren. Indeed, this is something more considered and sinister -- less about wayward braggadocio than it is about keeping your doors deadbolted at all hours of the night. Even their less-is-more approach to vocalism eventually starts playing tricks on your mind; when lyricists Dose and Why? emerge, it's usually to puncture the pleasant fog of some dulcet, wavering sample. The whole album reads like that; the sonic equivalent of your first legitimate drug trip as narrated by two jittery but triumphant kids who can't bear to keep their choice hiding place a secret any longer. While it's perhaps a tad overlong, Clouddead doesn't suffer from any shortage of great ideas. It's menacing, it's enthralling, and it's one of few modern-day records (hip-hop or otherwise) that honestly doesn't sound like anything -- or anyone -- else.

(Clouddead - Clouddead)

XTC - Skylarking

Working with producer Todd Rundgren didn't necessarily bring XTC a sense of sonic cohesion -- after all, every record since English Settlement followed its own interior logic -- but it did help the group sharpen its focus, making Skylarking its tightest record since Drums and Wires. Ironically, Skylarking had little to do with new wave and everything to do with the lush, post-psychedelic pop of the Beatles and Beach Boys. Combining the charming pastoral feel of Mummer with the classicist English pop of The Big Express, XTC expand their signature sound by enhancing their intelligently melodic pop with graceful, lyrical arrangements and sweeping, detailed instrumentation. Rundgren may have devised the sequencing, helping the record feel like a song cycle even if it doesn't play like one, but what really impresses is the consistency and depth of Andy Partridge's and Colin Moulding's songs. Each song is a small gem, marrying sweet, catchy melodies to decidedly adult lyrical themes, from celebrations of love ("Grass") and marriage ("Big Day") to skepticism about maturation ("Earn Enough for Us") and religion ("Dear God"). Moulding's songs complement Partridge's songs better than before, and each writer is at a melodic and lyrical peak, which Rundgren helps convey with his supple production. The result is a pop masterpiece -- an album that has great ambitions and fulfills them with ease.

(XTC - Skylarking)

Linda Perhacs - Parallelograms

The history of rock music is filled with one-hit wonders and debut albums left without a follow-up. Most of those just had the fate they deserved, some were the results of early disbanding or mismanagement. Linda Perhacs' Parallelograms belongs to none of those categories. The singer/songwriter spent all her inspiration on this gem, simple as that. It sits there on the shelf, a life's compendium, stunning in its beauty and the fact that no later albums can frame it in a historical context, or diminish its impact. Softer, less declamatory than Joan Baez, more daring than Joni Mitchell, Perhacs' songs are psychedelic on a daily, domestic basis. Originally released in 1970, the album had been lifted from the LP and reissued on CD by The Wild Places in 1996. Informed by the female singer/songwriters of the late '60s, and the sonic experiments of the West Coast psychedelic scene (just listen to the title track, its abstract lyrics and beautiful, intertwined atonal melodies), Perhacs has created 40 minutes of music out of time.

(Linda Perhacs - Parallelograms)

purchases

From SoundFix in Brooklyn, again:

Byrds - Fifth Dimension
Smith, Patti - Horses
Siouxsie and the Banshees - The Best of

Coming soon: discards...