The Fat Angel Sings

We shouldn’t use the term lockdown album too often, but Damien Jurado’s “The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania” is one and it’s a very nice

Damien Jurado came out of nowhere more than twenty years ago and then delivered one beautiful album after another. That’s what the American musician has continued to do, with his music going in all directions. After some great albums with producer Richard Swift, Damien Jurado has been reliant on himself in recent years, which now produces a pretty understated album, although a surprising turn is never far away. The understated sound here and there reminds me of the American musician’s early albums and I like that. The songs are strong, the instrumentation is vocal and the voice of Damien Jurado is very beautiful. Top album. Yet another one from the Seattle musician.

The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania is Damien Jurado’s first release on his own label, Maraqopa Records. The album contains ten intense stories of people determined not to be broken by dire circumstances. The self-produced album is sonically among Damien Jurado’s most exposed, homespun ambiance and inspired by the dry sound of records like Lou Reed’s The Bells and Paul McCartney’s Ram. Jurado creates his own Twilight Zone, “a middle ground between light and shadow”, a dimension of imagination, of half-remembered dreams and people reaching out to cross into that liminal space between heartbreak and wholeness. Jurado knows the territory well and knows the secret words to whisper at the right time. “All is not lost/Even if you’re without a direction.” “Just stick around till the light pushes into the darkness,” Damien promises – or admits – Press your eye to the speaker, tune your ear to the horizon.

Released May 14th, 2021

Written, performed and produced by Damien Jurado
Additional instruments: Josh Gordon

What comes from afar is really not always better, but the beautiful album release “The Licking Of A Tangerine” by the New Zealand-based Jazmine Mary deserves to be cherished. The newsletter of the New Zealand Flying Out Records welcomed The Licking Of A Tangerine a few weeks ago with superlatives and that is not an exaggeration. The Licking Of A Tangerine is a special album musically, but vocally the originally Australian Jazmine Mary goes a step further.

The musician, who now operates from New Zealand, always opts for a slightly different angle and performs her songs not only in a quirky way, but also full of feeling and urgency. It’s an album that keeps getting you wrong, but it’s also mercilessly intruding. Every week I look forward to the newsletter of the New Zealand Flying Out Records, in which pearls from Australia and New Zealand regularly appear, which do not just reach our side of the world.

It started seven years ago with the debut of the then completely unknown Aldous Harding, but also the albums of Marlin’s Dreaming, Mel Parsons, Alae, Tiny Ruins, Jenny Mitchell and Reb Fountain I probably wouldn’t have discovered without Flying Out Records.

A few weeks ago, Jazmine Mary’s “The Licking Of A Tangerine” popped up this is also an album that deserves all the attention on this side of the world, but unfortunately does not get this attention for the time being.

Jazmine Mary is the alter ego of Jazmine Rose Phillips, who grew up in Gippsland, Australia, On her bandcamp page, the Musician based in New Zealand describes her music as a dreamfolk, but she also describes her music as “haunting” and that is certainly her album. The sound on her album consists basically of understated acoustic guitar lines, subtle drums and often some atmospheric synths or piano sounds, but the album is further coloured with saxophones and strings.

Especially when the saxophones claim a prominent role, her music sounds jazzy, but Jazmine Mary is also not averse to rock and folk. In her songs, she doesn’t choose the easiest way for a moment. The song structures are often complex on The Licking Of A Tangerine, while in many cases the instrumentation is striking and multicoloured, but also somewhat minimalistic. Visceral and haunting. Her surreal rose-tinted sounds will allow you to be transported somewhere bold and watery

Jazmine Mary fills the void in instrumentation with her voice, which sounds as unconventional here and there as the music. The vocals on The Licking Of A Tangerine are beautiful, but above all powerful and urgent. Here and there it reminds me vocally of a young PJ Harvey, but musically Jazmine Mary emphatically chooses her own path.
The sounds rich and beautiful, but sounds just as easily rough and elemental.
Especially when listening with the headphones, you can hear how beautifully the different instruments in the sound of Jazmine Mary merge and how the special vocals always take the album to the next level.
In Europe it remains quiet around this fascinating album for the time being, but The Licking Of A Tangerine by Jazmine Mary deserves the attention here too, if only because the album only becomes more beautiful and impressive when listened to repeatedly.

Drums – Courtney Rodgers
Keys and Baritone Saxophone – Peter Ruddell
Strings – Dave Kahn
Alto saxophone – Aaron Lovich
Music written and performed by Jazmine Rose Phillips

Released February 14th, 2021

Manchester-based singer-songwriter, Francis Lung is sharing his new single,“The Let Down” which comes as the latest installment from his forthcoming second album, “Miracle”, set for release via Memphis Industries on June 18th, 2021. The new track comes with a video self-directed by Lung and follows in the wake of previous singles that have found support at the BBC 6 Music Playlist, The Guardian The Times, NPR, FLOOD, Brooklyn Vegan, DIY, The Line of Best Fit and more. The new album was produced by Francis in collaboration with Brendan Williams (Dutch Uncles, Matthew Halsall, Kiran Leonard) and Robin Koob (who co-arranged and performed strings), recorded at the idyllic Giant Wafer Studios in rural Wales in early 2020.

Miracle represents a period of introspection for Francis. Reflecting on struggles with mental health, substance (ab)use, and relationships, the record finds him facing his demons head-on, a cathartic process that largely contributed to his decision to give up alcohol. Despite its serious subject matter, Miracle, is far from austere in sound, marrying the cinematic, dreamlike quality of Francis’s earlier music, both solo and as a member of WU LYF, with the pared-back charm of great singer-songwriters like Judee Sill, Jeff Tweedy, and Elliott Smith (of whom Francis is a noted fan; he co-organised an Elliott Smith online tribute concert in June 2020, a fundraiser for LGBTQ+ charities which featured Smith covers by Marika Hackman, Blaenavon, Marissa Nadler, and others). 

“The Let Down” is positioned as the final track on the forthcoming album; it’s a syrupy, groove-driven addition that is introduced with a dancing piano section before expanding into chopping guitars and emphatic percussion. To an extent, it acts as a celebration and underscoring of what Francis Lung attempts to resolve on Miracle, an album layered with catharsis and Lung’s realisation surrounding his aforementioned problems with alcohol and mental health.

Speaking about the new single, Francis Lung says: “The Let Down’ was written on the piano, originally with a much more conventional vocal melody. I started half-speaking/half-singing the vocal instead and suddenly different words came, words that sounded a bit like my conscience speaking to me – “If you don’t wanna be here no more, then you don’t have to be here no more.” At the time it was just another song, but after the album was finished and I was asking friends for help with track listing, my good buddy Jolan Lewis (The Foetals, Aldous RH) said “The Let Down” HAD to be the final song. Listening in context it was clear he was right, Miracle deals with so much personal stuff throughout and “The Let Down” just seemed to provide a conclusion, like your conscience saying ‘Ok you’ve dealt with all these emotions, now what are you gonna do? Are you where you want to be? Are you waiting patiently? Stop waiting.”

The accompanying video, which features Lung and his co-producer, Brendan Williams, comes inspired by the Classic Albums series which features rock icons like Steely Dan and Fleetwood Mac; it imagines Lung and Williams as 80-year-old men looking back on “The Let Down” with a tongue-firmly-in-cheek view that it was featured on a similar ‘rockumentary’ style TV show. “I actually asked Classic Albums for permission to use the opening titles and theme song,” explains Francis, “but it would’ve cost more than the combined budget for all three music videos for the campaign, so the wonderful Jolan Lewis composed and recorded an original theme song in under an hour (he also plays the alternate guitar solo in the video). I created the ‘Historic Singles’ logo and corresponding opening titles from stock footage and I guess it’s just a waiting game to see if we get sued.“

The keys commence and instantly add this engaging thread to the release, bringing this bold and upbeat bounce to the creation whilst the low-end notes add this brooding attachment. The upbeat inflictions capture this bright infliction and allude to a more poppier trait before Lung’s presence soon dominates and controls the release. Lung’s delicate and dreamy vocal notes enter the ambiance and mesmerize. The lyrics bring this realistic and raw edge to a release that flirts between being fragile and soft to soulful and a gleaming, proud beat and structure. The abrupt melody that surges throughout flawlessly angles the intensity to the forefront of the crushing arrangement. This soulful and charming piece offers an immersive vision and pulls through honest vibes found in the lyrics and delicately relayed with the tender vocal harmonies.

With each release Francis Lung shares we see this remarkable beauty to their vision, which quite frankly only Francis Lung can create and capture. Always providing music that has the ability to compel the audience at all times. The film combined with the lyrics ultimately allow this comical attribute to emit, there is a heavy passage that soars with this ensemble but it’s delivered with such a light intensity that Lung fearlessly allows this real humble character to be captured.

Miracle marks the first full-length release from Francis Lung since his critically acclaimed 2019 debut, A Dream Is U which found positive reviews from Uncut, MOJO, The Times, Paste Magazine, The Line of Best Fit, and more. Prior to that, Lung played as part of the Manchester group, WU LYF, a project which found a wealth of buzz in the early stages of the last decade, attaining Pitchfork’s Best New Music award for Go Tell Fire To The Mountain which was also named in their Top 100 albums of the 2010s. Miracle emerges as a much more focused and deeply personal record for Lung, it’s cohesive and generous in what it aims to give, allowing for something which is as vital as it is vulnerable. “I don’t want to be defined by my anxiety, my depression or any history of substance abuse,” Francis says, “but I do want to reach out to other people who have had similar experiences, especially if it’s in a way that helps them feel a little better. To me, this music is celebrating healing as much as it focuses on the darker sides of the human psyche.”

Miracle is available to pre-order as a very special hand-numbered Dinked edition on mint green vinyl with an alternate mirror board sleeve, “Miracle” patch, and flexi disc including exclusive non-album track “Internet”. Francis Lung will support the new album with dates at The Victoria, London on July 1st and Deaf Institute, Manchester on July 2nd.

Miracle Releases June 18th, 2021

Just half way through 2021 and already Bandicoot has dropped two of the most ferocious singles of the year, now the band are back to share their upcoming single “Worried Blues”, yet again another defining single from this promising outfit. Of the last two tracks the band has shared , One back in February then in April, we screamed from the rooftops that 2021 was the year of Bandicoot, well they’ve certainly owned that statement. The Welsh 4 piece recently joined the impressive Libertino family, that amalgamation alone showcases the talent that Bandicoot conveys. Libertino Records have this remarkable knack for introducing so many talented outfits and their must-hear records.

For Bandicoot “Worried Blues” inhabits a world of paranoia, born from a fear of lost love. It carries you down labyrinthine streets like a nightmarish memory, with a contagious strutting rhythm which never lets you stop moving along with it.” 

Never missing a beat or taking time to catch their breath Bandicoot are back with this impressive single.

For 3 minutes 42 seconds, Bandicoot elevates their audience into the center of their complex creation, filled with rhythmic passages and this overwhelming soundscape of giant proportions packed with abrasive shuffles, dynamic tones, and this daring attitude. “Worried Blues” starts with these dramatic piano keys accompanying the demanding vocal notes that join the ambiance immediately, the minimalist essence soon diminishes when the most ferocious and ardent drum beat and ecstatic shuffles join the exploration. Layer upon layer this mighty landscape welcomes the audience to appreciate the magnitude of the atmosphere, the intensity ramps up with the additional aggressive guitar tone and assertive riff. As the explosive structure develops we find ourselves captivated by the theatrical vocal flourishes of charismatic frontman Underdown, who ensures the audience is truly committed to this immersive arrangement.

The breakdown and instrumentation focus at 2 minutes 1 second will hypnotize you, your attention fixated on the soaring sounds and the mighty tones, the surging instrument addition seemingly employs this bold avant-garde technique to bring a contemporary feel to a sound that can also capture that of an 80s power hit. Bandicoot seriously covers such ample ground within their work. This dynamic and crushing transition showcases this bright stop-start and stellar crescendo. The vocal notes, lyrics, and powerful energy of the instrumentation all encapsulate this true long-lasting credible hit. The continuing appeal of adding in multiple elements, tones, and a flourish of versatile wind instrumentation all add this inspirational character into the ensemble. Throughout, it’s clear that Bandicoot brings this cool vibe to their rock tendencies, “Worried Blues” showcases the band’s unique combination of sonic chaotic complexity and melodic moments.

Girl Ray today share their new single, “Give Me Your Love”, a 7 minute+ electronic odyssey recorded, produced and mixed by Joe Goddard and Al Doyle from Hot Chip, at Relax and Enjoy, London. The track, out now via Moshi Moshi Records, is the first new music from the London three-piece, comprising Poppy Hankin, Iris McConnell and Sophie Moss, since the release of their critically acclaimed second album, “Girl”, in 2019. The accompanying video was directed by long term artistic collaborator Alex Cantouris. 

Poppy said the following about the track, “We worked on this song with Al Doyle and Joe Goddard from Hot Chip in their studio off Brick Lane in London. We had one day left with them, so thought we’d unearth an old demo of a slightly house-leaning song I’d been working on a few months before. It had a really loose structure but the feel of the chords was good so we decided to try fleshing it out. It was a really long day filled with a lot of playing around with the mountains of synths that fill their studio. Sections became longer… steel drums were added (along with some wonky backing vocals) and eventually it started taking shape. With all the awfulness of 2020 in our heads – it was important to us that it sounded optimistic and hopeful; a song for future summers where people can dance and enjoy music together once again.”

About the video, Sophie and Iris added: “We teamed up with our good friend and amazing director Alex Cantouris for another intricate and somewhat ambiguous love spectacle. Though this time we thought that 8 minutes of us acting would probably be unwatchable, so decided to get some professionals involved to deal with the main plot. What started off as a story about a woman having fun at a party, somehow soon turned into a romantic take on Midsommar, without the death and magic mushrooms. A queer Midsommar Night’s Dream if you will. We had the best time making it, and discovered a new found love for the Kent countryside (even though one of the shoot days was literally the windiest day of the year).”

Give Me Your Love pulls the audience into a world that emerges with it’s bright textures and crisp angular tone, a piercing tone that intensifies as the composition digresses further into its innovative journey. This complex track continues to build and build throughout its journey, providing this immersive rhythmic creation. Deep electronic textures exude this powerful hypnotic charm bouncing from the formidable structure.

Meanwhile, the dreamy vocal notes touch on some real emotions and raw affections within the intimate, reflective lyrics. The abundance of percussive elements against the honest lyrical values continues to twist and turn throughout and provides this bold contrast to the plentiful landscape. Intimacy resonates within the vibrant and moving atmosphere. This is ruly a pulsating number beaming with sweet melodies and this enthralling jolt of energy.

Girl Ray have just dropped one of their biggest, broadest and boldest tracks of their career “Give Me Your Love” .

Half Waif, the project of Hudson Valley, NY-based artist Nandi Rose, shares “Sodium & Cigarettes,” the hopeful and haunting new single from her anticipated upcoming album ‘Mythopoetics’,out July 9th on ANTI-Records.
 
“Sodium & Cigarettes’ follows the theme of many of the tracks on “Mythopoetics” and deals with the recognition that no one is going to magically save us or pull us out of our misery. The chorus ‘okay, give it another day’ is something I say to myself when I’ve had a really awful day and everything feels like a wash. It’s a deep breath and a stab at courage I can face tomorrow, and who knows what possibilities for joy and growth that will bring,” says Rose. “While working on the album during the Democratic Primary in early 2020, the song took on new meaning for me in light of political conversations. “I believe in something more than what’s in front of me” became a commentary on people saying, ‘well, this system is what we’ve got and you can’t ask for more.’ I firmly believe that we have to fight for the world we imagine, that everything is possible. So this song is really a quiet encouragement for me, a way to tell myself to stop running, to face what’s coming with clarity and vision and courage, to know there’s another tomorrow.“

Half Waif twists this tentative and intimate affection within their soaring vocal harmonies and their raw lyrics. Half Waif’s triumphant vocal notes collide with the traditional keys forming a structure within. Allowing another avenue of emotion to seep into this immersive creation. The enveloping harmonies that surround the ambiance will send chills, Half Waif has this flawless ability to stop their audience in their tracks with their standout arrangements. The power of this artist carefully breaks out at key parts of this consuming creation. When the release fades out, we sit with the silence and think about the beautiful body of work that just hypnotized us and took us away from reality. Embrace the fragility of “Sodium & Cigarettes” and from there you grasp the delicacy.

Last month, Half Waif announced her anticipated new album ‘Mythopoetics’, with a video for lead single “Swimmer” following tracks “Orange Blossoms” Party’s Over” and “Take Away The Ache” all of which were released earlier this year. 

For Nandi Rose, writing a song is an act of transformation. As Half Waif, Rose pieces together the patchworks of our darkest and most vulnerable moments with a golden thread, crafting a majestic evocation of the human experience that permeates with a graceful strength. On new album ‘Mythopoetics’, she breaks the familial patterns handed down to her, transforming this source of pain into something bearable, beautiful and celebratory. It is an essential reminder that we have the power to shape the stories we tell and the myths we make of our lives.

‘Mythopoetics’ is an album about processing past traumas in the quest for a new, sun dappled pathway, and the transformation that takes place as we take each tentative step. The artwork, shot by Ali Cherkis, sees Rose screaming in bright colours on the front, and naked, with a stoic expression on the back, representing the spectrum of emotions explored throughout each track. Change, evolution and joy take real courage, and it’s in the catharsis of telling your story that the calm, confident aftermath can finally reach the surface. Here, Half Waif is shunning the shadowed mass of generational trauma and the patterns passed down to her. Instead, she plants a seed, urging the orange blossom to sprout through the cracks in the concrete.

How many bands out there only write good songs? There can’t be many. Back when they were still a Gainesville band, UV-TV cranked out two insanely solid albums of ultra-catchy DIY jams. The band never fit into any particular mold; they were pop-punk and garage rock and twee all at once, and their sound fit the sonic blueprint of the ’90s DIY underground more than the present-day one. Maybe that’s why they’ve persistently flown under the radar despite insane levels of consistency. For their third album, UV-TV have relocated from Gainesville to Queens. They’ve lost a couple of band members and brought in a new drummer. They’ve changed their sound, going for something slower and sleeker than the fired-up attack of their early records. And they still refuse to write any songs that are anything less than good.

On their new self-produced LP Always Something, UV-TV lean into the sticky, tuneful jangle of some of the best bands from the late-’80s and early-’90s UK indie scene. In their woozy layers of guitar and their sticky hooks, I hear echoes of the Pastels or the Primitives or the House Of Love. There’s some of the stuff I used to hear on late-night DC alt-rock radio in there, too, like Velocity Girl or Tuscadero. UV-TV presumably know those references, and they’ve got a clear affection for bands from that era; the last thing that they put out before starting up the Always Something album rollout was Jesus And Mary Chain Cover. But all those bands were making albums out of their record collections, too, so maybe UV-TV are simply tapping into some eternal out-of-time sense of indie-pop wistfulness a feeling that’s existed in music for longer than indie-pop itself.

Singer and bassist Rose Vastola has one of those effortlessly cool voices, a breezy deadpan that’s still capable of conveying great longing or exhilaration when the moment calls for it. She can sound elegantly bored, and she can also make the state of elegant boredom sound fun, a rare gift. Guitarist Ian Bernacett surrounds that voice with riffs that sparkle and soar. It would probably be overstating things to say that his waves of sound evoke Johnny Marr, but that’s who I think of when I focus on them. Just as important, UV-TV songs always have a beat. They shimmy. The songs have hooks, and they have a vibe, too a buzzy giddiness that keeps up even when the band slows down.

On past records, UV-TV have led with pop-punk bangers that eventually give way to dream-pop lullabies. That structure is still in place on Always Something, but the two sides of the band’s sound are a little more integrated with one another. The faster songs on Always Something sounds more smooth and contemplative and melodically rich, while the slower ones sound more locked-in. Everything hangs together.

Always Something isn’t going to change your life. The stakes here aren’t that high. It’s a short album, over in less than half an hour. None of the lyrics have grabbed me by the collar and shaken me around yet. Some of the songs blur into one another a bit, though I maintain that “Back To Nowhere” would be a straight-up hit in a more just world. The pleasures here are familiar, comforting. Rather than challenging you, UV-TV sound like they’re trying to make a bunch of songs that will sound amazing on a sunny day when you’ve got your car windows down. That’s a noble goal, and they’ve succeeded brilliantly. There are nine songs on Always Something. None of them are bad. All of them are good. The streak continues.

“Always Something” is out 5/28 on Paper Cup Music.

Between 1967 AND 1972, Kaleidoscope were one of the most adventurous, and intriguing, bands on the U.K. psych scene as they morphed into prog, folk and a wealth of other structures. Formed by Peter Daltrey (vocals), Eddy Pumer (guitar), Steve Clark (bass, flute) and Danny Bridgman (drums), the band had already been through a couple of name changes before settling upon Kaleidoscope, and they would undergo one more, to Fairfield Parlour, before breaking up.

Signed initially to Fontana Records before shifting to the label’s prog imprint Vertigo, Kaleidoscope/Fairfield Parlour released some of the most glorious records of the era, three albums and a clutch of glorious 45s — “Flight From Ashiya,” “A Dream for Julie,” “Jenny Artichoke,” “Bordeaux Rose” and “Emily.” They’ve also just been remembered by a new compilation, “Sky Children: The Best of Kaleidoscope & Fairfield Parlour”.

They are best known, however, as the makers of three of the most collectible albums of the age: Tangerine Dream, Faintly Blowing and From Home to Home. And therein, as Daltrey says, lies a dilemma.

“I saw a copy of Tangerine Dream recently, an original, and it sold for over 2,000 pounds,” he said. “It’s crazy, and it’s of no benefit to the band whatsoever. A lot of the time, you think it’s just an investment for somebody, because they’re never going to play it. Would you play a 2,000 pound record? I’d scratch it. I’d drop the needle on it, and that would be the end of it.”

The album is not alone in its stratospheric value. “Faintly Blowing” and “From Home to Home“, too, have been known to attract four-figure sums. But, as Daltrey rightly puts it, “all that indicates is that we sold so bloody few that they are that rare. Records are only that expensive because you didn’t sell any. That’s why they’re fetching the prices they are, not primarily because people love the music, but it’s because they’re so rare because we didn’t sell any.”

And that is one of the marvels of the band’s history. Not once but twice, they hung on the very precipice of a major commercial step forward. And both times, it all fell apart at the last minute.

“ ‘Jenny Artichoke’ was a hit record,” says Daltrey. From the moment he and Pumer played the song to producer Dick Leahy, “there’s no doubt whatsoever that it was going to be big. Ed and I were writing all the time, we never stopped, so we’d ring Dick and say, ‘Oh, we got a couple of new songs,’ and he’d be ‘come in, come in, don’t hang about.’ So we’d jump on the tube up to the office and play him stuff, and he’d invariably like most of it. When we played him ‘Jenny Artichoke,’ he booked the studio for that same night!

“We worked bloody hard on it over a couple of days or more, and when we finished, we all looked at one another and said, ‘Bloody hell, that’s a hit record, and the radio … because it was so limited in those days … they never stopped playing it. You could literally walk down the street and hear window cleaners whistling the thing.

“But the distribution arm of Fontana was absolute rubbish. They never got on board, they never got in tune with anybody else. It was never in the shops, and it didn’t get the sales.”

They say lightning doesn’t strike twice. Daltrey would disagree with that. Two years later, now Fairfield Parlour, the band suffered the same stultifying misfortune with that band’s debut single.

“Bordeaux Rose’ we were on Top of the Pops with that when that was virtually the only decent music TV show there was. And, or so we were told, if you appeared on Top of the Pops, you were guaranteed a 10, 11, 12 place jump up the chart, purely from that one appearance. We were in the lower reaches, slumbering around down there. We did the show, and it disappeared the following week.

“There is something wryly ironic about that, but it doesn’t help at the time. You’re eagerly plowing through the music papers the following week, and nothing’s happened, and then you begin to wonder what went wrong. I can laugh about it now, I’ve had a whole life since then, we were only a band for eight years or something, and life’s been great. But you can’t help looking back and thinking what if.”

What if is one thing; what now is another? For years, Kaleidoscope’s memory lurked in the darkest of dark corners. Occasionally, during the 1980s, a bootleg repress of one or other of the albums would reappear within the psychedelic revival of the time, and the same era’s explosion of interest in the Vertigo label saw Fairfield Parlour’s name get mentioned more than it had been.

They began turning up on psych compilations The 49 Minute Technicolour Dream, The British Psychedelic Trip, The Rubble Collection and, around the turn of the century, a two-CD collection that paired From Home to Home with the unreleased White Faced Lady concept album that marked the band’s final flourish in 1973. The mid-1990s saw Daltrey alone take a step back into the studio, releasing the English Roses CD, the first of a dozen solo albums released over the next 20 years.

And in the midst of that, in 2011, Kaleidoscope came back. “Some guy in California decided to invite me back onstage, it gave me a whole second bash at it, and when you’re not reliant on it, no illusions, nothing to prove, you can enjoy it.

“His name was Neil Martinson, out in San Francisco. He was friendly with a lot of local musicians and, out of the blue, he wrote and asked if Kaleidoscope would come over and do some shows. I wrote back and said, ‘I’m sorry, Steve’s passed on and we haven’t played together for a while, so we can’t do it.’

“A couple of months later, he wrote back and asked, ‘Are you sure?’ And I said no because I’d already asked Eddie and Danny, and neither of them were in good health at the time, so they both turned it down. So when Neil called, I said, ‘There’s only me,’ and I thought that would be an end to it. Instead, he said, ‘Well, you come over. I’ve got a band here of really keen Kaleidoscope fans who would love to play with you, and I said, ‘No, no no.’

“But afterwards, my wife asked who was on the phone, and I told her about it and she said if you don’t do it, you’ll regret it forever, and it’s so true. I’d have been kicking myself now if I hadn’t. I was working with fabulous musicians, really enthusiastic guys, they were playing these songs note perfect.”

The first gigs, around California, took place in 201l; two years later, the band played across the country before finishing up at an Austin Psych fest and, over the years that followed, Daltrey and a reborn Kaleidoscope continued gigging both in the U.S. and U.K. In fact, there’s a glimpse of one performance, two songs from a London show in 2017, included in the new compilation.

Daltrey admits, “The actual compilation has nothing to do with me whatsoever. That was Roger at the label (Beyond Before) who put it together. It’s a best-of and we’ve never had one before, so I didn’t really know what to expect. From an artist’s point of view, when we made an album, we were very closely involved with the running order, so you gave the right mood of the record all the way through, certainly on From Home to Home, and then obviously White Faced Lady had to be in the order it was. So to see them all splattered across the CD is a bit of a shock. But it doesn’t matter, because that’s what people want when they dip in. It’s aimed at an audience who haven’t got the faintest idea who we are.”

It should change that scenario. Most of both bands’ best is on board, 16 songs plus a 1964 demo from The Sidekicks days, plus another five tracks on the DVD portion of the package. Which, Daltrey agrees, thrills him as much as it will delight the band’s existing fans.

“We didn’t do much television, and the Top of the Pops performance was wiped years ago. But Roger found a French broadcast that we did (October 1967), so you get that, and there’s also three terrible miming ones that we did for Beat Club in Germany (October 1970), and that was another shock to the system when I found out they never actually broadcast it. And then he needed something else, so he put on some fan footage from one of the live shows in 2017.

“My biggest regret was, we actually filmed a promo film for ‘A Dream for Julie’ (Kaleidoscope’s second single, in 1968). People weren’t really doing that for singles being released at the time, but the company obviously wanted to get behind it a bit more, so we made the film. But again, that was never shown, we never saw it, and we can find no trace of it either.”

There’s no point, however, in dwelling on what we didn’t get (“Jenny Artichoke” is missing from the CD as well). From a casual listener’s point of view, Sky Children could have been twice the length and still not outstayed its welcome. From a fan’s point of view, maybe it’s just the first shot in what we really want: remastered reissues of the original albums, a box set with rarities a-flowing — oh, the sky’s the limit if this thing takes off.

Daltrey’s solo career, too, deserves a fresh listen. It’s a decade since we even saw a best-of his lone prolusions (2011’s King of Thieves), and if pulling all that together sounds time-consuming — well, the U.K.’s still in lockdown. What better time to start? Daltrey laughs. “I keep busy. We did a seven-mile walk today, which was pleasant, and we try to keep active, we don’t sit around drinking or watching TV. I’m always busy on the computer, though, because I do a lot of design work, and I fiddle around with various projects. The lockdown itself is pretty boring, but it can’t be helped.” 

The latest track from T. Hardy Morris, “Shopping Center Sunsets,” below. His forthcoming album, The Digital Age of Rome, is due out June 25th. 

“Morris effortlessly paints a picture that could describe any number of dying shopping centers in America, deploying simple yet evocative imagery of “car title cash regrets” and “bad gringo Tex-Mex,” all delivered through Morris’ psychedelia-tinged country. The result is darkly funny but depressingly accurate in its vision of the end stages of modern consumerism. All that’s left after decades of corporate greed are empty strip malls and shopping center sunsets

Heading into the spring of 2020, T. Hardy Morris had 12 demos that he thought would make-up his next album, then, everything changed.  The world took a break and so his plans to record did as well. As we all watched and waited out the storms; viral and societal, we seemed to wake up scrolling through a whole new century, a time Morris began to refer to as The Digital Age of Rome.

He scrapped the demos and began a collection of songs in quarantine where the unprecedented times and topics were unavoidable. He wanted to document the era sonically and lyrically in some way.

“I wanted it to sound like how the world felt to me in the second half of 2020. Uncomfortable and chaotic, dystopian but still beautiful.”

The Digital Age of Rome was recorded at Tweed Recording in a deserted downtown Athens, Ga. With long-time collaborator / producer Adam Landry.

‘The Digital Age of Rome’ (Out June 25, 2021)