The Flaming Lips + Stardeath & White Dwarfs - Borderline

What a fantastic cover. Really looking forward to the Lips' upcoming double album Embryonic, judging by this and the few tracks I've heard from the album they seem to be firing on all cylinders again.

www.mediafire.com/?1kjygj0qude (mp3)

Rachel's - Water From the Same Source

The Beatles Remasters (Stereo/Flac)

Not my uploads. These remasters are incredible, the hairs on the back of my neck have been on end all day.

http://tinypaste.com/d8fa0

Jack Nitzsche - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest OST

Hawaiian-edged melancholia, with several haunting compositions. One of Jim O'Rourke's favourite albums.

hXXp://rapidshare.com/files/124620128/1975_One_Flew_Over_The_Cuckoo_s_Nest_-_Jack_Nitzsche.rar

Nick Drake - Don't Think Twice, It's Alright

I don't know where this recording came from, but I'm picturing a teenage Nick sitting in his bedroom doing endless amazing covers for his own pleasure.

I don't know if this really is Nick Drake or not (there is no known footage of him), but I can't stop watching this clip

Polvo - Beggar's Bowl (new song)

Wow.

Polvo return after more than ten years on hiatus with a mouthwatering taster from the upcoming album In Prism, out in September.

This is Polvo in HD, all jagged shiny guitars and pounding, lean drumbeats. They sound like a new band, oozing belief. If the rest of the album is as good as this, it will be something special.

mp3 available here

Don't Fear the Reaper

Sky Saxon R.I.P.

The Seeds - The Seeds (1966) - hxxp://www.megaupload.com/?d=S7VRD8TQ



Michael Jackson R.I.P.

Off the Wall - hxxp://rapidshare.com/files/113201472/1979_-_Off_the_wall.rar.html

Thriller - hmjp://www.mediafire.com/?aldmdjwgsk2

The Pretty Things - SF Sorrow (1968)

Recorded in Abbey Road in the same period as Sgt. Pepper and Piper at the Gates of Dawn, by Norman "Normal" Smith, this is top-notch British psych with just as much warped imagination to it as the two aforementioned masterpieces, yet done on a far smaller budget.

I just bought the 2003 remaster today and its wonders are still sinking in. I can't believe I've missed out on it all these years. In my ignorance I always had The Pretty Things down as Stones clones, but this is way better than Mick n' Keef's psychedelic efforts.

It came out belatedly in 1968, was barely promoted by EMI, and duly bombed. A big pity.

hxxp://www.megaupload.com/?d=yjtb4igk

Wire - Outdoor Miner

I love Wire, but I really love this song.

mp3

Agitation Free - Malesch (1972)

Agitation Free came from the same late-Sixties West Berlin commune scene as Ash Ra Tempel and Tangerine Dream but never gained the same level of recognition outside their native city as their contemporaries. This, their debut album, was partly recorded on a 1972 tour that took in Egypt, Cyprus and Greece and crackles with inventive, eastern-tinged psychedelia.

Underneath the duelling guitars and spacey, snaky synth-lines of Malesch, trance-like desert rhythms and taped sounds of humid dusky cities weave in and out, leaving you with the feeling you are right there in the smoky, smelly tour van with them.

Parts of this album really remind me of Tortoise's kaleidoscopic, genre-bending Millions Now Living Will Never Die (1996). Gifted musicians having fun, but not at our expense.

If you like this, show them some love on Myspace. There's a good bio there too.

hxxp://rapidshare.com/files/142952148/556-agitationfree-malesch.zip.html


Here's "First Communication" from their follow up album, 2nd.

The Clean : News

After an eight-year silence since their last opus Getaway, one of my most treasured bands of all-time The Clean are returning in September with what is only the fifth album of their stop-start 31-year "career". It is released on Merge, and is titled Mister Pop.

You can download an mp3 called "In the Dream Life You Need a Rubber Soul" here.

Here's a blast of classic Clean, from Unknown Country called "Twist Top".



P.S. Singer David Kilgour has released some damn fine solo stuff over the years, A Feather in the Engine (2001) probably being the high point thus far. His most recent album, a collaboration with poet Sam Hunt, Falling Debris came out in April and is streaming here.

The Clean Myspace

David Kilgour Myspace

Kaki King

Oh my aching sides.

Halfset - Another Way of Being There

Sweet n' lowdown guitar/electronic interplay with perfectly laid back vocals from seemingly happy-under-the-radar Dublin act Halfset.

Myspace

Isan - Gunnera (2006)

If Peter Pan and the Good Fairies were around in 2006, they might have sounded like this.

Peter Pan & The Good Fairies - Kaleidoscope (mp3, 1967)

Discovered this fantastic psych-slice via the ridiculously great music blog Office Naps. This is what DJ Little Danny said to draw me in and make me click that button...

Welcome, strangers, to the chilly, rarified reaches of the stratosphere. There’s no oxygen up here, just the shimmering cosmos and harpsichords and fuzzboxes criss-crossing like satellites.

There are no guitars here, either. As a pure studio concoction, the question of what a group named “Peter Pan & the Good Fairies” might have looked like in performance is gracefully eliminated as well. The futuristic “Kaleidoscope” was in reality the brainchild of Jim “Jimmy” Gordon, a session bassist (I believe) who recorded a few other ‘60s instrumental freakouts on the Challenge label.

This gem was released in 1967.

There's a wealth of rare madness on Office Naps, I strongly advise a rummage.

hxxp://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=822231c7499f15481f8e0fff488e27e0e04e75f6e8ebb871

Evie Sands - I Can't Let Go

Like Dusty Springfield pinning Phil Spector to the floor for 2 minutes.

MP3;

hCCp://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=822231c7499f15481f8e0fff488e27e0e04e75f6e8ebb871

The Darjeeling Limited (OST)

Some fantastic Indian sounds, a few lesser-known Kinks gems, The Stones...and Peter Sarstedt.


hxxp://www.mediafire.com/?0f70omj3ydz

Grand Pocket Orchestra - Ballet Shoes

Ballet Shoes - Grand Pocket Orchestra from Luke Franklin on Vimeo.

I know I keep going on about GPO, but they're deserving of far more attention than they're getting, in Ireland and elsewhere. Hope 2009 is good to them. "Ballet Shoes" is the lead track on their new ep, Make Happy War and is produced by Mario Thaler (The Notwist, Lali Puna). It reminds me of the fast, freewheeling hooks of Boces-era Mercury Rev.

Visit their Myspace to buy their stuff.

Pavement - Watery, Domestic (1992)

Oh, only the best ep of all time.

hXXp://rapidshare.com/files/136611861/Pavement_-_Watery__Domestic.rar

(cd rip @320)

13th Floor Elevators

The jug.

The whole band was compelling and magnificent; from the expressionless head on guitarist Stacy Sutherland (who was shot dead by his wife Bunny in 1978) to the don't-fuck-with-me Texan poise of Roky Erickson, but the key to the greatness of The 13th Floor Elevators will always lie within Tommy Hall's electric jug.


The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators;

hxxp://www.megaupload.com/?d=636D1BLB


Easter Everywhere;

hxxp://rapidshare.com/files/37445238/13th_easter.rar

Shady - Narcotic Candy (mp3) (1994)

David Baker from Mercury Rev's solo project. Narcotic Candy was a 10" single released from his album World. The guitar on this is played by Sooyoung Park from Seam and it's a gorgeous blend of their styles. I've been looking for this song for ages to replace an old blank tape I lost years ago, it's great to hear it again. One of my favourite tunes of that era. Also included is the b-side Micro Dot Bodi Con.

hxxp://www.megaupload.com/?d=LS699VKF

Big Pink

The Clean - Anything Could Happen (1982)

"Anything could happen and it could be right now / The choice is yours so make it worthwhile"

Three chords and the truth.

MP3

Pete Drake - Forever (1964)

Thanks to Mark Duggan for the tip off on this delicious slice of proto-vocoder saccharine weirdness. "He makes his steel guitar talk"!! (and thanks to Heinz for letting me know it's been re-upped on youtube).

hxxp://rapidshare.com/files/171851323/pete_drake_forever.zip