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LP
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DC 465LP
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"Drag City and Galactic Zoo Disks first turned the world on to The George-Edwards Group in 2009, with their never-exactly-released late 70s alien autumnal song-scape 38.38. Their music is singular and great, and like you, we assumed that was their one, definitive statement. Un-till...this new 'Archives' release contains a treasure trove of bizarre riches spanning from the '38:38'-era to what appears to be the mid-80s (we'll never know for sure -- and we don't have to, the stuff is sublimely wack in a manner that requires no further explanation). The music that makes Archives is a more rocking version of The George-Edwards sound. The tremulous, strangely timbered vocals are still their signature, but this time they're atop a few highly compressed and fuzzed-out rock cuts, as well as several synthed-out dirges that would make Suicide, Bruce Haack or Cabaret Voltaire cock an ear (and make all these new 'coldwave' bands blush to their shallow roots!). Also within are the murky analog keyboard bloops which all but define the GE sound, as well as 'ballads' that make one wish there was an entirely different language to describe musical forms. Archives is the second miraculous LP from The George-Edwards Group archives that will keep your jaw agape for the rest of the year. What year? What year is it? Any year!"
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LP
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DC 457LP
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"Anyone who loves 'outsider' folk legends from Tom Rapp to Roy Harper or Gary Higgins to Peter Grudzien knows the name of the legendary bard Ed Askew. His 1968 ESP Record Ask the Unicorn is quite simply one of the era's finest artifacts, full of lilting, prickly, chiming songs of loss, love and escapism -- maybe the gay Astral Weeks for the underground. Around the turn of the century, an equally compelling second album surfaced, Little Eyes, where our hero, armed only with tiple (a sort of Latin uke/banjo/guitar), laid out more heartbreaking baroque odes, all recorded in a single continuous take! Recorded for ESP in 1970, it never got past the test pressing stage and was eventually lost, until de Stijil came sniffing some thirty years on. After the 70s things get a bit foggy -- the odd radio session, some live performances, a lot of painting -- but there were no more proper albums to melt into. There wasn't an audience really, or more importantly, a label that believed in him. Fortunately in the early 80s, Ed got his hands on a harpsichord and tiple and a simple two-track recorder and laid down some of his tunes he'd been carrying around for years. Released only on cassette in miniscule quantities in 1984, Imperfiction contains the same emotionally raw yet wry observations, in a decidedly no-frills sonic setting. Broken glass on the sidewalk outside, nice boys he meets in bars, and the joyous act of songwriting itself are all fair game for subject matter, giving a unique and intimate self-portrait of a truly gifted songwriter. Imperfiction is now available for the first time on vinyl via Galactic Zoo Disk/Drag City, with vintage photos and liners and sound that will transport fans back to the old days of Askew in all of its seemingly transient glory. Fans of Daniel Johnson, early Jonathan Richman, Smog, Palace Brothers and other lo-fi troubadours would be wise to snatch up this limited pressing -- as all other GZDisk/Drag City titles have sold out early and often."
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LP
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DC 435LP
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"Doncha just hate it when a majorly-touted obscurity or 'major find' fancy reissue finally makes it into your hands, and it turns out to be nothing but sub-Hendrix acid-rawk jams, tuneless loner plink, some horn-addled overblown studio pomp, or simply just obscure-for-a-very-good reason? Or worse yet, it's an album you've already heard, but you buy it again for a bunch of 'bonus material,' which is nothing but lame garage rock covers? Well folks, relax -- you are in no such danger with the major unveiling of the soon-to-be-seminal Belleville, Illinois outfit Spur. Little did we all know that still lurking in southern Illinois (near St. Louis actually), was one of the most amazing secret bands that could've given any 60s 'Sunset Strip' band a serious run for its money. Even more shocking was the amount of beyond-spectacular unreleased tracks lingering in their vaults...stuff that will truly spin heads around. So we cherry-picked only the best material from their insanely rare micropressed LP Spur of the Moments to make room for the plethora of new-found bounty. For 60s 'psych' enthusiasts, or really just fans of anything essentially rock n roll, there is a grove of treasures on this lone LP (boy was it hard to edit it all down to 40 minutes). The earliest Spur days, back when they were known (or really unknown) as The Unknowns, finds them in absolutely heartbreaking folk-garage mode, recalling the best of the Blue Things, The Choir, Beau Brummels or even ye olden Beatles. They evolved quickly into full-tilt west coast-style psychedelia, pouring on the fuzz with a laid-back tunefulness that certainly gives outfits like Quicksilver Messenger Service, Relatively Clean Rivers and Thee Dead some competition (indeed Spur opened for Jerry n crew in the day -- as well as Cream!). By the 70s Spur had expanded even further, at last answering the age-old question, 'What if Buffalo Springfield had hung in there and totally kicked ass by 1971?' Gorgeous harmonies soaring above utterly driving guitars, amid heady studio trickery paints a picture not unlike the sainted pop of your Big Stars or Badfingers. So yeah, if you're a fan of bands that seemlessly and viscerally integrated country, rock, psychedelia, folk and really everything grand in R n R, a la the Byrds, Moby Grape or even the Flying Burrito Brothers, prepare to have your doors blown off by a band that will soon be regarded as esteemed contemporaries of all of them."
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LP
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DC 419LP
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"Wow...we can't seem to figure out the true story of Ryan Trevor - we're not sure he even knows it! Is he an industry guy who pitched songs to Barry Manilow, wrote songs for Sesame Street, and roadied for infamous germaphobe Robin Trower? Is he a sensitive loner-folker who lived in England and all over the globe? Is he an ex-60's Indiana garage band kid who rocked in 'The Blue Glue?' Or did he simply replace his friend Paul McCartney when he 'died' in 1968? It just might be all of the above, though working closely with Trevor (well, as closely as we can get to New Zealand -- it's about eight thousand miles away) has shed remarkably little light on the man - even his exhaustive autobiography ends in the early 70s, just before he started recording music! The usually in-depth Acid Archives has a mere one sentence listed about the man. Is this a conspiracy? What we do know is that he produced one incredibly rare and homespun pop LP in 1977, Introducing: Ryan Trevor. It may have been merely a demo for a never-materialized Warner Brothers album (though we question the veracity of this claim), or a definitive concept album statement (are there any non-concept albums that begin with an 'Overture')...but we'll let the music speak for itself. A privately-pressed bit of psych-pop perfection, Introducing: Ryan Trevor at last answers the question on ALL of our minds: 'What if R. Stevie Moore and Emitt Rhodes recorded an album with Joe Meek's ghost in the late 70s?' Whatever the case, what you have in your hands is a near-exact repro of an insanely catchy song cycle of Macca-melodies, subverted by copious amounts of phase, fuzz, and a bedroom production ambience that would certainly make Bob Pollard, Ariel Pink or The Godz jealous. Drag City/Galactic Zoo Disk is proud to get this incredible rarity back into circulation, where it can soon after be filed next to your Rundgren and Brian Wilson records in the 'loner genius' section."
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