Landlocked Music - 202 N. Walnut Ave. - Bloomington, IN
info @ landlockedmusic . com
(812) 339 - 2574
Hours of operation:
Monday - Saturday : 11:30 - 7:30pm
Sunday : 12pm - 5pm
Every week (or so...), the proud employees of Landlocked Music attempt to help guide you along the path of auditory redemption. We take time away from our busy schedules and craft, in our own words, a tiny little review of a great piece found in our bin that is for sale. We are happy as a clam when a customer purchases our picks, we gotta feed our egos somehow, right? But don't just take our word for it... or rather, DO take our word for it!
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Portland's Honey Owens is no newcomer to the scene, as she has played in Jackie-O Motherfucker, Nudge and others for years now. Her Kranky debut as Valet is haunting and inviting. While you can sense the danger and mystery from the beginning, one cannot help but enter to see and hear more. Highly processed guitars lead into the darkness as a torch to shamanic rituals and cave paintings. The title track throbs along to one of the most sizzled-out bluesy jamz of the year. The journey continues through experiments in sound and hushed vocals while retaining an imaginary narrative. RIYL Charalambides, Lynchian background sound, Metallic Falcons, or chakra explorations. - Heath
Along with Neutral Milk Hotel and the Apples in Stereo, the Olivia Tremor Control were co-founders of the Elephant 6 Recording Co., a group of like-minded musicians who thrived on recording amazing psych-pop records at home on analog equipment. This, their first album, is probably my favorite Elephant 6 release, representing everything great about them. Taking the studio exploration of the Beatles circa '66-'67 as a starting point, the OTC add a decidedly lo-fi twist to their avant-pop. Recorded on 4 and 8 track tape machines, this album is an analog dream, a perfect psych-pop album with the emphasis on psych. Note-perfect songs drenched in tape-saturation and all manner of cobbled-together home-studio trickery rush by, a disorienting blur of tape loops, shimmering guitars, backward tapes, ambient passages and bizarre vocal effects. Never sounding forced, excessive or too retro, this is one of the most tastefuly done, gorgeous albums of the last 20 years. - Cyrus
Don't let the title and opening minute fool you - this isn't a "peace and love" folky album - its a powerhouse stoned behemoth charging full steam at you, crystals in clenched fists. You really need look no further than the super-sweet gatefold artwork on the LP version, a classic 60s blacklight mushroom - Fillmore style, with wavy words emitting and growing and causing your third eye to do backflips. Then there is the music, fuzzed out wah-wah blues leads mixed with a cauldron of topographic organ and propulsive drumming. Much of this seems based on group improvisations, or jamz, man. Stoned psychedelic long-formed groove trips - RIYL Roger Dean, Comets on Fire, Hawkwind, Acid Mothers Temple, Boris, Blue Cheer. Dude, where's my pterodactyl? - Heath
"You are important, and under-rated / I will remember you when you're gone." Uvula was one of my favorite local bands and they released one of my favorite local albums of all time. The time was the late 90s. The sound was gorgeous male/female vocal harmonizing over top broken down "folk" - in the same way that you would call Beck's output from around the same time something similar. Chock full of great songs and a fresh sound that was odd and broken, yet compelling and poppy. It took 18 months to record and forever to be released and it was almost worth the wait except the band broke up. Chris Kupersmith now plays in Gentleman Caller and I eagerly await more of his own recorded material. I would offer a money back guarantee for this CD, but if you tried to cash it back in, its merely because you haven't listened enough times. - Heath
I first head of this guy via an interview in the latest Galactic Zoo Dossier (also available at Landlocked!). Intrigued, I picked up his only 'official' album, 1968's awe-inspiring 'Ask the Unicorn' on ESP-Disk. Equally great, 1970's 'Little Eyes' was recorded as the follow-up, but sadly ESP ran out of money and it was never released. Luckily for us, De Stijl dug up an acetate (no master tapes to be found), remastered it, added some radio sessions and have made it available to the world. Consisting of simply Ed's vocals and his tiple (10-stringed latin instrument, similar to a ukulele), the listener is forced to focus on the songs themselves, which are amazing. Ed's lyrics are intensely personal and beautiful, sung with a unique phrasing and voice that you won't hear elsewhere. This album has a vibe similar to Dino Valenti's solo album, Michael Yonkers' 'Grimwood' and Pearls Before Swine's best work, but I have never heard anything that sounds quite like it. - Cyrus
One of the Big 3 pub rock bands to my mind (along with Brinsley Schwarz and Ducks Deluxe), Dr. Feelgood championed a back-to-basics approach that, in hindsight, set the scene for British punk. This is the Feelgood's 3rd studio LP and the last to feature guitarist Wilko Johnson. Every punk/post-punk/new-waver with a short haircut, tight pants, and a skinny tie owes a debt to his style, and every choppy-scratchy guitar riff owes a debt to his playing- it's hard to imagine Gang of Four's Andy Gill or the Fall's Craig Scanlon weren't big fans. But don't expect anything overtly "punk" about Dr. Feelgood, they had no such pretensions; they were just a straight-forward genre-less rock n' roll band who liked to play 6 nights a week, work a few R&B covers into their set, and go on stage without make-up. - Jason
Seefeel embody the blur that started to occur in the early 90s between the British indie scene and the "IDM" or underground dance scene. Taking the heavily processed sounds of Loveless and applying a more minimalist / tape looping mentality, all the while maintaining a pop structure. Add in some heavy dub influence and distant angelic vocals and the sound can easily be seen as the predecessor to modern acts like Boards of Canada and the roster of Kompakt Records. Imagine Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Volume 2 as performed by a band? Reissue includes a second disc of never released before and remixed versions of tracks. - Heath
Along with New York's United States of America and White Noise, San Francisco's Fifty Foot Hose were one of the first acid-rock groups to attempt marrying the psych rock of the times with more avant-garde techniques. Picking up where The Beatles' proto-everything 1966 track "Tomorrow Never Knows" left off, 1968's "Cauldron" was Fifty Foot Hose's only proper album, but is now regarded as one of the most unusual and unique records to come out of SF's psychedelic heyday. A real witches brew of heavy rock, jazzy-psych, spooky electronics, disorienting synths, tape manipulation, gentle female vocals, horrifying processed voices and a general "anything is possible" attitude in regards to composition and the possibilities of the recording studio. A total commercial failure that was way ahead of it's time. Unfortunately, it was their only album as most of the band joined the original cast of "Hair" in 1969. - Cyrus
Maybe it's because of their misleading name (no, they're not a retro rockabilly act), but this band never seems to get its due. Now defunct, they were based in Atlanta, emerging from the same scene that spawned Man or Astro-Man, Shannon Wright, Kelly Hogan (an early member of the band), Cat Power, and the legendary Smoke. Another quality band on Merge that just got lost in the shuffle, they had no real gimmick - they were just a straight-forward indie rock guitar band. File them with other underrated 90s bands like Silkworm or Bedhead. This was their final album, and they're most grandiose. Lots of fuzzed out organ and swaggering, sing-a-long choruses. A secret stream of influence on todays indie rock big-shots, you can hear the Rock*a*Teen's unacknowledged sway on bands like the Hold Steady and Arcade Fire. - Jason
One of the best bands to ever call Bloomington home, the Dancing Cigarettes had a brief but creative career. The best part of their dancable, new-wave sound is collected here, with the notable exception of their Gulcher single. They were sort of the Talking Heads of their scene, or the Devo. But they had their own thing happening too. Arty for sure, and definitely sounding "of their time", but timeless pop all the same. "Pop Doormat" alone should secure their place in Indiana Music History. I'm told by Cigs drummer John Terrill that these are the last remaining copies, so act fast! - Jason
Landlocked Music - info (at) landlockedmusic (dot) com