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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Sounding like Marmoset after a couple hits of the brown acid and with a newly found disregard for fidelity, this album was right up my alley. A guitar/drums duo with a bit of a fuzz fixation and an obvious love for Syd and the Jesus and Mary Chain, Sic Alps has made one of the most intriguing, enjoyable and confusing lo-fi odysseys I have come across in a long time. From the moment you drop the needle, you're hit with a continuously and completely disorienting blast of weird found sounds, unintelligible echoey voices, and hissy wall of sound guitar noise. Beneath the madness and fuzz, however, is a series of righteously catchy and rhythmically off-kilter rock songs which upon repeat listening expose themself as being truly great in their own right, the perfect balance of 'real songs' and 'noise.' Basically, if you think that running "The Madcap Laughs" through a couple fuzz pedals and an echoplex would sound cool, you will surely love 'Pleasures and Treasures.' - Cyrus
Probably the most underrated album in the Byrds' catalog and definitely one of the most underrated albums ever, Notorious is one of the most amazing and definitive psych albums ever made, yet somehow it slipped through the cracks and never really got the reputation it deserves. Recorded in the latter half of '67 amidst much band turmoil, you would never know it by the gentle, peacefully spaced-out sounds within. These are some of the Byrds' best, most effective songs, with a Gary Usher-production that easily rivals any other Sgt. Pepper-influenced record of the time. Lush string and pedal steel sounds swim alongside phased-out drums, blown-out horns, raga-inflected Rickenbackers and even some very early Moog synthesizer work. This is the album that single-handedly gave Beachwood Sparks their sound. Right up there with Revolver, Pet Sounds and Odessey & Oracle in terms of 60s classics. - Cyrus
Faust has always been mysterious - more can easily be said about them than this space permits - so let's focus. While some feel the opening track on IV is a jab at their contemporaries (Can, Neu!, Amon Duul, etc), it also recognizes their own part in their scene and ends up naming the entire canon - krautrock (much like Sebadoh's Gimme Indie Rock?). But Faust are the ugly ducklings of their peers - jumping from arty tape collage to groovy droning blues to electronic synth noodling to their take on experimental "pop", a little bit of everything! Its one of those releases that has influenced such a wide myriad of musicians that it becomes hard to pinpoint. Guaranteed to have at least one track that you will love and one track that you will skip. Which tracks depends on you. RIYL "record store rock", beards, Beefheart, Soft Machine, Gong, Hawkwind. - Heath
Originally known in their mid-60s heyday as a wilder, more rock take on the R&B of the Stones, Britain's Pretty Things took a turn with their 1968 masterpiece S.F. Sorrow, arguably the first rock "concept album." This, their equally great 1970 follow-up, continued in the same vein but shed some of the more ornately psychedelic trappings of Sorrow to reveal one of the best and most underrated rock albums of the era. Named 1970's Album of the Year by Rolling Stone, it is one of those 'lost classics' that really deserve the title, a record that you listen to over and over again and wonder what happened. It should have been huge. Classic, slightly Floyd-esque songwriting, flawless 3-part harmonies, and continually great lyrics by Phil May. This album should be in the collection of anyone who likes late-60s/early-70s British prog/psych-rock such as Pink Floyd, The Beatles, The Who, Blossom Toes, etc. - Cyrus
The easiest way to describe Felt to someone who has never heard them is to say that they sound like Television if they were from Manchester instead of NYC, and recorded for 4AD or Creation. Led by the mysterious Lawrence, Felt's music was much more cool and detached than their mentors. Their very British ennui reminds me of Spaceman 3 or Jesus & Mary Chain, although they are far more pop than those bands. Their UK underground popularity culminated in the 1985 album, Ignite the Seven Cannons, which included the surprise hit "Primitive Painters". The album was produced by the Cocteau Twin's Robin Guthrie, and the single features the voice of his bandmate Elizabeth Fraser. Later LPs centered around the sound of the organ, moving away from the angular, serpentine guitar pop of earlier albums. Felt set out to record 10 LPs and 10 singles in 10 years, which is exactly what they did, disbanding in 1990. - Jason
Berklee College of Music trained Keith Kenniff follows his beautiful 2005 Type release, Corduroy Road, with an EP as part of Western Vinyl's Portrait Series. While technically an EP, there are 11 short tracks of modern minimalist solo piano greatness. Great attention is paid to space and texture. Close mic-ing of the strings, pedals and hammers makes an intruiging listen that allows for inherent beauty in what is often unheard. If you were curious about the piano pieces on Aphex Twin's 2001 album Drukqs, composers like Morton Feldman or Keith Jarrett or modern musicians such as Max Richter, you will dig this. Some people liken this music to auditory wallpaper while others find it highly introspective for deep listening. Its actually great for both and need not be for beard-strokers only. - Heath
Collecting 70s private press LPs is an occupation fraught with letdowns. It's a world of records that more often than not just don't live up to their rep, records that are only really interesting due to their scarcity. There are of course exceptions. Albums that stand up on their own musical legs so to speak. Johnny Lunchbreak's Appetizer / Soups On is one recent, notable example. Recorded in 1975 and saved from oblivion by Asterisk Records (a side label of the mighty Numero Group), JL were barely a blip on the Connecticut rock scene of the mid 70s. But this, their lone recorded document, reveals a band with a keen pop ear. It's like they grew up loving the early San Fran scene- I hear a lot of Jefferson Airplane & the Dead- plus some Love-esque proto-punk stomp, and some charming attempts at Badfinger-like sensitivity. Add it all up and it equals the wrong band at the wrong time. The Holy Grail it ain't. But a damn fine pop record all the same. - Jason
Sometimes a band's story gets in the way of the music. Such was the case for me with Exploding Hearts. Three of the four band members died in a auto accident while on tour shortly after the release of their lone album, Guitar Romantic. For some reason, I assumed their tragic ending was the reason for their acclaim, and not their music. What a fool I was. Guitar Romantic is like classic Stiff Records era Brit punk meets Cheap Trick. The kind of band that makes you wonder, what if? What if Nick Lowe had gotten a hold of these guys? What if they'd lived to see the current semi-revival of raw garage rock brought on by bands like the Black Lips and King Khan? Shattered is a posthumous comp of singles and demos, including their final recordings. It's equally excellent. - Jason
What We Did is the collaboration made between Michael Gira (Swans, Angels of Light) and Dan Matz (Windsor for the Derby) over a couple years time at various residences around New York. Fans of either group should be pleased with the outcome, which is suprisingly poppy (for them) and melodic. Each would present the other with a basic concept with which they would build and expand upon. Trading off vocals per track, the mostly acoustic guitar based songs often build from repeating patterns not unlike the minimalists that WFTD often re-envisions and haunting drones of Gira's body of work. Hypnotic in nature while remaining fragile and song-based, it is equal parts meditation, porch music, love song, and introspection. - Heath
This Peruvian band's track 'It's a Sin to Go Away' immediately caught my attention when I first heard it on the Nuggets 2 box back in 2001. Six-years later, the oppurtunity to hear more has finally presented itself with the reissue of their first album. Though none of the other tracks are as arrestingly psychedelic as 'It's a Sin,' I was pleasantly surprised by the consistently top-notch songcraft and performances throughout. Obvious Beatle-obsessives (particularly McCartney), the band manage to churn out song after song that easily match the quality of the two McCartney covers and one Badfinger cover that fill out the record. Georgeous melodies (sung in fairly good English!) drift over a White-Album-era production that's chock-full of 'Revolution'-fuzz guitars, hyper-melodic basslines and fat drum beats that never sound too derivative or forced, just naturally musical. An essential record for any fan of the Fab 4 (together or solo), Badfinger or other classic pop sounds. - Cyrus
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