Jesse Sparhawk - Palmaria Palmata

Jesse Sparhawk is a multi-instrumentalist composer whose instruments include, but are not limited to harp, guitar, bass and mandolin. He has recorded and/or performed with Greg Weeks, Marissa Nadler, Fern Knight, Greg Davis, Out Hud and many others. Palmaria Palmata is a wonderful self released cdr of solo acoustic guitar composition. His playing is technically very challenging employing complicated timing, natural harmonics, unusual chord voicing and intricate finger picking.

Jesse Sparhawk - Palmaria Palmata

White Magic - New Egypt

New extremely limited hand stamped and lovely release in Southern records Latitudes series, comes in a gorgeous embossed sleeve. This comes from White Magic, who are a fantastic bunch who mix up Terry Riley-like repetition with psychedelic arabesque guitar and piano that reminds alot of the Ethiopiques series, witchy vocals that sound alot like Jefferson Airplane's Grace Slick and a kind of freeform psychedelic gusto that makes you imagine the naked dancing ladies of the Tales of the Unexpected opening credits.

White Magic - New Egypt

Christine 23 Onna - Acid Eater

Led by Japanese synth master Maso Yamazaki of Masonna, et al. and aided by Fusao Toda of Angel in Heavy Syrup, this album is a monster Acid Fueled lounge party. Heavy on the bop and fuzzed out beyond belief, then twisted through a giant phaser and shaded envelope filters. Maso's skewed version of the swinging 60's on Acid Eater is far beyond anything that could be called retro or even campy. This is a rift in time, Maso's gone back and showed the LSD set how to really blow speakers and minds. Once again the Japanese remain the reigning kings of the psychedelic set and this along with any other Maso Yamazaki release is full testament to that claim. Crank this one up, the fuzz needs room to breathe.

Christine 23 Onna - Acid Eater

V/A - Imaginational Anthem Vol. 2

Imaginational Anthem Volume 2 expands and builds on this theme with 70+ more minutes of guitar magic - all previously unreleased on CD in the US. 24-year old UK 12-string upstart James Blackshaw opens the record, while the late master Robbie Basho, a clear influence on Blackshaw's style, closes it. Basho's track is the only live recording by this groundbreaking guitarist ever released. Riches abound on Imaginational Anthem Vol 2, with new recordings by former Takoma roster alumni Peter Lang (who made an album with John Fahey and Leo Kottke), Billy Faier (an original Greenwich Village folkie whose late 50's Riverside records inspired a fellow crack banjo player, Steve Martin) and an archival home recording by Fred Gerlach (a favorite of Jimmy Page). The new breed is well-represented by fascinating figures of today - Smith, Carter, Sparhawk, Kraus, Rose and Blackshaw. Legendary singer/songwriter Michael Chapman, whose first albums for the Harvest label in the 60's are now seeing the light again, contributes as well.

V/A - Imaginational Anthem Vol. 2 part 1
V/A - Imaginational Anthem Vol. 2 part 2

Grouper - Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill

Portland's Liz Harris has once again made a stunning album, this third one is called 'Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill'. Here, we find her on fine form, presumably having drank from the same spring that carried neighbour and labelmate Peter Broderick across the pond earlier this month. This album trickles from the speakers like a kind of one-woman Campfire Songs, conjuring an alien spectrum where guitars and drones are just two points on the same trend. A must-hear.

Grouper - Dragging a Dead Deer..

Bardo Pond - Amanita

Not changing all that much but whipping up just as compelling a mix of drone, volume, and blissout as before, on Amanita the now officially-a-quintet Bardo Pond cranked the amps, switched on the pedals, and spin-fly with 11 monster songs. Effortlessly combining psychedelic inspirations from Pink Floyd's original explorations to the more modern reachings into the beyond by My Bloody Valentine, it's a simply stunning way to begin an equally stunning album. Cool stuff.

Bardo Pond - Amanita

Lucky Dragons - Widows

Luke Fischbeck has been making Lucky Dragons music for almost seven years. He is an industrious tinkerer, and very clever with words. He has made so much great music in the past seven years that States Rights Records recently released a retrospective of his work entitled Sewing Circle. Fischbeck's fourth album, Widows, was recorded on three separate occasions, then endlessly torn apart and mashed together over the course of a year. One of the things Fischbeck discovered with this album was "a tradition of American culture that I agreed with, even felt inspired by. This is my attempt at making American music - music that describes and remembers and criticizes and embraces and expresses and illustrates and ornaments and digests and shits out what it means to be American." With an impressive array of instrumentalists and Fischbeck's established talent, Widows is truly mythical, mystical, and amazing.

Lucky Dragons - Widows

James Jackson Toth - Waiting in Vain

James Jackson Toth is no longer Wooden Wand, no longer to be in a "freak folk" wagon anymore. Waiting in Vain is the first album that Toth, long a cult figure among underground rock followers, has chosen to release as a solo artist, and it marks a new beginning for him. For several years, he and wife Jexie experimented with a folk-psychedelic rock hybrid, releasing music under many pseudonyms including variations of the name Wooden Wand. For his last Wooden Wand release, James and the Quiet (2007), Toth stated that he was deliberately trying to make an “un-weird” album. This is so much like Toth killed Jeff Tweedy and take over Wilco.

James Jackson Toth - Waiting in Vain

Terry Riley - Shri Camel

Terry Riley's place in the minimalism camp of modern classical music has been secured ever since his '60s debut. His career eventually found its zenith with such marvelous as 1964's In C and 1969's A Rainbow in Curved Air, Riley's use of cyclical and repetitive patterns brought comparisons to fellow minimalist Steve Reich during this time, too. Having since fallen deeply into Indian music by way of several years of study with the north Indian vocal master Pandit Pran Nath, Riley found a fine middle ground for his classical minimalist training and the music of India on this 1980 release. With a specialized Yamaha keyboard and a 16-track studio as his tools, Riley creates four instrumental longplayers here, all sporting a mix of Far-Eastern atmospherics and minimalist explorations. Meditative yet quite provocative, Shri Camel will definitely please your swollen eardrums. Have a nice trip.

Terry Riley - Shri Camel