Proto Idiot on Trouble In Mind Records

Andrew Anderson from The Hipshakes has been chasing garage punk pop since 2003, getting the fellow shakes together when they were 15 in Sheffield, England and put out releases the next few years with Slovenly, Tic Tac totally and Goner among others. Proto Idiot is something of a solo release from Andrew but the Hipshakes facebook shows no signs of a split anytime soon, just a case of being prolific.
An old article from Loud and Quiet mentioned that The Hipshakes opened for Cococoma on their first tour and even put out a split single and it all made sense, of course Bill and Lisa would be in touch with Andrew, ready to release whatever he recorded next.

A-Side's "You're Wrong" has a great guitar jangle reminiscent of The Feelies or So Cow's exuberant gleaming pop with minimal chords and tight percussion, it's a succinct perfect little detail that makes a huge statement in a simple song about being wrong. Multiple guitars, a slow strummed electric over acoustic buried back there, is deceptively simple. These layers aren't obvious or trying to create some kind of mysterious haze almost shocking to hear something so anti-psych perfectly taught and wrangled together - a junkpile compressed into a John Chamberlain cube. It's a song that will be inadvertently stuck in your head on the first play through, hours later humming it on your way home from the store only to put it on again just to get the lyric right. When he says “You're wrong / You're wrong / You're so fucking wrong” that last ‘fucking’ is thrown in there, an extra dig from the narrator, a smile on his face. He's caught you with your pants down, exceedingly pleased with himself.

"You Can't Hide" has a beefy start, slow and pop with a ‘60s slant very much rooted in The Kinks embroidered garage sound, thanks to this this grand gesture, a choir or voices behind him. There are always little experiments in the instrumentation, the snare sounds gurgly and his jangle here seems to have an acoustic metallic strum buried here somewhere. It’s a bumpy, hazy ride that isn't necessarily connected to psych ground. A toy guitar plinks away somewhere in the mix, a layered lackadaisical pop pile that’s exactly like his songwriting. Andrew is leading you around not trying to shock or dazzle with crazy twists and turns but like label mate Jacco Gardener building on classic riffs and in the process becoming completely new again because of their own unique take.
More proof there isn’t a single thing you won’t like on Trouble in Mind and I'm literally shocked listening to every release that they’ve managed to unearth another artist like this I've never come across anywhere else. T.I.M. pressed this up on dark purple vinyl in their company sleeve.

Check out the A-Side from another release on his bandcamp page below: