The Suburban Homes EP on Market Square Records

I first thought of Trouble in Mind Records when I heard Paul Messis' insanely perfect psych releases, they both had a special affinity for the late '60s garage/psych sounds. Then I found out that Paul started his own label, Market Square like Bill and Lisa and this morning I just noticed that Paul is credited as writing the songs on this scuzzy late '70s punk 45 from the Suburban Homes. I thought it was impressive to have absorbed the great parts of the '60s the way he did but hearing the equal amount of attention to the trashy raw sounds on this is mind blowing. This guy has an incredible ear and now there's literally nothing he can't do.

A-Side's "Suburban Home" has the shittiest guitar sound blasted out of a 4 watt amp, a contact mic taped to the busted plastic grille. The vocals are close - too close run through the mixer after the fact, if they even used one, let's face it they sound era appropriately like they sang into a tape deck with the rest playing just outside the bathroom. Talking about shopping filled with disgust and keeping the whole sound as thin and loose as possible. Rehearsal and production would completely ruin this. These guys would either make a drunken mess out of the live set or if you caught them before that beer that pushed them over the line it would be the best thing you ever saw.

B-side's "Pseudo-intellectuals" has a completely different guitar crunch on this one and the blown out vocal crammed through the all tweeter PA like they took a page out of Sing Sing or Almost Ready reissues, also reminding me of Home Blitz in sheer dirty pop energy. Burying the vocals with a bass back there somewhere but it's all in this delivery, close to the mic and then walking back hard like you don't care, we wanted to get this track down but really just because we're bored. The way that Gang of Four did it with a cool detachmeent these guys are going for hot, sweaty and loose, nothing controlled or post punk about it. That scuzzy distortion is fantastic with that energy of every frantic moment of fighting boredom. You can hear that battle, that bit of the suburbs, the tract houses outside the city limits that are always trying to push things down. The fill comes a little too quick because they couldn't hear the vocal and they're pressed for time.

Hanging around the art gallery / pseudo-intellectual

On "D.I.Y." the tom drives this jangle and a better track doesn't exist about DIY. The way he runs out of breath at the end of the first verse, like the Johnny Ill band if they just broke up with only their cassette demo behind. The perfect anthem to the idea of cobbling unlikely things together with whatever is lying around. The snare is second hand, the vocals don't land on the beat and the guitar strums get lost in their own rhythm. It's about energy and the passion to make something. "D - I - Y!" becomes a battle cry, fuck they nailed this thing, laughing right at the end of this with the tape rolling.

Just to put the icing on this shit cake, there's a square of medicated toilet tissue inside. Of course I had to smell it, what a creep.

Market Square says:

The Suburban Homes, is the fifth 7" release on West Sussex, UK based Market Square Recordings. The Suburban Homes are a DIY punk band from Crawley West Sussex and during a weekend recorded this their first EP, influenced by DIY bands of the 70s and early 80s, The Suburban Homes takes influences from such groups as The Desperate Bicycles, Swell Maps and The Mekons.

The record is limited to 300 copies and comes in three different coloured sleeves (white, blue & yellow) the record also contains inserts and 70s toilet paper.

Get it imported direct from the band.

The Space Agency on Market Square Records

Market Square Records is run by psych fan and ambassador, Paul Messis. It's no surprise Paul would have up and started his own label to release more of this '60s garage psych he's been masterfully creating himself and this trio, The Space Agency out of Brighton are composing pitch perfect instrumental soundtracks to movies that were never made.

A-Side's "Bombay Potatoes" opens on wind chimes and layers like individual leaves of an electric sitar. Updating that electronic eastern influenced sound of the '60s that was co-opted by every garage band once they got deep out of their relationships and pop love phase to end up in this sort of place. Imagine that sound in a restrained miniature way; inside a tiny diorama of the Taj Mahal this is playing while a tiny disco ball out of tin foil on the end of a toothpick is turning, the wires running up to an AA battery. It's all delicately crafted from the warp of the strings to this gong strike, evenly breaking up measures like individual or snowflakes. The little pieces on their own are quiet and introspective but getting together tike this all of a sudden you have to step back to see that bigger picture that's too much to absorb. This always feels like it's just fading off down the street out of reach. That carnival is moving away and you just can't quite catch it's pop '60s sound where those traditional structures have been westernized.

B-Side's "Purple Power" nails the '60s garage drum sound with tight reverb while the string section crashes that surf sound in the familiar changes of Wipeout. The clicks of a loud pickup and treble heavy pattern with everyone playing rhythm basically. Double up the snare and a lower muted string baseline emerges out of a Rickenbacker. A psych surf sound like the Tiki Men - after dark, now on land you're free to wander a bit more, the sun went down and you can't get out there in the dark anymore to hang ten - are you crazy? The track is darker symbolically and mentally or lets say introspective, this is the sound off that surf happening in the darkness. There's waves and everything but we'll just have to wait for the sun to come up. These instrumentals are going to get you there.

Gte this from Market Records or the usual distro's.

Paul Messis "Nightmares" on 13 O'Clock Records

You wake up one morning and - hallelujah there's a new single from Paul Messis on 13 O'Clock Records out of Austin. I had no idea Paul has been working on another single of completely new material, "Nightmares" and "Penny Arcade" sounding even more polished and contemporary then Case Closed. Still heavy on vocal harmony and his pitch perfect recreation of late '60s psych rock sounds down to the particular reverb on this tight snare.

Every time I'm in the mood for this contemporary psych rock, I put on anything from Paul and I'm surprised at how perfect he can do it. A-Side's "Nightmares" is another fantastic track in the impossible to sort list. I shouldn't even question it, it's happened so many times now. His records have stayed close to the turntable for months now, they've gotten me to revisit The Kinks, The Zombies and 13th Floor Elevators for clues as to how we got here. Heavy, warm distorted reverb strums open into his complex electric finger style and vocal harmonies. The drum sound is perfect as usual, like playing in a tiny cave down the street sound. You haven't heard snare rolls like this since Flowers it's that careful an ear. The whole package is perfection. I don't remember Paul sounding so young previously, I wouldn't have blindly categorized this for a later release, it sounds like he did away with most of the effect on the vocal and played it straight with a slight reverb and taking control of this position. The sign of of a more confident songwriter and it's about time. Delivered in an ultra-pop garage style with swirly solo's planted for a moment of pause to reconsider the welcome drop back to dense pop. The lyric that could have applied to the late '60s is transposed to today with the same results. Making a nightmare sound this good isn't easy and to be honest almost defeats the point. The curse of his gleaming pop.

B-Side's "Penny Arcade" has a warm tremolo electric opening which seems to be something of his trademark; a sort of misdirection so when the track gets going it's always a shockingly massive sound and the harmony is a perfect homage to the era and looking completely forward. On this side he's taken it easy a bit and started to examine those relationships that are just as hard as the world's problems. A harmonica tears open the garage sound and the drums on this one have a thicker, lower end kick because all of these tracks aren't ever overly anchored in the past and consistently reinvent that classic sound. He's able to craft that perfect under three minute psych pop track with loose laid back sincerity that's infinitely listenable. It comes natural is what I'm saying. As complex and mysteriously dense it's still down to earth - but I'm over thinking this in a way that Paul wouldn't be OK with. 'What is this guy going on about?". You have to take time and let both sides sink in the way a good single should do.

Michael Lynch on Market Square Records

Not to be confused with Market Square Music, Market Square Records is the seven inch only label started by Paul Messis. Not content to create his own idiosyncratic garage pop, he had to take on the financial pit of starting a record label that only releases seven inch. A label practically handmade for me by an incredible musician, I understand the urge to want to share this stuff with everyone and Paul is handpicking people working outside the usual commercial avenues to press up. In this case Michael Lynch seems to be working alongside Paul completely nailing and updating that '60s garage sound, not much available about Michael online and I wouldn't be surprised to hear of a collaboration between these two or a split covering each others material in the works.

A-Side's "She's On Her Way" I think it takes guts for Paul to be putting out something so closely related to the stuff he's doing. This tight, precise garage harmony jangle that echo's so closely the late '60s is the only way I know about the original stuff, something this immediately catchy and perfectly crafted always has me looking backwards to the source of this kind of genius. It's beyond me entirely, I can't even begin to figure out how either of these guys end up with a sound like this. My dad used to listen to this texture on a transistor radio in the garage endlessly working on his car except it was the same twenty classic songs from the top forty over and over. It's so perfectly nostalgic I'm right back in that place. This is complex and crafted to get the sonics of that time period down with such precision that I wonder if Paul didn't have anything to do with this or vice versa. I wouldn't be surprised if he was getting his hands dirty turning knobs. I can also see how these two would have sought each other out, they're exactly dealing with the same concerns. A perfect fit for Market Square, exactly what I hoped Paul's label would be putting out. Further explorations in an alternate universe of contemporary psych pop. The heavy rattle from the snare, the perfect slight chord changes, the optimism, sounding perfectly sunny in the way the fuzzy surf does. This is tied to that English countryside montage, like Raindrops...and Paul Newman on a tandem bike. It wasn't from that time period either but made perfect sense. Bouncing along, dense with melody and separated percussion, craftily separated into layers like a painting on piled up panes of glass that caught at the right angle all line up and it's amazing.

B-Side's "This Girl" brings out the tambourine and a cymbal kind of sound, high hat clanks and sleigh bells all piled over each other into a new kind of snare tapping away. Michael's high register vocal never gets falsetto, it's a sad reminiscing tempo of a track with all the casual catchiness of Real Estate with a heavier lean on the pop sound. Some kind of tin pan alley pop from the building in Llewyn Davis churning out the hits. Alright boys you're up next. This is your one shot for Columbia records and he doesn't get rattled for a second. This has been living in them... now there's no huge studio or radio stations that still play singles, it's 2013 but someone is still in love with that sound and working with it on the highest possible level. Michael and Paul have continued where that era left off and create tracks that work on a different level than anything from that era, a couple decades too early and too late.

Paul Messis on State Records

Paul Messis is back at it again and I was stupidly delaying putting this one on to really find the time to take it in. We've been emailing back and forth since my last review and I'm shocked his output hasn't found a larger audience over here but especially in his own backyard. Growing up, reading NME, the UK always seemed way ahead of the US top 40 curve in so many ways. Times have changed but Paul's amazing nostalgic garage sounds thankfully have not and this is another essential single from this underground one man show.

A-Side's "Time Will Tell" - is just great as previously covered "Lost and Found" with jangle, high treble electric ringing in over tight snare fills which Paul himself is completely responsible for. I can't help but compare him to Jacco Gardner or The Resonars in his incredibly precise solo songwriting. Higher fi than his other single but I can hear him dabbling with whatever fidelity he comes across by design or necessity, these are just perfect songs irregardless. Poppy bass lines and slight reverb on a booming low end tom is a nod to those garage sounds so completely it could easily be mistaken for original work from the period in the best way. I'm constantly in awe asking how he got to this place, what kind of dedication it must take to end up with this kind of perfection. It's an Ariel Pink level of devotion to this time and space contained in the tracks. Paul's so completely obsessed with this era and has managed to reproduce it and even follow this line of thought into today with the same perfectly crafted garage bubblegum romanticism of that very era.

B-Side's "When You Pass Me By" has a rougher guitar sound that's more burly with a faster jangle and a bigger built in distance in the recording this wall of sound has been pushed back with more echo. Paul just transports so completely these tracks it's becoming the most impressive thing I've heard in a long time. 13'oclock records says they're putting out another one of his singles this year and I'm already looking for it to end up in the short stack of singles to remember in December of 2014. More vocal messing around here, the backup support harmonies and vocals are swirling behind the up front direct sound. There's hardly any looseness to his sound, nothing you can point to that gives away a home recorded feel. There isn't a note out of place and I'm not only blown away by the accuracy of this but that he's done it entirely himself. Move over everyone on Trouble in Mind, make some room for this one man psych garage show, Paul Messis who's going to be joining your ranks.
Is that a twelve string on the sleeve there? That must be his secret weapon, he looks young too so there'll be lots more to come from this solo genius.

Pick this up direct from State Records or 13 O'clock here in the US.

Paul Messis "Lost and Found" on 13 O'Clock Records

This sleeve from Paul Messis Reminds me of another garage legend, Jay Reatard. I had heard tales of this mentally impaired garage punk so when I finally spotted that green printed inner sleeve single on the wall at Academy of Jay wearing sunglasses with AN ACOUSTIC GUITAR leaning against a wall, it seemed like the perfect introduction to see what this guy was all about. I mean was that him was all bloody in his underwear on the cover of Blood Visions for god sakes? Was it some kind of terrifying death metal? Outsider escaped mental patient punk? This doesn't look so menacing, just a guy hanging out playing some tunes for the rats in the alley.
You'll notice that Mr. Messis took a similar approach to letting the simplicity of a printed inner 45 sleeve speak for itself. He also chose to pose with a guitar nonthreateningly hanging out in a tree, equally as timeless as the Jay cover. But there's still a few questions before this even hits the turntable...is this a reissue? ...and more importantly is that a twelve string electric? Little did I know Paul recorded the most authentic recreation of that late '60s garage sound that had me double checking the year on this.

A-Side's "Lost and Found" I can't get over this sound... the liner notes say 'recorded in 2009' but I just can't believe it, the texture has that AM radio quality of jangle psych that is freaking perfect. The layers of woven guitar, shimmery treble and the vocal just under the surface, in that unassuming style of somehting like The Zombies or the Flowers record from the stones. He's not quite sure what it means to be any kind of rock star yet. You better get in on this kind of talent before he gets a HUGE head. I'm surprised Trouble in Mind hasn't managed to track this guy down yet, maybe they thought this was a reissue too. Paul played all of this? It's amazing to hear something so exactly referencing those sounds and writing something entirely new. A specific vision like this is completely incredible, like that kid raised to speak klingon, it's the only thing he knows. Thawed out, a perfectly intact specimen picking up pop psych and classic garage right before it all turned to disco and punk. Where the hell does he get off, sitting in that tree with his guitar? Get back into the studio!

B-Side's "I Gotta Go" is a time machine with more bouncy treble strummed lines, muffled by reverb. A hammond of Farfisa with layers of his backup vocal, the mix is almost the most important element here, you can lay down this kind of chameleon psych perfection but to place it in a fidelity like this is the master stroke. Snappy tight snare at speed, dropping into pop - 13th floor Elevators have nothing on Paul, this freaking guy knows what he's doing.

Check it out below and be thankful 13 O'Clock records made this available in the states. After this one I'll be looking into his full lengths - that's plural, as in he's got a massive catalog of this stuff.