The Ar-Kaics on Market Square Records

How did The Ar-Kaics happen to hit on that same tone as the Fresh and Onlys did a few years back not only in number of releases and buzz but in tapping a similar fuzzy soul psych that Tim Cohen did. I've always been a fan of this sound that has parts of a beachy reverb mixed in with a distant, cood post-psych sound. You're filling in a lot of those mysterious gaps while the melody just rises out of this satisfying fog. Another great single from this Richmond, VA four piece who also just put out that full length with Windian not long ago - take your pick.

A-Side's "Always the same" bashes in a heavy 4/4 beat, the snare echoing that kick because the god damn air is just MOVING. Shrill reverb taking it's place right alongside that downbeat, proof they don't have to speed things up to gain that snarling energy and momentum. Layer in a tambourine and busted static cymbal into that snare and you can barely make out these vocals. It's become a real primitive Mummies sounding garage with an everything is simple and new sound of Troggs demos. There's no denying a rhythm like this but still not an easy thing to pull off, it takes a skilled hand to get anything new out of it. A bent, uneasy solo piped in from the HVAC duct next door makes this sound even more dirty and dangerous. Guess what's 'always the same'? The hurt and pain.
B-Side's "Let Me In" starts with haunting high angled reverb with big distance, the notes settling into a foggy night marsh. It's cold until the drums shuffle in and another set of guitar tones start hardening this into place. It's all about this mood they create as much as the actual placement and tempo of the notes. The layers of space have as much to do with this sound as the struck notes drawn out by those cycles of circuits. Kevin Longendyke's vocal is floating in that midpoint of the mix not worried about keeping his head up above this thick blanket, you couldn't get to this place fighting. It's not the demand of 'Let me in' as much as it's the despair of getting shut out. Feedback upon feedback grows interrupting this analog sound in their interpretation of the lonesome solo, leaning that guitar up against the cabinets and letting nature take it's course.

As usual the Ar-Kaics let the music speak for itself and all you get is a brown paper sleeve. All they need is that name on the center label.

Sold out from Market Square direct but Goner has copies still.

The Belltowers on Market Square Records

I honestly don't think I can think of anyone as single mindedly committed to the '60s psych pop sound as Paul Messis. It's one thing to have the ear and technical skill to pull off flawless updates like he has on his own full length records but now he's started a label and released records from contemporary artists working in the same paisley nostalgia on Market Square Records. His dedication to the reexamination of the sound of that era has got me rereading Jim Derogatis' Turn on Your Mind and tracing this experimental/super produced period into today. The Belltowers out of Orlando, Florida are taking that double hollow body jangle, tight snare precision and bass into a future psych that's drawing on those influences in completely authentic ways. Of course the four of these guys play a huge variety of instruments according to the liner notes, which is just about required for this sound.

A-Side's "Here To Stay" lets that acoustic slowly set the hazy parts per million ratio and expand the cloud right into a verse vocal piled with harmonies and doubled up takes, leaning towards the same '60s period Neil Young. An organ peeks out of the mix before a couple of solo's with decidedly new millennium effects, but they weren't ever setting out to be a cover band. "This love is here to stay." That's more like it, I equate this foggy bliss with the hypnotism that comes from that connection and this song takes those classic groundwork and relevantly expands on those ideas dropping you into the head over heels sound of first dates and the sun coming up.
B-Side's "Lovin' You (Leading Me On)" opens with that high treble shiny guitar line alternately picking and strumming into the opening verse from Paul Mutchler but I'm a little worried about their being taken advantage of. This far out psych shouldn't be about this downer side of love right? It figures that they're so dedicated to this sound they've missed the signs, blindly falling for it. The instrumentation of this mind altering sound is always complex and a twelve string lays down a foundation rhythm while the tambourine shakes in multiple time signatures. Thomas Miller on drums has that perfect frantic skittery energy for this mid tempo groove feeling like it's leading the rest of the track waiting for the melody to catch up, jabbing triple time fills at every turn. I'm getting a massive "Turn Turn Turn" vibe from this too. Multiple layers of harmony and talent.

Pick this up from 13 O'clock records here in the states. They're carrying a ton of great releases across the board from The Young Sinclairs to The Ar-Kaics, practically the entire catalog of just plain good psych.

Talbot Adams on Market Square Records

Talbot Adams has been in a bunch of projects over the years beginning with The Royal Pendletons who's first single was released twenty years ago. Since then he's played in The Black And Whites (their first single was on Shattered Records RIP) and Dutch Masters before heading out on his own on the "Jack and Jesse EP" from Douchemaster Records in 2010. This year he's got a full length out on Spacecase Records and this single on Paul Messis' label Market Square Records who've been consistently introducing me to new psych that's in line with a lot of Paul's own recordings. If you want to hear more of this stuff you have to go press it up yourself and figure you aren't the only one that's going to want to hear the hazy layers of this single, recorded and produced by Cole Furlow of Dead Gaze if I can drop one more name into this intro.

A-Side's "Green Girl" starts in a slow, big room stomp beat introducing an organ out of the left channel in a perfect slice of psych pop. I'm loving the layered, separate pieces of this, the isolated tambourine or that bassline, it figures that was Talbots instrument of choice in those previous projects, this one will stick with you. You have to appreciate something that this much attention has been paid to these pieces, from the shimmery metallic background acoustic to that solitary heavy cymbal hit punched in after the fact. Like a laid back Adam Widener there's an optimistic easygoing pop sound that you'll definitely want to keep coming back to, the perfect A-Side where time is slowed down just for a minute or so.
B-Side's "I Love You So" opens with a see saw tom rhythm over a shaker that expands that single beam into a prism rainbow with the heavy layering going on here. Somehow it expertly stays light and laid back with a focus more on Talbot's vocal here with plenty of backup la's and Talbot under heavy echo lining up multiple takes in this cathedral space soaring even higher than that A-Side. Falling into a dense cartoon ray of sunshine there's no way to get through this thing and still feel like things are shitty. Stop being a cynical bastard, people can be happy, even you sometimes.

Check out this great interview with Talbot that Ryan Leach did at Bored Out.

Pick this up from Paul and Market Square direct or locally from distros like Goner Records.

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.

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.