I was there to cash in my soul.

A solo debut from 1980. In fact, this was his only proper solo album while he was still with us.

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The Slowest Clock - Smile Futurismo! All I Heard Was Purple (2014, Eye Unseen)

Slowest Clock were denizens of Dublin, IE, and while there may not be a "Dublin sound," this album barely suggests the quartet in question emanated anywhere near the British Isles.  Consisting of recordings tracked between 1989-90, the material on Smile Futurismo! was intended to wind up in the guise of their debut LP.  S/C's fortunes went south soon after the recordings, and frustratingly, the multitrack tapes from the sessions were misplaced for decades as it would turn out.  A subsequent studio session did in fact yield a posthumously released album, Life Still in 1995, but eventually, the aforementioned early lost tapes were located nearly 25 years after the fact, composing the fifteen tunes occupying Smile Futurismo!

Touted as psych/freakbeat revivalists, Slowest Clock weren't necessarily evocative of anyone from the original '60s vanguard.  Not completely removed from that sort of ethos, there is some occasional evidence ("You're So Strange" and "Turning Green") regarding how these guys might have been loosely shoehorned into those environs.  The winsome "Eastern Flowers" leaned in the vicinity of R.E.M., but wasn't quite in league with American indie rock either. Elsewhere, there are several songs here that strike me as unfinished, having miraculously surviving past the demo stage.  ...Futurismo! is an album of anomalies with seemingly minimal connective tissue, yet still rewarding if you're willing to invest a few concerted listens.

01. Going Home

02. Warhola

03. You're So Strange

04. Le Bordel Philosophique

05. Little Fishy

06. Cherie

07. Eastern Flowers

08. Acid Lake

09. Turning Green

10. Say What's On Your Mind.

11. Wasted

12. You Never See Me

13. Desert Mouth

14. Rejoice

15. In the Cinema

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Green Pyramids 7" (1993, Susstones)

Gambled a dollar on this one, and it was a hundred cents well spent.  Despite the fact this coed Minneapolis trio once referred to themselves as power pop, Green Pyramids, though plenty guitarsy, had more in common with the moody sway of say, the Spinanes.  Perhaps a bit too melancholy to rope in mainstream psyches (or more to the point, not visible enough to garner such an audience), the Krystal MacKay-helmed troupe blended depth with an accessible and melodic subtext -  and from the looks of things this 45 was just the tip of their proverbial iceberg. 

A. Tuesdays and Saturdays

B. 10 Miles From the Border

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We’ll be back to you in time.

Heavy alt-rawk from 1993.

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Voices - New Bamboo (1983)

So, for the better part of ten years, some slug on a certain online auction site (take a wild guess) has been asking $100 for the very record you see to your right.  Guess who found a copy in the wild for 98% less of that asking price?  Yep, it was all mine for $2...and better yet, you don't even have to pay so much as a penny. 

Voices are a very bygone Rochester, NY cold case, who apparently didn't give the world much beyond this platter.  A privately pressed LP that doesn't necessarily skew to the aesthetics of "indie rock," just one spin of New Bamboo reveals these gents were tempted to tap into a plethora of markets.  Synthy new wave forays, "Return to Human," and "Out Tonight" aren't as sophisticated as say, Gary Numan but are satisfying nonetheless, particularly the latter. "Drive-in Show" sports a radio-ready power pop acumen, while the concluding morsel, "Death in a Hand Held Package" is subtly more serious, á la what Genesis were striving for around the same period.  Elsewhere on ...Bamboo are a handful of not so new ideas, aimed in a decidedly more AOR direction.  Nothing truly embarrassing, mind you, but a comparative curveball.  At the end of the day, I'm pretty relieved that I didn't fork out a hundred for the better tracks. 

01. Out Tonight

02. Drive-in Show

03. 2:10 E.D.T.

04. If I Gave You My Heart

05. Return to Human

06. Long Nights

07. Dreamin'

08. Death in a Hand Held Package

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She met a man so understanding there was nothing he wouldn’t do.

From 1990.  This is the OG version with no supplemental material.

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