Wilfully Obscure: Search results for Retriever

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Monday, November 30, 2009

Retriever - Three Second Stereo ep (1996, Silver Girl)

Placentia, CA may have served as home base for Retriever, but just absorb a few moments from this 10" ep, and you'll likely come to the conclusion that these guys had mid-90s, Chapel Hill indie rock on the brain. The extraneous noise, distorted chords, and barely-there pop sensibilities crop up all over Three Second Stereo, though Retriever weren't particularly plageristic of any of their more renown contemporaries. Though not a crucial artifact of the era, Stereo's seven songs (and one fleeting instrumental) manage to eke this disk over the above-average hurdle. Copies may still be available from Silver Girl Records (and trust me, once you hear the copious vinyl noise that blemish this upload, you might well be motivated to obtain a cleaner copy). The band also issued one of them there CDs, Greatest Moments of Doubt that you can buy here.

01. Fozzies Wrinkle
02. Orange Stripes
03. Twenty Birthdays
04. Cosmos
05. Pen Pal
06. Uncle Benny
07. Capo
08. Collapsing

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Thursday, November 19, 2015

Retriever - Greatest Moments of Doubt (1998, Anisette)

Upon doing a web query on this bygone southern California outfit, I discovered that a music blog had presented a previous Retriever record - mine! Given that I've showcased some 1000+ music titles on these humble pages, I suppose I'm entitled to forget one or two I've shared along the way. At any rate, here's another eight-songer courtesy of the same folks, whom I unfortunately have few details to enlighten you about. Recorded over the span of three years, 1995-97, Greatest Moments of Doubt tenders some patently indie-centric fare in the manner of early Lilys and the Raymond Brake, even managing to shoehorn some tweaked Polvo-y guitar bends into "Evil K" and "Collapsing." In fact, this is practically like finding some long-lost Slumberland Records product tucked away in the storeroom at Mod Lang in Berkeley. "From Pixels to Providence" shifts gears into Elliott Smith turf, and "Never Comeback," exudes the type of downer, lo-fi tact that only the Clinton-era could muster.

01. Zenith
02. Evil K
03. Rollercoaster
04. From Pixels to Providence
05. Collapsing
06. Never Comeback
07. 10,000 Predictions
08. East Coast Knacks

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Friday, August 10, 2012

Tinsel - Quit While You're Ahead (1996, Jesus Christ Recs.)

Tinsel were one of several also-rans that spewed from Chapel Hill, NC’s collective technicolor yawn in the mid-90s. No outright aping of the usual local yokels – Superchunk, Archers, or Polvo, but a likeminded, mid-fi aesthetic is highly palpable. Early Built to Spill and Sonic Youth’s subtler sojourns were more Tinsel’s thing, thank you very much. Munk's endearingly off pitched vocal aplomb and crooked melodic structures slotted the band in slacker territory, if not along the fringes of its cranky environs. Overall, this isn't a particularly crucial artifact from what is generally regarded as a watershed era for indie rock, yet the vibes permeating this record are thoroughly quintessential of the genre. Give 'er a spin and you'll see precisely what I mean. Quit... was preceded in 1994 with the more raucous Finding the Perfect Gift. You can indulge in Tinsel's "Golden Retriever" 7" here. Please excuse me for the chopped upper-right corner of the sleeve of this disk, which was apparently issued as a promo.

01. The New Machine

02. Major Warning

03. If I Had a Seizure

04. Gotta Get Some

05. Here Comes the Scum

06. Good to Loose

07. Esquire

08. Bottles and Tires

09. Spooky

10. Great White Hopeful

11. Scarface

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Thursday, May 15, 2008

Singles Going Single #37 - Tinsel (1994, Esther)

This quartet may have hailed from Chapel Hill, during the halcyon '90s no less, but this platter would serve as a better appetizer for an Unwound binge, not Superchunk. Tinsel's noisenik rock is often ideal in small doses, and as such, this threefer single does the trick. In addition to this single, and at least one other, the band released two full-lengths, Finding the Perfect Gift in 1994, which you can read more about here (scroll down aways), and the improved Quit While You're Ahead two years later, both released on the small but esteemed Chapel Hill imprint, Jesus Christ Records. Truthfully, this is a lot more listenable than I'm making it out to be, and I swear, if you listen hard enough you can excavate the "song" buried in all that lo-fi, feedback haze.

A. Golden Retriever
B1. Fantasy Man (Love Revolution)
B2. Pelican Bay

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