Kevin Blechdom

title:: Eat My Heart Out
label:: Chicks On Speed Records

Eat My Heart Out is a record as adventurous as its cover art. It is not 'easy' listening in any sense of the word, but the many good songs on it are frequently a step beyond good - to quote Tony the Tiger: they are grrreat!

This album is odd, quirky, and good. Definitely check it out.

Jar - a Pickled Egg Collection

various artists
label:: Picked EggRecords

This is a GREAT! comp. Two-and-a-half hours of beautiful music that is highly listenable while being off-beat and smart.

I have not found one track to be a "stinker". With the music world struggling to find its next wave or trend, Pickled Egg has created a label that lives up to its own promotion and standards of avoiding trend and carving out its own niche of the highest artistic order. Rarely is art so listenable and experimentation so approachable.

Milk 'n' Cookies

title:: Milk 'n' Cookies
label:: RPM

Milk 'n Cookies were a band from Woodmere Long Island that sounded like Sparks mixed with The Three O'Clock. The NYC band Speedies appeared a few years later owing a great debt to Milk 'n Cookies as well.

Many great tracks on the CD, great liner notes, great production - everything is in place on this release.

Popul Vuh

title:: Einsjager & Siebenjager
label:: Environ Records

By the time of Popul Vuh's 4th album, Einsjäger & Siebenjäger (which translates as Earth & Sky) from 1974, the group was fully entrenched in the guitar based progressive rock that they would be most well known for.

There isn't a wasted note on this album, as it economically conserves its energy in the meeting of composition and performance perfectly.