The Daisy Chain

title:: Straight or Lame
label:: Sundazed

Recording one magical platter during the summer of love called Straight Or Lame, the Fullerton, California all female rock band The Daisy Chain combined a Rascals influenced soul sound with the trippier San Francisco hippy pop fitting for the times in 1967.

The album was dastardly rare though, and thankfully has been reissued on CD for the first time taken from the mono master tapes by Sundazed in 2005.

Darren Hayman

title:: Cortinaland
label:: Acuarela

Hayman yearns for something that may not exist. After sculpting a musical career from odes, hymns and harmonies of love and loss I wonder who, and what, can satisfy him? He seems to be forever relinquished to a purgatory of initial infatuation, disappointment and lamentation.

It is difficult for Hayman to sound different from song to song. As a singer, he is hampered by limited vocal range, style and inflection. It becomes tedious. Individual pieces of the Hayman collection contain superlative works of pop comprised of wonderful lyrics and arrangements. In the end, Hayman can't seem to avoid the crushing weight of repetitive themes and his vocal style.

The Occasional Keepers

title:: The Beauty of the Empty Vessel
label:: LTM

The Beauty of the Empty Vessel is the debut album by Bobby Wratten's new band The Occasional Keepers.

Bobby achieved legendary status in the indie world as the leader of the Sarah band Field Mice, and subsequently Northern Picture Library and Trembling Blue Stars.

Recloose

title:: Hiatus On The Horizon
label:: Peacefrog

Recloose is Detroit electronic soul artist Matt Chicoine. Musically, his work could be looseley grouped with Moodymann or Theo Parrish (on his Parallel Dimensions CD).

Hiatus On The Horizon is his second full-length - the follow-up to 2002's Cardiology album. In the past Recloose has had many releases (mixes and 12inch) on Carl Craig's Planet E records. This is his first release for London's Peacefrog Records.