The Donkeys - Living on the Other Side - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

San Diego's The Donkeys strike a balance of smiling, surfer mysticism and winking, slacker mystique. They reanimate the charming hallmarks of sunshine-rock past without being sepia-toned retro or bubblegum-cloying. There is an innate playfulness and honesty to the music they make. It's a dynamic that has made public champions of keen-eared musicians like John Darnielle (Mountain Goats) and Craig Finn (The Hold Steady). It was Darnielle who claimed The Donkeys were benevolent keepers of InchThe AntidoteInch to an unnamed sickness plaguing indie rock. We liked that sentiment a great deal.

Tamas Veto - Butterfly Valley [COMPACT DISCS] date 07/31/2007

Seelie Court - the world's premier tag for rare and previously unreleased archive recordings of underground folk, rock, proto-metal, and psychedelic music presents 'Across the Water', one of progressive folk rock's great lost artefacts. Recorded in 1974 and 1975 by college friends Andrzej (Andy) Werno and Peter McKerrow, the album was conceived as a true split LP, with each musician taking an entire side to realise a deeply personal body of work. Working in the living room of McKerrow's flat, the pair recorded, overdubbed and bounced tracks between two Akai 4000DS tape machines, without the luxury of a mixer. The finished tapes were taken to John Hassell's home acetate cutting setup in Barnes, South West London, where just two acetates were made, one for each artist. Handmade sleeves, constructed from enlarged photographs of the remote Isles of St Kilda, completed the project. No commercial pressing ever followed. Only two copies of Across the Water existed for decades, making it one of the rarest and most visually beautiful private press recordings of the era, an almost mythical object among collectors. More than rarity, however, this album endures because of it's sincerity. It is the sound of two young musicians, each telling their own story, united by friendship, circumstance and a shared moment in time. Recorded and mixed at Effingham Studios, Surbiton, March/April 1975.