Forever Changes Is one of the most important albums of all times. If you’re reading this post, you probably know it by now. If you don’t, I strongly suggest you’ll stop reading now, go to the store and get yourself a copy of this masterpiece by Love.

The first three records by Love documented a fascinating development of a band, that started as a folk-rock/garage, moved to dreamy pop and ended with the explosion of eclectism, in the shape of their masterpiece Forever.
First band to mix blacks and whites, Love wasn’t an ordinary band in any way. Aside from their fast musical growth, they revolved around one Arthur Lee, a controversial guy perhaps, but nevertheless a genius. Love was primary the musicians around Lee, but the importance of his songwriting partner Brian McLean cannot be diminished. Lee’s freaked out personality was a necessity for Love’s songwriting, even if it meant aiming a gun on your neighbor (he did ask Arthur to take down the volume on his stereo system, after all).

After three records, Arthur moved to different directions, experimented less with folk and psych and sticked to hard rock. He assembled a new band under the name Love and released two records Four Sail and false Start. In 1972, he released a solo album called Vindicator and after that released Reel To Reel and Black Beauty.
Before all that, he recorded an album in 1971 called Dear You. It was never released due to contractual issues with Sony/Columbia. Years after, Mark Lin, his agent, recalled the unreleased recordings with the label and asked them to dig their vaults. The tapes were found and 39 years too late, Love Lost, who started as Dear You was released.
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British folk-pop-rock Clientele, had announced the release of a new EP.

Minotaur will be released on September 6th and will include seven new tracks by this fantastic band + one cover version for the psychedelic rock cult band – The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band (TWCPAEB).
I like the Clientele, they’re a nice group and their songwriting is excellent, but whenever someone covers a song by TWCPAEB, it’s a cause for celebration.

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I’ve changed the hosting server for the mixtape – please let me know if it was improved or became worse. thanks!

STR Mixtape : Now This Is Serious [26/06/2010]
[right click to download]

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I know I’m fashionably late here, and that the resonance of the fuzz guitar had maybe declined by now, but I finally decided to share my thoughts with the world about the Escape EP (out on Woodist) by American duo Moon Duo.
The duo is essentially the fruitful collaboration of Wooden Shijps guitarist Erik Johnson and Sanar Yamada and it’s highly recommended to those who didn’t get enough of the Shjips releases and want the extra fuzzy shovel to dig their brain out.

This 4 pieces EP is a meditative attempt to grasp and conquer a territory that many have walked in, years before. The lo-fi aesthetics and constant rhythm brings to mind, what can you, Hawkwind. It’s hard to form a band that so influenced by Krautrock and not mention Faust or Can as primary influences, but Moon Duo’s sound it a reflection of the new psychedelic/kraut wave of 00’s, rather then an imitation of something that had been done in the past.
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Just yesterday I wrote about the new Smoke Fairies album and how it rocked my world and apperantley this is a good time in my life, as a another album refuses to leave my stereo system.

Tame Impala is a new psychedelic trio from Perth, Australia. Of all bands in the world that could be less geographically challenging, Impala were chosen to be the opening act in the current MGMT US tour. That means something about their blend of pop and psych. And that’s exactley what they are.

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About a year ago, I was addressed by the Jemsite and they asked me to write a piece about my musical influences.
So I did. And here it is:

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It was a cold morning in Camden Market, when I entered a local CD shop and browsed through the shelves and the CDs on the display. The year was 2003. I left my homeland Israel to live in London for some time, and to see what life would bring me.

I had a cheap Epiphone acoustic guitar, which I took with me for the lonely moments, and my Rickenbacker bass, that came all the way with me, in order to find a psychedelic rock band, join them, get signed, make records, destroy hotel rooms and live a John Bonham lifestyle, including the fancy cars.
What I didn’t know, was that I’d be in for a big surprise and what they’d call – a lifetime changing moment. That moment happened when I saw, Bert Jansch’s first album on display. He was sitting with a guitar in hand, looking at the occasional consumer in the shop. He had been staring at them  like that since 1965, the year it was released.

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