The Higher State – Your Casting Doubt (Ltd. 7”)

Latest single from Kent garage-heads! 300 copies only!

The Higher State's LP from last year, the misleadingly titled Volume 27 was a winner for those of us who like their music with a distincly '60s hue. The three man line-up that made the album are back with a new 7”, limited to only 300 copies.

A-side 'Your Casting Doubt' has the same musical DNA as Volume 27 – plenty of fuzz guitar, authentic trebly production, and that Yanks-copying-Brits-copying-Yanks vibe that was all the rage back in '66. Wait a minute, these are Brits-copying-Yanks-copying-Brits-copying-Yanks! Get your hear round that folks!!

Anyway let's not get bogged down in the ethnology, suffice to say that it sounds great. Flipside 'X-Ray Day' tells a worrying tale of a hospital visit/nuclear dread delivered with charmingly lazy, nasal vocals. Neat!

If you want a copy, 100 come in a folded over sleeve (available via the band's own Bandcamppage), with the other 200 regular copies available from Market SquareRecords. Get ordering doods!

Click here for The Higher State.

Click here for Market Square Records.

The Higher State – Volume 27

Folksiness, Farfisa and fuzz guitar on fifth LP from Kent's garage stalwarts!

The Higher State's fifth long-player is on store shelves now (or more accurately available to order online) and does not dissappoint. Ten years into their tenure the band is now distilled to a three-piece; Marty Ratcliffe on guitar/vocals/organ, Paul Messis on bass/guitar and Scarlett Rickard on drums. With the writing split between Ratcliffe and Messis.

The touchstones of The Byrds, Love and The Electric Prunes are here to satisfy the faithful, but despite their love of US garage the band have a distinctly (English) personality of their own. To call Volume 27 a protest album may be a step too far but there is a state-of-the-nation thread that runs though the record.

Musically there's folksiness, Farfisa and fuzz guitar, with production values geared towards treble-friendly AM radio. The ear-splitting guitar solos and frantic drumming are balanced by the gentler folk-rock type tracks which helps hold it together as an album. (Unlike a lot of garage LPs which all too often sound like a cobbled together collection of A and B-sides)

For a musical form that was supposedly crystalised and archived on Lenny Kaye's Nuggets compilation it comes across here as in pretty good shape and the perfect tool to kick against thepricks of today.

To paraphrase The Who - “Garage rock is dead they say. Long live garage rock!”

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Various – 7 And 7 Is (Box-set of 7 x 7” singles)

Fruits De Mer do it again! Boxed set of 7 x 7” singles featuring current bands covering their favourites US '60s psych tracks.

The concept of tribute LPs has over the years has given us tracks which add insight and new slants on classic songs, (along with the occasional misguided stinker). Fortunately this boxed set of 7” singles from Fruits De Mer Records gets it right with the bands themselves choosing which acts and songs they cover.

There's a definite labour of Love (no pun intended) vibe about the whole thing; coloured vinyl, limited to 700 copies, housed in a card box, with an insert fold-out poster. It's certainly ticked all the boxes on the packaging front but more importantly the music has a freshness that highlights both the enduring quality of the original songs as well as the talent of the bands that are re-interpreting them.

The Bevis Frond kick things off with Clear Light's Night Sounds and Sand, with Nick Saloman's guitar solos as gloriously free and unhinged as ever. The Higher State choose 13^th Floor Elevators for their versions of Wait For My Love and You Don't Know, both tracks bolstered a palpable sense of joy in covering them.

A stand-out pairing is The Chemistry Set covering Love. Tackling any song from Forever Changes is a brave step for any band but the version of A House Is Not A Motel reason enough to shell out for this box-set, with its blistering duelling guitar section. Sendelica sound like a cross between Grace Slick and The Isley Brothers on their version of The United States Of America's Hard Coming Love. A good thing surely!

King Penguin opt for The Byrds with a sumptuous, string laden version of She Don't Care About Time and a version of 5D (Fifth Dimension) that adds some sitar and tabla to the chime and vocal harmony that the track is best known for.

Elsewhere The Gathering Grey make the most of studio trickery and effects for their versions of Moby Grape's I Am Not Willing and Sitting By The Window. Echoed drums and backwards guitar just two examples of the sonic touchstones they employ.

Black Tempest and The Seventh Ring Of Saturn share the final 7”, covering Spirit and The Grateful Dead respectively. Black Tempest's version of Nature's Way owes as much to Robyn Hitchcock and Neil Young as it does to Spirit, while Cream Puff War sees TSROS make fine use of a wah wah pedal and guitar histrionics. A mighty triumph from Fruits De Mer Records once again.

Limited to 700 copies.

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The Higher State - Potentially (Everyone Is Your Enemy) 7"

The latest 7” in State Records' Soundgate Sound Acetate series.

Following on from last years' “I Just Pretend” (read my review here), The Higher State's latest 7” ups the psych-punk quota, adding extra acidic bite to their west coast folk rock sound. A-side “Potentially (Everyone Is Your Enemy)” is a cautionary paranoid tale which mixes frenetic drumming, snarling fuzz guitar, vocal harmony and folk-rock jangle.

You could rightly argue that this has all been done before in the 60s but right now nobody else is making records with this sound so convincingly. State Records just get it right every time. Want further proof? Then check out the recent Paul Messis album, or last year's Suzi Chunk LP. It's aided by State having their own small but characteristic sounding studio. As every musician and sound engineer knows, limitations are beneficial in achieving a great sound.

B-side “All Ties That Bind” is pretty cool too, one and a half minutes of melodic folk-rock bolstered by spiralling lead guitar. The intro also contains a knowingly cheeky nod to the Stones “Last Time”.

Limited to 500 copies of 70gram vinyl on State Records.
www.staterecs.com 

The Market Squares - Afternoon Tide 7"

Paul Messis has been a busy chap of late. As well as his own string of solo releases, and bass-playing duties for The Higher State (see post below), he's also found time to record this debut single by ad-hoc band, The Market Squares, for his own Market Square Records imprint.

Due for release on February 4th, this limited 7" (300 copies) features Paul alongside Calvin Laporte and Evan Smith, both members of Nashville psych-poppers The Sufis. "Afternoon Tide" and its B-side "Inside My Mind" are both Messis originals and were recorded in Nashville over a weekend last August. Both tracks have a charming spontaneous feel, with UK '60s beat era melding with US garage-punk. Head over to Paul's website for more info and details of how to order, or check out the A-side below.

www.paulmessis.moonfruit.com

The Higher State - I Just Pretend 7"

The latest single from Kent's The Higher State was released at the tail end of 2012 on 13 O'Clock Records. The A-side features a brand new original track, penned by front man Marty Ratcliffe. "I Just Pretend" is two and a half minutes of superbly authentic West Coast folk-rock. The band come across as a great, lost Elektra Records act; their sound somewhere between the 12-string jangle and harmony of The Byrds and the garage folk of Love and all those great minor hit Nuggets bands.

 The B-side doesn't disappoint either with the band's take on The Gypsy Trips' Dylan-esque garage anthem "Ain't It Hard". The Gypsy Trips' version came out in 1965, but the song is perhaps better known for the altogether more snarly 1966 version by The Electric Prunes. The Higher State manage to put their own more polished, though no less enjoyable stamp on the track. All in all a great single.

Available on a limited 7", the single is in glorious mono and comes complete with a push-out centre should you want to stick it on your vinyl-playing jukebox.

www.13oclockrecords.com