Kaleidoscopes and Tall Dwarfisms

Despite the snowstorm on Friday, yesterday was sunny with only a minimum amount of slush on the sidewalk and that meant going for a walk. And since all walks should have a destination, I stopped by BMV books and headed straight to the cd bins.

The first find was a budget Sony Special Products edition of Kaleidoscope's 1969 album Incredible! If you know their first two LPs, Side-Trips and A Beacon from Mars, you may know what to expect: Middle Eastern Cajun Psychedelic fusion. And it's even better than my description might suggest. I'd go so far as to suggest that the eleven minute "Seven-Ate Sweet" alone is worth the price of admission. Stop by the excellent Pulsating Dreams fansite for a bit of history.

The second disc was Chris Knox's Songs of You & Me, which features the complete Hanging Out for Time to Cure Birth and A Stranger's Iron Shore albums. My experience has been that his and his band the Tall Dwarfs' material does not often appear in local shops so I had better buy them when I see them. His songs are witty, catchy, and many other good things. Find out more at the Flying Nun site here. Also on-line is his interview with Forced Exposure, readable here, sadly without the hilarious footnotes that appeared in the print edition.

Here's a video of Knox's first band, The Enemy. Enjoy