TOWER RECORDINGS: Furniture Music for Evening Shuttles

Bands from the 1980s which most frequently received the label psych revival included Milwaukee's Plasticland and Los Angeles's the Three O'Clock. They combined wonderful 60s influenced playing and songwriting with fairly slick contemporary approaches to arranging and recording. In the 90s, the psych revival label more often lands on groups like the Supreme Dicks and the Tower Recordings. These bands tend to use studio-based, decorative arrangements far more reminiscent of their 60s influences. Without the commercial success of their forbears, these studio creations are made under more spartan conditions. The Tower Recordings borrow from recordings like Joe Boyd's work with the Incredible String Band. Recording themselves with far less expensive, and thus less precise equipment, their records sound both very similar to and very different from their forbears. Furniture Music for Evening Shuttles is the band's best album to date, both in songwriting and in studio arrangements. In addition to the necessity of using cheap equipment, some songs feature unusual noises in their orchestration quite unlike some of their more obvious folk-psych predecessors. The end result is an unusual and interesting mix of clear 60s influences (including an Os Mutantes cover and a Brother Ah sample) with a very contemporary approach to low-budget home recording. (Siltbreeze, 727 S. 7th St./Philadelphia, PA 19147)