First Listen: “The Lemon Tape”.

January 23, 2012, 0 comments

Now that 2011 is finally gone and we’re all looking into the rising sun that is the glory of 2012, so to speak, one might be inclined to suggest that last year’s interesing yet futile debates on the justification of nostalgia in contemporary pop music should somehow be over by now, but most of today’s reviews of Cloud Nothings‘ probably quite excellent album “Attack on Memory” prove otherwise. Enter Montréal’s Christian Richer, whose (unfortunately still unreleased) album 1968, recorded under his psych-infused guise The Haiduks, was nothing but a full embrace of late sixties pop, unabashedly and indeed rather shamelessly nostalgic, not to say: retromanic. Yet to wipe away all possible misunderstandings, what we were facing with 1968 was neither a “plundering of the past” nor a “fatal attraction” whatsoever but a means of cultural production that civilizations have created since time immemorial: the tribute. And above all, in Richer’s case it was a marvelously beautiful, truly original yet still faithful and honest tribute to pop music’s Golden Age.

It is from this particular angle, and not through Simon Reynolds’ eyes, that one ought to look at The Lemon Tape, the “psychedelic pop experience” that is Richer’s latest project, a twelve-track cassette which will be released soon via Frank Ouellette’s Hobo Cult and his own, newly founded tape imprint Kinnta Records. The compilation gathers contributions from some very exciting exponents of the Montréal underground, including tracks by two of Richer’s countless ventures, Élément Kuuda and The Haiduks (delivering one of the collection’s standouts with “A Tide Through The Flames”), who are not exclusively treating the psych-pop realm but who also indulge into the temporally related sounds of library music’s heyday, that certain, mostly British tradition of production music that recently regained some attention and appreciation with the reissues of Daphne Oram’s oeuvre and the output of London’s excellent Public Information label.

So anyone who’s seeking music that’s pushing boundaries, step aside (and come back tomorrow). All others who are just looking for some crazy good music that aims at providing a playful, skillful and just plain awesome reverence to one of pop music history’s greatest eras, take an exclusive look at three accompanying videos, all made by Moduli TV aka Frank Ouellette, and listen to three seriously gorgeous tracks from this excellent compilation.

Check the tracklist below:

Side A:

01 The Reveens – Twisted Games
02 Brave Radar – A Spike
03 The Haiduks – A Tide Through The Flames
04 The Capital of Plastic Daffodils – Princess
05 Bataille Solaire – Harpe Pierreries Chatoiement
06 Jane L. Kasowicz – Looking for Jim Sullivan

Side B:

01 The Yesteryears – Never My Love
02 Einar Leiknes – Hvordan
03 Léopard et Moi – Prend de Nouvelles Formes
04 Tomato Saucers – Cosmique Love
05 L’Oeil Nu – Trance Oedipienne
06 Élément Kuuda – Insomnie Astral