SAD EYED BEATNIKS - Ten Brocades LP

Highly recommended.

Ten Brocades jumps between various lo-fi nuances, and whereas most acts will deliberately try to make such a process seamless, main Beatnik Kevin Linn almost seems to go out of his way to deliberate upon the differences. Initially, tracks best represented by It’s Who Makes the Scene, You Belong To Us, and Passing Melody marry the current San Francisco no-fi scene to the sparse retro  production of The Velvet Underground.

Barong Mask, The Harlequin Guitar, and The Broken Playwright Waits all flirt with the taut, piercing post-punk-inflected jangled riffs of Postcard Records acts like Josef K and The Fire Engines, while the sounds of fellow San Francisco acts like Cindy and Whitney’s Playland illuminate the release with their stunning sense of isolated spectral and tiny, incidental jangled riffs.