Yeah. Overblown title, as always.

Did some digging into the backlog of Jay Reatard, in that I marginally slept on the Reatards, the teenage solo/trio/duo project Mr. Reatard (ne Mr. Lindsay) conjured in his hometown of Memphis in the late nineties. Nice chapter, some well-done garage punk that blows away current practitioners like the Black Lips, who never scare me like good garage punk should. The Mummies are still more fun, and really the modernizing grandaddies to whom all should bow, but let’s move on.

Better yet, the guy has a wikipedia page. Read that.

Following the breakup or retirement of the Reatards, Jay formed the Lost Sounds, I think with his then-current girlfriend, whose departure from Jay’s life, I believe, spurred the recent Blood Visions album. Makes sense, the later album being a vicious and troubling depiction of the post-breakup blues. And my favorite album of 2006, hands down.

He has a number of projects going, including co-running Shattered records. I think he lives in Atlanta now. Could be wrong.

The Lost Sounds retained the anger and mayhem inclusive to the Reatards, only adding a tad more songcraft, or at least less obfuscation of such. And then there’s the synths and keys, gaining them the ‘New Wave’ tag, although there’s about as much of that as there is on a Gang of Four or Damned record. Yet it’s the touch that works.

These are from their Black Wave album.

The Lost Sounds – Do You Wanna Kill Me

The Lost Sounds – 1620 Echles Street

He plays in NYC July 21.

I’ll be going dark for a while, taking the operation into the upstate state. Here’s a few more to tide you over until then. They’re much smarter songs than you’d expect from the titles:

from Bedroom Disasters:

Reatards – No Brains

Reatards – Stupid Asshole

From Grown Up Fucked Up

Reatards – Sick When I See

From the In the Dark single:

Jay Reatard – In the Dark

And miscellaneously pleasing to me:

Ben Watt & Robert Wyatt — Walter and John
(Weirdo cripple-progfolk from Summer into Winter)

Colleen – Sun Against My Eyes
(Melancholy horn instrumental from Les Ondes Silencieuses)

Collie Ryan – Cricket
A female Nick Drake sings at sunset from an Appalachian cliff; from Wayfaring Stangers: Ladies from the Canyon

Alessandro Stefana – Western Soda
From his Poste e Telegraphi; Italian guitarist makes a better soundtrack album, without a movie, than those soundtracks with movies.