Mazzy Star Returns from the Semi-Dead

Hello everyone,

It's been fifteen years since Mazzy Star last released an album (1996's Among My Swan), and during that time, rumors have circulated every so often about recording sessions, new record deals, aborted albums, re-unions, etc. While David Roback and Hope Sandoval have played live shows together from time to time (most notably in 2000 and 2008-2009), no new Mazzy Star material has ever seen the light of day. However, their latest announcement (October 17) indicates a new single, "Common Burn / Lay Myself Down," will be released at the end of the month, with an album to follow at some point. To hear a small snippet from "Common Burn," click here. Pretty exciting news, but let's hope this legendarily mercurial and hermetical band doesn't decide to pull the plug before the release date (stranger things have been known to happen!).

Paisley Underground Series, #15: Rainy Day- S/T (1984) MP3 & FLAC

"When you think the night has seen your mind, that inside you're twisted and unkind."

David Roback's exit from Rain Parade, the seminal Paisley band that he had formed with his brother Steven, after the release of their neo-psyche classic, Emergency Third Rail Power Trip, has long been shrouded in mystery, but whatever the reason--whether he chose to leave over creative differences or was jettisoned by the band for being difficult to work with--it led to the creation of one of the more intriguing and sought-after recordings associated with The Paisley Underground. Essentially a David Roback-curated collaborative project comprised of a number of prominent figures from the Paisley scene, Rainy Day reflects both the unity of the scene in its early days and its impressive array of influences. Recorded by former Minutemen producer Ethan James (also an ex-member of Blue Cheer) at his Radio Tokyo Studios (a small house with carpet-covered walls and no windows that was located a few blocks from Venice Beach), Rainy Day was intended as a tribute to some of the artists who served as inspirations to the Paisley scene, such as The Velvet Underground, Big Star, Bob Dylan, Buffalo Springfield, The Beach Boys, and others. Roback had compiled a list of potential covers and set about recruiting various friends to come in and contribute to the recording process. Among these were former Dream Syndicate bassist Kendra Smith, who would soon join Roback in Clay Allison/Opal, Susanna Hoffs and Vicki Peterson from The Bangles, Michael Quercio from The Three O'Clock, former Rain Parade band-mate Matt Piucci, and Dennis Duck and Karl Precoda of The Dream Syndicate. Steven Roback recalls the general mood of the sessions: "...by the early '80s, the music of the Velvets and Big Star better expressed our mood. It was darker, lonelier, more daring. L.A. was in a somewhat depressed period....Punk was big then and had the right attitude. So the musicians that participated in Rainy Day were trying to recast the spirit of punk but in more expansive musical terms." The album itself features minimal, mostly acoustic arrangements and retains a somber, desolate sense throughout. While Quercio and Roback (yes, he actually sings here!) provide serviceable vocals for half of the songs, it is Susanna Hoffs and Kendra Smith who steal the show. In particular, Hoff's rendition of "I'll Be Your Mirror" is simply stunning and arguably bests Nico's version on the Velvets' debut. Not to be outdone, Smith's version of Alex Chilton's "Holocaust" is just as amazing, her languid, mournful phrasing somehow capturing the bottomless despair of the original. Many describe Rainy Day as the one true masterpiece produced by the Paisley scene; while I hesitate to confer such a lofty status to this record (in my opinion, there were better Paisley recordings), there is no doubt that this is one of the essential documents of the eighties L.A. underground.

Paisley Underground Series, #8: Op@l- H@ppy Nightmare B@by (1987) MP3 & FLAC

"Jigsaw Jenny, motor city, she's a vampire, so am I."

It has never been made entirely clear what led to David Roback's exit from Rain Parade after their brilliant debut LP, Emergency Third Rail Power Trip. The "official" story is that he left to work on Rainy Day, a Paisley Underground-related musical collective that included, among others, Michael Quercio from The Three O'Clock, Susanna Hoffs of The Bangles, and Kendra Smith, bassist for The Dream Syndicate. Rainy Day only produced one album, and Roback and Smith ended up pairing off not only into a new romance, but also into a new band, Clay Allison. After releasing one single, the band changed their name to Opal, and released a pair of EPs, which were later collected together on Early Recordings. In the context of the neo-psych music scene from which it emerged, Opal's lone LP, Happy Nightmare Baby sounds somewhat unique in the sense that it largely dispenses with the Jangle that defined many Paisley bands at the time, instead choosing to explore the darker side of psychedelia while integrating some subtle Glam-Rock undertones as well. A perfect example of this is the extended psych-jam "Magick Power," which features some great Ray Manzarek-style electric organ, Roback's grungy guitar riffs fed through a wah-pedal, and Kendra Smith's beautifully detached vocals sounding, at times, almost corpse-like. On "Rocket Machine," Roback channels his inner Marc Bolan by structuring the song around a sexy, sleazy riff that seems to pull Smith's vocals along on its back. A psych-gem of a different color is "She's a Diamond," which, of all the songs on Happy Nightmare Baby, is the most reminiscent of the more acoustic blues-based sound of the earlier EPs, and as a result, it provides Smith with a little more space to reveal her unique vocal style. Opal's short but brilliant career tends to get overshadowed by what preceded it and what came after its demise, but their music is among the darkest and most enduring to have emanated from the Paisley Underground scene.

Paisley Underground Series, #2: Rain Parade- Emergency Third Rail Power Trip (1983) / Explosions in the Glass Palace EP (1984) MP3 & FLAC

"Look at Merri, she goes round and round."

One of the definitive albums of The Paisley Underground -a music scene that was anything but clearly defined- Rain Parade's Emergency Third Rail Power Trip is an enduring and unassuming gem of post-sixties (neo) psychedelia. While taking inspiration from sixties Jangle-Pop purveyors such as The Byrds as well as the darker psychedelic textures of bands such as The Doors and early Pink Floyd, Rain Parade's debut is more than simply an homage to these psych-rock forefathers; rather, Emergency Third Rail Power Trip bristles with a spirit of inspired re-invention. Led by the Roback brothers and Matt Piucci, Rain Parade successfully integrate the blissed out Rickenbacker jangle of songs such as their first single, "What She's Done to Your Mind" with the dark haze of songs like "Look at Merri," which sounds like a blueprint for Jason Pierce's work with Spiritualized ten years later. On the Explosions in the Glass Palace EP, released the following year after David Roback had left to form Opal with Kendra Smith of The Dream Syndicate, the band takes a slightly more minimalist approach, even moving into Power-Pop territory on "Blue," which seems to conjure the ghost of Chris Bell for the lead guitar part. Despite this, the band also manages to come up with one of its best extended psych-jams, "Prisoners," which is a great mash-up of early and late Pink Floyd. Unfortunately, Rain Parade would never hit these artistic heights again, but their debut more than guarantees their status as a pillar of the neo-psychedelic movement.

Opal- "Happy Nightmare Baby" Video (1987)

Recognize anyone?

Mazzy Star- Flowers in December EP: Parts 1 & 2 (1996) MP3 & FLAC -For ranxerox-

"In your smile there are many a ways to cut the pain."

The first single pulled from Mazzy Star's presumptive swan song (pun intended), Among My Swan, was "Flowers in December," a lovely country-tinged ballad that features Hope Sandoval on harmonica. The single was released in two parts in the UK, with each part featuring two non-LP tracks. The highlight of Part I is "Hair and Skin" written by Dan Stuart whose band, Green on Red, was a mainstay of the Paisley Underground scene.  The song is a dark psych-rock slow-burner that hearkens back to the pre-Mazzy Opal days. Part II's highlight is "Had a Thought," a simple, straightforward acoustic song featuring one of Hope's livelier vocals. While not essential by any means, non-LP tracks were a rare commodity with this band, so it's nice to hear them work their magic in a slightly less polished context.

Mazzy Star- Among My Swan (1996) MP3 & FLAC

"Take away everything that feels fine. Catch a shape in the circles of my mind."

Mazzy Star's final (?) album, Among My Swan, has long been saddled with the reputation of being inferior to the band's two earlier LPs, She Hangs Brightly  and So Tonight That I Might See. The arguments for this have ranged from "sounds too similar to the previous stuff" to "sounds too dirge-like to retain listener interest." This negative critical response was partly due to the fact that three years had passed since the release of Mazzy Star's breakthrough second album, and the hushed confidence of Among My Swan, despite evidencing a number of subtle changes to the band's sound, was deemed an unworthy product for such a long hiatus. It is true that on Among My Swan, David Roback has turned the reverb (and thus the pysch-haze) dial down a notch or two, but in its place are many new textural nuances, such as glockenspiel and harmonica, that allow the songs to tread in a slightly less claustrophobic country-folk direction. The first single, "Flowers in December," is a perfect example of this. Here, Hope Sandoval's harmonica takes the melodic lead that would have been handled by Roback's guitar on one of the previous albums. This gives the song a distinctly desolate feel, and opens things up for one of Sandoval's best vocal turns. Conversely, on "Roseblood," the psych-rock gloom returns with Sandoval's vocal at its sleepy-sultry best, but what really pulls the song together is the backwards guitar effects that handle the main instrumental breaks. A masterstroke Mr. Roback. Rather than their "weakest" album, Among My Swan is their most "underrated" album, a distinction that, while wholeheartedly undeserved, makes this album ripe for rediscovery.

Mazzy Star- So Tonight That I Might See (1993) MP3 & FLAC -For marioscafe-

"Come so close that I might see the crash of light come down on me."

While So Tonight That I Might See can certainly be considered Mazzy Star's "breakthrough" album, the irony is that, aside from David Roback's slightly more lush production, the band hadn't sacrificed any of the dark psych-rock mystique that made  She Hangs Brightly so seductive. If anything, on their second LP, Mazzy Star had distilled their unique sound, resulting in a more focused and varied set of songs that would mark the creative apex of their (unfortunately) brief recording career. So Tonight That I Might See begins with "Fade into You," easily Mazzy Star's most identifiable song, and, as hard as it is to believe, a minor hit. Despite its unlikely brush with mainstream success, the song is a dark, haunting masterpiece that lets nary a ray light in. Also deserving of mention is the cover of Arthur Lee's "Five String Serenade," an exceedingly simple acoustic-drenched ode that provides Hope Sandoval with the perfect vehicle for the sultry torpor of her vocals. The often over-looked gem on this album is the title track, which, much like the title track on the debut album, allows the band to pursue the more aggressive side of its psych-rock pedigree. Overall, an exceedingly gorgeous piece of work to be sure.

Mazzy Star- She Hangs Brightly (1990) MP3 & FLAC

"Takes me down deep and wide, pulls me through to the other side."

Hope Sandoval was originally pressed into service as the lead singer of David Roback's Paisley Underground psych-rock band Opal after Kendra Smith left the stage halfway through a show while touring in the UK in 1988. The following year, after an aborted attempt at recording a second Opal album, Ghost Highway, the band rechristened itself Mazzy Star and released its debut, She Hangs Brightly, in 1990. In the interim, Roback had traded in the gauzy, languorous T-Rex-inspired space-rock of his Opal days for a sound approximating Robbie Krieger playing the Delta Blues as a member of The Velvet Underground. And then there's Hope Sandoval's oh-so-singular vocals: sultry, child-like, vulnerable, untouchable, and ably expressing both a heartbreaking sense of desolation and a disinterested sense of separation. She Hangs Brightly contains a number of psychedelic gems, including "Halah" and their inspired cover of Slapp Happy's "Blue Flower," but often overlooked are the acoustic blues-based songs, which Sandoval's vocals sell unforgettably. She Hangs Brightly tends to be over-shadowed by the band's breakthrough follow-up, So Tonight That I Might See, but it deserves far better. Its Delta-pysch hybrid still sounds fresh, and while often emulated over the years, it has never been bested.

Mazzy Star- "Blue Flower" (1994) Live, Later with Jools Holland

Peerless, absolutely peerless...