Where bought? I feel I can say with near certainty that this was picked up in Piccadilly Records not long after it came out. I'd been on the hunt for it and copies that existed were getting snapped up pretty sharp. In fact my copy is the re-release on Touch & Go rather than their self-pressed 12". This is weird to think about for reasons this blog (and the next) will go into. My copy has the image below much smaller, and basically looks like a blank cardboard sleeve with a backprint.
There was, very briefly, Crystal Antlers fever. This EP got great reviews, a totally authentic word-of-mouth (and probably blog) phenomenon and the first CA show in Manchester was absolutely raucous and rammed in a tiny piss-smelling bar I've played at before (the soundman went AWOL for our set and we did it ourself).
Their sound, if you can condense it, was a fairly wild corruption of psychedelia and soul music songwriting. There's bits of rock and kosmiche and free rock in there, but the vocals land the whole concoction squarely in rock - indie rock, if you like, though this sounds nothing like their contemporaries (even ones like Ganglians and Thee Oh Sees). The vocalist was also a bassist, whose instrument often appeared way out front, with everything crushed beautifully together by one of the coolest sounds on record - the overdriven organ of Victor Rodriguez-Guerrero.
Live it seemed fairly obvious VRG was the real primo musical talent of the group. The band were no slouches, don't get me wrong, but this guy was mesmerising. His touches here render good moments incredibly memorable and indelible: the song that broke them was 'A Thousand Eyes' with its very soul-inspired slowdown chorus, but I can't find fault with anything here. They didn't play 'Owl' live and it sounds more like a regular rock song than the rest, but I love it!
My favourite is probably the closing 8 minute tantrum 'Parting Song for the Torn Sky' (a perfect rock tantrum title) where even the guitarist catches up to the shaggy stylings of the rest of the melodians.
A great record and not loath to part. How quickly, in a professional sense, things would change.
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