“Andrew”
from the album Tentacles
2009
iTunes
With the recent news that Touch and Go was cutting distribution services and staff, the label was promising that they’d still be producing music; I have to say that this particular track from Crystal Antlers is proof positive that they’re still producing music with a vengeance.
Coming at you out of Long Beach, these lo-fi psychedelic garage punks sound like they’re coming from a lot further away than that, and from a different time even.
This MP3, off their upcoming debut full-length (due in April), is a bizarre raw trip to the days before punk was called punk, when it happened in garages, and when Farfisa was not a foreign-sounding name.
On “Andrew,” the band has created a lo-fi trip through this era, doing something so complex that I can’t put a name to it. It’s almost like the whole song is being controlled by a man behind a curtain, a man that the band is doing their best to distract you from with the ebbs and flows of surreal garage punk.
By the time you’ve heard the track in it’s entirety (and even more so after you’ve listened to is multiple times), you’ll begin to figure out that it’s best to not question it; just enjoy it. Ponder too much on it, and it just might melt your brain.