Five Years or so

Some find Karen Dalton's voice difficult to listen to, and despite the Billie Holiday comparisons, it is rougher going than Lady Day. But Dalton's vocals aren't that hard to take, and they are expressive; like Buffy Sainte-Marie, it just does take some getting used to because of their unconventional timbre. Her debut album has a muted folk-rock feel reminiscent of Fred Neil's arrangements in the mid-'60s, unsurprising since Neil's Capitol-era producer, Nick Venet, produced this disc too, and since Dalton, a friend of Neil, covered a couple of Neil songs here ("Little Bit of Rain," "Blues on the Ceiling"). Although clocking in at a mere ten songs, it covers a lot of ground, from Tim Hardin, Jelly Roll Morton, and Leadbelly to the traditional folk song "Ribbon Bow" and the Eddie Floyd/Booker T. Jones-penned soul tune "I Love You More Than Words Can Say." The record is interesting and well done, but would have been far more significant if it had come out five years or so earlier. By 1969 such singers were expected to write much of their own material (Dalton wrote none), and to embrace rock instrumentation less tentatively.

This one is not for sale, produced for promotional purposes only, deserves a review nevertheless I want to assert forcefully. Five years Trail Records - that means 'Five Years In Space 2007 - 2012' - here we have a sampler which passes through all those albums which this exceptional New York City based label has released so far. So this is something like a best-of collection, sending us on a journey entering psychedelic, ethno/oriental, trippy and spacey fields from all over the place. Due to the fact that Alexander Tsalikhin and Vlad Milyavsky are continously searching for talented artists around the globe.

Monks - The Early Years 1964- 1965 (2009) {Light In The Attic Records LITA041 rel 2009} (Remastered & Expanded)
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 229 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 87 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 181 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1964-65, 2009 Light In The Attic Records | LITA 041
Rock / Psychedelic Rock / Garage Rock / Proto-Punk / Experimental Rock

The Monks started life as five American GIs stationed in Germany, playing beat music together during downtime. After their discharge Gary Burger, Larry Clark, Dave Day, Eddie Shaw and Roger Johnston formed The Torquays, a band that only morphed into The Monks after a bit of conceptualising, stipulating that the group should become the "anti-Beatles", wearing robes and nooses around their necks (stealing the theatrical thunder from SunnO))) by forty years or so).