The fourth album by Chicago avant rock trio Spires That in the Sunset Rise is the group's most musically direct and immediately accessible work yet. The album was recorded in Philadelphia in collaboration with the Philly acid folk veteran Greg Weeks at his own Hexham Head Studio; members of Weeks' band, Espers, contribute as well. Gone is the deliberately noisy "free folk" aesthetic, in favor of a more controlled blend of folk, psychedelia, and Sun City Girls-like world music explorations,   [ read more ]

CD $12.33

Those with a sense of psychedelic/experimental music history will immediately make two important connections when listening to Spires That in the Sunset Rise: ESP-Disk Records and Sun City Girls. The legendary New York-based label is, rightfully, best known for its tireless effort to document the era's free jazz scene, but starting with early releases by the Fugs and the Godz, ESP-Disk maintained a smaller scale but no less important sideline in the experimental end of folk    [ read more ]

CD $16.13

CD $13.28

The third album by Spires That in the Sunset Rise -- their second for the excellent Secret Eye label -- finds the quartet's ability at beautiful, shadowy music well in hand. Like labelmate Larkin Grimm, trying to say that their work is "acid folk" or freak folk" or whatever other label is around seems far too limiting -- it's a handy tag which doesn't accurately convey the striking mystery of songs like the opening "Spike Fiddle Song," which features singer Kathleen Baird on said instrument a   [ read more ]

CD $16.13