Calisse - Farewell, Blacksheep (CD, Almabrain, Progressive pop)
We love the blurbs that Kaytea from XO Publicity writes for the projects she's working on. For this album, she described the music as "...weird, absorbing, spellbinding, and beautiful. At any moment, the songs are likely to merge vintage Californian garage-pop, a dash of freakbeat, Texas lysergic threnody, and 70s counter-culture inspired vocals." If you can even begin to understand such a cryptic description (we sure could), then there's a good chance you'll enjoy the wildly trippy sounds on the latest release from Calisse. If there's a single word we would use to describe this music it would be...unpredictable. You really never know from one song to the next what these folks will come up with. And in today's world filled with ultra-predictable carbon copycats, that is saying something. The band is comprised of James Collette, Kevin Hoffman, Rob Iggulden, Karen Moore, and Morganfield Riley. So...what other artists or bands can this be compared to...? Well, possibly a number of different obscure artists from the past and present...and on the other hand, possibly none at all. This music exists purely in its own unique universe. These folks aren't trying to fit into a genre, please any specific fans, or make money. They're just doing what they do and, in the process, creating some wildly inventive stuff that is light years beyond the scope of the average listener. This will undoubtedly end up being one of our favorite albums of 2016. Highly recommended. TOP PICK.
http://www.babysue.com/2016-March-LMNOP-Reviews.html#anchor1503276
