Topaz Rags

***West Coast ghost squad TOPAZ RAGS stalk back into the deadlights with a fresh vinyl single, their first new material since the Capricorn Born Again LP. Recorded in the heart of winter in a room with one blue light bulb, “The Crown Center” is pure nightprowler music: quaking bass, grime-jazz keys, dusty drums, witch choirs floating through the smog and into sleeping homes with the power lines cut. The sound of crime to come. The flip (“You Go On”) slips deeper into the psych-psycho psyche, a bleached-brain riff-rhythm grinding away endlessly while voices and electric piano stabs arc across the stereo field, raining ash. A grimmer twist on the Topaz formula, the dreamer’s dream turned dark. 33 RPM 7-inch pressed on various colored vinyl in hand-silkscreened cardstock sleeves. Edition of 345.