Spiritual Pajamas

Tyde, The

Season 5

Spiritual Pajamas

“In Season 5, the long-awaited fifth full-length by beach-pop project The Tyde, frontman Darren Rademaker unveils his vision of an ’80s-inspired Suave Nouveau, with a clutch of sweet, melancholic love songs evoking lush mustaches, mellow macho, the ghost of Jimmy Buffett, white sand beaches, flamingos swooping across a cerulean sky, speedboats cutting through the bay and pastel linen suits billowing in the breeze as the sun dips beneath the horizon. “Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León ‘discovered’ Florida in 1513, naming the peninsula La Florida, the flowering land. In Season 5, Rademaker reflects on his own return to the flowering land, and the artistic diaspora that caused him to quit California in 2020 in search of a New World of his own. ‘I lived in Florida from the ages of ten to twenty-five, but never really got to explore it,’ he says. ‘When I came back, I decided to really embrace the whole Florida aesthetic. I moved into an art deco home in Sarasota with pink seashell lamps. I visited Key West, like seven times. I also quit smoking weed and cigarettes, and stopped saying shit like LOL and amazeballs. It felt different. It felt good.’ “The record features the talents of many good friends, including Dan Horne, Colby Buddelmeyer, Matt Correia (Allah-Las), Clay Finch (Mapache), Albert Hickman, Derek James (The Entrance Band), Alex Knost (Tomorrow’s Tulips) and Adam MacDougall (Circles Around The Sun / Black Crowes), with artist / musician Matt Fishbeck (Holy Shit) designing the deco-inspired album artwork....

Horne, Dan

Count The Clouds

Spiritual Pajamas

Record producer and electric bassist Dan Horne returns to his Lone Palm a.k.a. Liberty Hair Farm studio in Echo Park, Los Angeles for the vinyl release of his debut full-length studio album, Count The Clouds. Recorded in 2020 - 2021 before his touring schedule kicked back into high gear with Circles Around the Sun and Grateful Shred, Horne unveils Count The Clouds, featuring eight songs with the multi-instrumentalist vibin’ out on all the guitars, drums, pedal steel, and keys. A flashback to mid-1960s psychedelic folk, Count The Clouds includes special guests Ny Oh from Harry Styles’ band, Raze Regal, and Frank LoCrasto. Horne is gaining recognition on the Echo Park scene as a producer at Lone Palm a.k.a. Liberty Hair Farm working with artists Mapache, Chapin Sisters, Pacific Range, Allah-Las, and others. On the national live music circuit, he’s a founding member of Circles Around The Sun, the Dead tribute band Grateful Shred (who’s selling out venues all across the country), and a key player with bandleaders Jonathan Wilson, Ben Kweller and Conor Oberst.

Barth, Lauren

Stormwaiting

Spiritual Pajamas

“Driving up the coast highway from LA, once you hit Santa Barbara you are struck with a noticeable change in landscape. It is the gateway to the Central Coast, where the contours of the land begin to take on more dramatic inclines and feelings burn like wildfires. This was the childhood home of Lauren Barth, ranch-living and horseriding amongst the golden and dusty open ranges that still expand through parts of California. It is at these gates of change that Lauren Barth explores on Stormwaiting, her second solo effort and first on the Spiritual Pajamas label. “Behind the musical landscape of Stormwaiting, Lauren drew from a backstory she created as inspiration. A young woman and spiritual leader of a commune, blind yet finds her way by a heightened sense of awareness, is caught between the physical world of ‘Rialto’ and the spiritual—‘Morian.’ ‘Stormwaiting’ is slang for living in Rialto and the storm is the tempest within Morian. The cult’s most important message is one of Awareness. Like her protagonist, Lauren steps through these contemplations of change coming, treading one step at a time between the physical and spiritual realms, in a bittersweet anticipation of something upon us. Each song is like a deep breath in, an exhale, a pondering of the past and a wonder about the future with an acute awareness of each passing moment. “Barth is a true seasoned folk music player, evoking the California folk movement of the late 1960s like David Crosby (who also hailed from...

Georis, Nico

A Rainbow In Curved Air

Spiritual Pajamas

“It was never supposed to happen. No one was supposed to reimagine Terry Riley’s A Rainbow In Curved Air—a piece of music that, until now, has existed in its own class of expression. No one was supposed to scale the perilous heights of the citadel and come back with another document of the strange festival scenes within. With the release of Nico Georis’s A Rainbow In Curved Air it’s clear now that this piece of music is a place that you can go to, a kind of astral sanctum that can be visited again and again so long as you know the mysterious paths that lead to it. “Doing away with the production tricks used on Riley’s original recording (just intonation, mirror image delay, half-speed tracking of all lead parts) Nico Georis confronts the central seven time theme with a new transparency that gradually complexifies into astonishing Persian carpet displays of patterned musical awareness. This is music of the plenum and not the void: it is teeming with forms that behave in ways that recall descriptions of elaborately jeweled DMT hyperspace; sonic shapes that are driven by the pure uplift and force of infinite, unconstrained autotransformation. In this way it is similar to the original but the pace is way less manic, way more listenable as it rides forward on a calm surge of dazzling zero point energy. “The three other songs on the record are Georis originals. “Vapor” is a moment of twilight abstraction, a plant music duet that...

Osees

Live At Henry Miller Library, Big Sur

Spiritual Pajamas

"When we finally decided to bite the bullet during Covid’s initial shut down and subsequent clubs shuttering, we thought we should play some lovely and close to our heart spots to keep it interesting. "Henry Miller Library fits that bill perfectly. Lovely place, lovely people and general good vibes. A perfect place for us to set up and record. "We’ve dipped deep into the dark waters of our song-sack of holding and found several more never-before-performed-live tunes and paired them up with some oldies we’ve knocked the dust off of, as well as some fan favorites and general surprises to make the merry very. That’s right, we’ve been paying attention. Also, included here are the covers we did because why the fuck not. Recorded from dusk 'til dawn too at the gorgeous Henry Miller Library in Big Sur. Same killer crew, similar killer vibes. An enchanting pre-holiday evening to tell you that we miss and love you. Play it loud and have one on us. And keep your chin up for goodness sake. "Be well out there." – OSEES

Scher, Farmer Dave

Speak Of Love

Spiritual Pajamas

This is a message of love from the West.  Farmer Dave Scher (Beachwood Sparks, The Skiffle Players, Kurt Vile and the Violators) has a message to send. And that is simply — love. Speak of Love, Farmer Dave’s new 4-song EP on Spiritual Pajamas is woven with the one simple truth of love in both words and music. A different state of consciousness awaits if you listen, close your eyes and imagine.  The story of the Speak of Love EP starts some years ago, when Neil Young appeared on television and spoke directly into the camera with a telepathic gaze and asked “Who is going to stand up for the land? Who is going to sing for mother earth?” Farmer Dave took this as a direct call to action. Seeing an alternate future of a barren, scorched earth that was used and thrown away, he decided to introduce a different path into his music. After spending time with plant medicines in Peru, Farmer Dave came back to California, dispatched most of his earthly possessions to live in an Ojai commune, wandered the wilderness outside of Los Angeles and found his own cosmic cave to meditate and work out this batch of songs devoted to Mother Earth. The result is a Farmer Dave rave up intergalactic honky tonk -- a phantasmagoric intersection of past and present where aliens dance with the Chumash and the Santa Ana winds still blow ancient spirits through the strip malls of Venice Beach. And...

Skiffle Players, The

Skiff

Spiritual Pajamas

Their second album, Skiff, is a new direction for The Skiffle Players. Now, they all sing and write. There is no leader. Recorded at Infinitespin Recorders in Van Nuys CA, with engineer Matt “Linny” Linesch, the album begins with a bold opening; the Farmer Dave Scher-penned “Cara,” heavy information for the soul. Then, into classic Cass McCombs insanity on “Local Boy,” a wild ride on the run from the cops. Third is a touching tribute to a bygone companion, “Miss It When It’s Gone,” written and led by Neal Casal. The album’s revolving perspective continues to bounce around, leaving no apparent land to stand upon. In that, it is deeply subversive. For there is nothing to defend, but the ability to transform and imagine. The album continues to unfold back to McCombs with a satire on justice, “The Law Offices Of Dewey, Cheatum And Howe.” It goes from the saloon “Long Horns, Long Necks, Long Legs,” to the rainforest “Herbamera.” Casal blasts in again with the sun-bleached rambler, “Los Angeles Alleyway.” Scher’s “Skiffleman” sings a song for everyone. McCombs plays with memory in a song about coming of age in the Bay Area on “Oakland Scottish Rite Temple Waltz.” Penultimately, “Santa Fe” is an elliptical broadside about materialism and waste. The album concludes by pushing off again, out into the familiar waters of a traditional skiffle number, “Sweet Georgia Brown,” each member taking a perhaps all-too casual solo. This is acoustic dance music at its finest. It is also refreshingly...

Mattson 2

Play "a Love Supreme"

Spiritual Pajamas

John Coltrane’s 1965 magnum opus A Love Supreme is one of the most revered and influential recordings in the history of jazz, widely regarded as the iconic saxophonist’s masterpiece. It might seem audacious at the very least to undertake a new recording of such a foundational album, but twin brothers Jared and Jonathan Mattson are nothing if not sonic risk-takers.  With their new release Mattson 2 Play “A Love Supreme,” the duo reimagines Coltrane’s avant-garde epic through a 21st-century lens, creating a new interpretation that remains faithful to the questing spirit of the original while pushing the music into bold new territory—which itself is fully in keeping with the composer’s forward-looking vision. The album translates the Coltrane Quartet’s acoustic jazz explorations into a modern language swathed in a haze of analog synths, ecstatic guitars, transcendent grooves and enveloping atmospherics. The duo undertook an intensive study of the original composition, Coltrane’s notes, and every available recording by the Coltrane Quartet as well as later versions by the likes of John McLaughlin, Branford Marsalis and Alice Coltrane. They used that vocabulary to create their own take, which they honed through invaluable live performances before audiences largely unfamiliar with the original. “It was so incredible to see the way that a rock fans connected with the music,” Jonathan recalls. “There was yelling and crying, people getting really stoked and devouring every note we were playing. Seeing people’s minds getting blown by Coltrane’s music, was an inspiration for us.” Those visceral reactions attest...

Skiffle Players, The

Piffle Sayers EP

Spiritual Pajamas

Supergroup, side project, high-school-garage-band-of-brothers-from-other-mothers, whatever its called, this band formed to play a one-off show in Big Sur and had so much fun they’re still at it. On guitar, Neal Casal (Circles Around The Sun) sticks mostly to the acoustic allowing his elegant affinity towards melodic craft to shine. Cass McCombs’s guitar wizardry and acclaimed compositions are at their peak, and his raw, mostly first-take vocals bring the core of the song to the forefront. And when asking “what the hell was that sound”—it was probably Farmer Dave, the official leader and founder of the band, his keyboard / lap steel / harmonium work is the glue that holds the flotsam together. Dan Horne’s bass (Circles Around The Sun) and Aaron Sperske’s percussion (Beachwood Sparks) are so intertwined it sounds like each of them are both playing drums and bass at the same time. After the instant classic and record store rare find Skifflin’ (2015), The Skiffle Players are ready to release two new works. The Piffle Sayers EP is made up of a few gems from the Skifflin’ sessions, and can be considered a companion piece to that debut LP. This foreshadows the release of a new full length album scheduled for this fall.

Light Fantastic

Out Of View

Spiritual Pajamas

“You can either take a dreamy glide on the waves of the PacificOcean or you can let the waves engulf you... either way your senses take in something that’s not unlike the sparkling music and voices of Light Fantastic. “The sophisticated yet innocent jangle of their debut long player Out of View on the Spiritual Pajamas label is a fresh neighbor to the trippy head music for which San Francisco is usually known. But somehow it lives quite happily in the midst of giant Redwoods, the thick cold waters of the foggy coast, or the laid back urgency of a late night out in the Mission with your head in the clouds. From The Fillmore to The Whisky a Go Go, to The Hacienda in Manchester, the ten songs on this album work as a sort of View-Master / time machine... ‘feels like I’ve been here before’… and you wanna stay for a while and smile. “Terry Sowers, chief songwriter armed with his trusty Rickenbacker six-string and melancholy vocal / lyric delivery, powers the Light Fantastic. Bassman Jeremy Bringetto hooks you in with his super melodic but well-rounded bass lines while Rachel Hoiem twinkles and pads the songs with her keyboards and harmonies. Recording mastermind Rex Shelverton and his colorful guitar comes through like a lighthouse in heavy fog, lighting the way for the group and Terry’s tunes to take you on a trip.This ain’t what you call surf rock but you’ll find these guys out on every swell. And...

Tyde, The

Darren 4

Spiritual Pajamas

A lazy decade since 2006’s Three’s Co. (Rough Trade) and after three failed attempts, Spiritual Pajamas brings you Darren 4, the new record from The Tyde. Songs of sea, sex and sand sprinkled with goodbyes, divorce, truthful situations and perhaps a few laughs. Joining Darren Rademaker on this journey are familiar members brother Brent Rademaker (Beachwood Sparks), Ben Knight, and Colby Buddelmeyer, along with new faces Bobby Rodriguez on keys, Richard Gowen (Jonathan Wilson, Vetiver, Nick Waterhouse) on drums, and Andres Renteria on percussion. Longtime friend and cohort Neal Casal (Chris Robinson Brotherhood, Ryan Adams & The Cardinals) also joins on guitar throughout, with very special guest Bernard Butler (of ’90s Brit legends Suede) on guitar and co-vocals on “The Curse In Reverse.” The songs are fleshed out with some lovely backing vocals from Paige Stark, Chelsea Larkin and Rachel Dean. “LA’s perennial coast and canyon outfit rinse the salt off with Darren 4, their first LP in a decade. Two decades in, led by the Zelig-like Darren Rademaker, The Tyde remain kitted out in a unique bouillabaisse of sound often imitated yet never duplicated. It’s not gossip if it’s true. Kooks take note..” —Justin Gage, Aquarium Drunkard

Cellar Doors

Frost / Prism

Spiritual Pajamas

Hailing from San Francisco by way of Los Angeles, Cellar Doors are blowing up fast within the thriving California psych scene. Leading exponents of what is being called the third wave of psychedelic sound, they have been coaxed out of their thriving underground scene for support slots via invitation from the likes of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Roky Erickson, Toy, Allah-Las, Mystic Braves and Alex Maas (Black Angels), among others. Their much anticipated debut album is one of the most hotly tipped in recent times around the Bay Area, dripping with pure power psych melody overlaid onto undulating walls of sound. Powerful, brooding and danceable at the same time, it is at once timeless and cutting edge. Lead single “Frost” sounds like “helicopter blades cutting through thick black molasses,” tearing out of the speakers as if it were a forgotten classic on the jukebox of some far-away planet, conveying the simple electricity of attraction while staring at one’s own life in a hall of warped mirrors. Released in a limited edition on white vinyl by Spiritual Pajamas Records (home to Mammatus, The Entrance Band, Magic Trick among others), the single is accompanied by a video from English director Nathan Seabrook.  “Depeche Mode and Joy Division robbed the biggest bank in London, and in the safe they found Cellar Doors. I love music you can rob a bank to and this does that for me.” —Alex Maas (The Black Angels)

Skiffle Players

Skifflin'

Spiritual Pajamas

The Skiffle Players are: Cass McCombs – Guitar, vocals. Farmer Dave Scher – Keyboards, lap steel guitar, melodica, vocals. Beachwood Sparks. Neal Casal – Guitar, vocals. Chris Robinson Brotherhood, Phil Lesh & Friends, Circles Around The Sun – “Interludes For The Dead”. Dan Horne – Bass. Jonathan Wilson, Circles Around The Sun – “Interludes For The Dead”. Aaron Sperske – Drums and percussion. Beachwood Sparks.

Mammatus

Sparkling Waters

Spiritual Pajamas

Heavy space rock outsiders Mammatus return with their fourth album, and most ambitious to date. Sparkling Waters is a double LP featuring four multi-movement pieces, each designed to recalibrate the shanga array in your mind. In order to achieve the highest levels of sensory clarity, the group enlisted Phil Manley (Trans Am, Life Coach) as their guiding light throughout the studio production. As a result, these tracks shimmer with a far out, casual glow, like an aural reflection of a Risan steam pool.  On Sparkling Waters, Mammatus expands upon the astral grooves and heady riffs of their previous compositions and set a course for the furthest horizon. Celestial arpeggiations of electric guitar ricochet infinitely across vast expanses of cosmic debris. Heavy riffs thunder with a rhythmic groove, like the exploding coast of Ornia spoken of in days past. Pastoral passages of mellow, slow-burning psychedelia give way to Native American flute melodies and the chanting of spiritual incantations filtered through canyons of delay. Heavenly dual guitar leads soar like a hawk gliding over a mountainside redwood canopy. Radiant synthesizers harmonize to create a shapeshifting formation of ambient space that envelops the rock and in some places completely takes over. Sparkling Waters is bound to appeal to a wide range of discerning listeners, as it incorporates elements of heavy riff rock, prog and breath metal while it also features the enhancing textures of kosmische sound coloration, soaring synth leads and astral voyages through deep space. This amalgamation of tones is presented...

Magic Trick

Half Man Half Machine

Spiritual Pajamas

“Sound structure or randomness will fill the mind with a certain primal need for an evolution that inherently limits the imagination. Half Man Half Machine, the latest Magic Trick release, builds and then explores a sonic landscape that is constantly in bloom. Whether it be in the slipstream and eddying of triumphant washes of melody, in the serpentining elegance of percussive brambles, or in the perseverance of the laconic lilt, woven upon revelations of transcendence and frailty from the mouth of Tim Cohen, one is invited into a landscape that shifts and grows based on its own ulterior nature...and one must only listen to find it for themselves. Listen to the kalimba, metronome, cymbal washes, shaker rattles, mercurial guitars, raga feel, glockenspiel, low-frequency rumble, subtle synthesizer, tabla loops; listen to the glowing of pride, the soft self-consciousness, the deflecting surrealism of your guide’s tongue; let yourself feel swept in its sonic orgy of change and realization; there is form for you to hold, there is path for you to plant, you must allow these sounds, these stories, to envelop your senses, you must let them wash through you, guide you to the structure that looms elusive under the roar—it is trying to tell you something and you have no choice but to feel and listen to the tapestry enveloping you, inviting you into its myriad and continually growing current and unknown direction. One must listen closely to this record, there is a chemistry of sound and creativity, perched at its...

Seventeen Evergreen

Epiphanie Solaire

Spiritual Pajamas

A duo comprised of Caleb Pate and Nephi Evans, Seventeen Evergreen threads their psychedelic rock with electronic experimentation.  In the last ten years, the San Francisco two-piece has put out a number of releases on UK label Lucky Number Music and their own Pacific Radio Fire imprint. The limited-edition Epiphanie Solaire is their latest EP and first on Spiritual Pajamas.  “Epiphanie Solaire, like the Chilean observatory on the cover (ALMA), brings us the stars... Song constellations that culminate with a better version of Captain Beefheart’s ‘Observatory Crest’...” —John Dylan, Professor of Magic, John Wayne University

Baldwin, Matt

Imaginary Psychology

Spiritual Pajamas

Matt Baldwin on the Fender Strat is the last living prophet. Here is a young man who plays with a technical skill and virtuosity that few can ever hope to attain, and does so rather easily. Wherever one hears this record, one will find him. His lucid tapes are for truck drivers, surfers, painters, pilots, miners, lovers, loners, what have you; for those in prayer; for those performing surgery; for those on the moving sidewalk… It’s music to win by. Baldwin’s latest work follows releases on American Dust and Tompkins Square. This deluxe album is pressed on white vinyl and comes packaged in a foil-stamped jacket replete with a bonus 7-inch flexi disc. Full release digital download includes the track Drowning Butterflies from the flexi.

Mammatus

Heady Mental

Spiritual Pajamas

If you’ve seen mammatus clouds in person, you probably noticed the way those massive formations hang heavy like wilting and bulbous gray-blue sacs, bubbling from heaven towards us. Curiously, as monstrous as they look, these gentle giants are not portents of a storm; they cradle the sky, high above where they belong. How can something so heavy float? If you’ve seen Mammatus the band in concert, you probably noticed how visual their sound is. Guitarist Nicholas Emmert sports a one-piece full-body flight-suit, bassist Chris Freels dons a space cape, and drummer Aaron Emmert steers the ship, staring straight ahead with flashing laser eyewear. The homespun wizard-cum-trippy-dad-at-a-campfire look that they’ve adopted softens the blow of the heavy aural trickery afoot. Heady Mental is the perfect title for the third Mammatus album, for it rests heavily in the moldy caverns of heavy metal history, but doesn’t get too comfortable before revealing its true colors. This is music for flight, music for the sky, and music for the things that lie beyond. These men are searching for the source through sound. Repetitions of themes with variants spread over four separate songs that act as a whole. Heady Mental functions as a soundtrack to the Mammatus Brain: Heavy / Airy, Earth / Sky, Man / Creator, Complete and Grok’d. For the obligatory band reference, one could start by imaging what The Fucking Champs’ IV would have sounded like if they had been more into the McLaughlin / Santana LP Love, Devotion, Surrender instead of Iron Maiden’s Piece...

Entrance Band

Dans La Tempete EP

Spiritual Pajamas

  “Anybody seen a knight pass this way I saw him playing chess with Death yesterday His crusade was a search for God and they say It’s been a long way to carry on”  These lyrics could easily summarize the life and times of The Entrance Band: evolving, building and destroying with each live performance and release. Still water is death, constant progression is the only wave to ride upon.  Guy Blakeslee, Paz Lenchantin and Derek James are a diverse trio merging the freak-outs of the rock underground with a universal melody and groove that keeps their musical vessel set on the path of exploration—arrival and departure are the same in this galaxy. The purely original sound of these three artists playing together is not limited to popular scenes, styles or sonics. The Entrance Band feeds on the kind of psychedelic blues rituals, tribal funk hypnosis and space punk telepathy that Kurt, Jimi, Fela and Arthur Lee jam to up in the cosmos as they look down to see where the deep roots of their psychedelic tree has spread. Dans La Tempete marks The Entrance Band’s second release for Spiritual Pajamas following last year’s instrumental Fine Flow EP, and features soon-to-be classic covers: Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac’s “The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown)” and Scott Walker’s “The Seventh Seal.” Three Entrance Band originals show the way forward. The garage howl of “Back in the City,” the spiritual storm of “Le Manque” and the sublime groove of instrumental “Mellow Fantastic” anticipate tomorrow’s journeys, eagerly...

Light Fantastic

S/t

Spiritual Pajamas

When we first met the man behind Light Fantastic, Terry Sowers was singing harmonies and playing guitar in the Farmer Dave Scher band. His introduction to the stage was a diving-head-first experience, playing alongside one of his musical heroes as support for acts like Jenny and Johnny and Conor Oberst. However, Sowers was also sitting on a treasure chest of his own songs, fine-tuning a sound he’d developed for years, mostly alone, in his Victorian apartment in San Francisco. Teaming up with Jeremy Bringetto (Vue, Bellavista, Tamaryn), the two worked this set of bedroom pop sketches into what can be described as a modern take on California—as much Southern California as an expression of the Bay Area. This dreamy, surfy shoegaze views an age of innocence through the idyllic lens of reflection and personal nostalgia, like the pure, happy memories of a long-lost love. It’s no surprise that the songs’ author hails from the hot suburbs of Los Angeles and that his compositions string together a sincere sense of personal displacement and longing for home. When Sowers and Bringetto brought their song ideas to Rex Shelverton, who was in the midst of producing Tamaryn’s latest album, a strange but harmonious union was born of light and dark. Shelverton’s homegrown version of Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound was the perfect compliment to songs that evoked Laurel Canyon, Carol Kaye and mid-’60s Brian Wilson California optimism. The Light Fantastic EP is sunny, hopeful and dreamy, and even in its darkest moments aims...

3 Leafs

S/t

Spiritual Pajamas

Let’s call it a coincidence. Bay Area collective 3 Leafs drops this heavenly EP of electronics-threaded rock right on the heels of a mini-meteor plunging from the Siberian sky. But there’s no terror or apocalyptic overtones to this galactic effort—these songs are mysterious and ethereal. Listening to them makes one want to be somewhere far away. The 10-inch EP is anchored by “Omniscience,” a song with two parts. The first half feels like a misleadingly innocent joyride, the second its natural consequence: marooned under an inky desert sky soundtracked by a haunting guitar. “Out Ritual” comes from 3 Leafs’ Canal Smarts sessions, this one a slew of frequencies raining down over a cornerstone groove. Closer “Golden Weapons” feels like Can meets NASA, which would’ve made for a great television show.

Jansch, Bert

Blackwater Side

Spiritual Pajamas

Bert Jansch, legendary songwriter and guitarist, is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential musicians of all time. Since the mid-1960s, generation after generation has been held spellbound by his extraordinary, groundbreaking acoustic guitar playing and classic emotive songs. Jimmy Page, Neil Young, Nick Drake, Johnny Marr, Bernard Butler, Graham Coxon and Beth Orton have all been devotees, and newer generations, including Pete Doherty and Laura Marling, are still discovering Jansch for themselves. Spiritual Pajamas is honored to present this two-track 7-inch of previously released, but long out-of-print recordings. Mastered exclusively for vinyl by Paul Stubblebine, it includes liner notes edited from the transcript of an unpublished interview with Neil Young, as told to Sylvie Simmons. This one-time pressing is strictly limited to 1000 copies.  “At one point, I was absolutely obsessed with Bert Jansch. When I first heard that LP [1965], I couldn’t believe it. It was so far ahead of what everyone else was doing. No one in America could touch that.” —Jimmy Page  “He completely re-invented guitar playing and set a standard that is still unequaled today ... without Bert Jansch, rock music as it developed in the ’60s and ’70s would have been very different. You hear him in Nick Drake, Pete Townshend, Donovan, The Beatles, Jimmy Page and Neil Young. There are people playing guitar who don’t even realise they’ve been influenced by him one step removed.” —Johnny Marr

Entrance Band

Fine Flow

Spiritual Pajamas

As The Entrance Band approaches a decade of creative activity, its three musicians swiftly and freely charge forward like a carved, finely etched stream… a “Fine Flow,” if you will. Their  most recent release showcases the well-rehearsed trio in their finest and most diverse form yet on four instrumental tracks clocking in at 34 minutes. Together, Paz Lenchantin, Derek James and Guy Blakeslee put forth a thousand points of light that leave the listener blinded in burning bliss. Commander (and producer) Farmer Dave Scher steers The Entrance Band ship on their latest expedition in a career that never rests on the waves of popular culture. The trio maps its own stargazing charts, and these four songs serve as a hitchhikers guide to their unexplored but still familiar universe. Each track on Fine Flow is a journey, ranging from the controlled urgency of the title track to the meandering exploration of “Summertime,” with its layers of guitar that seem to stop time in a steam of pure but subtle heat. “In the Key of Sea” floats until the wave that carries it crests and breaks; “Hands in the Shape of a Wave” introduces a deft, measured saxophone to illicit its watery and glistering tone. Together these four sublime tracks are the soundtrack of both escape and possibility.  The Entrance Band is not interested in repetition. They revel in discovery, and this limited-edition Spiritual Pajamas 12-inch will leave you surfing “The Key of Sea” for many, many waves to come.

Bonnie Prince Billy

Hummingbird EP

Spiritual Pajamas

Is it safe to say that Will Oldham has rarely met a recording device he didn’t like?  The man who goes by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy continues to document feverishly--and yet with fine discrimination--via a steady march through the canon of modern music: rock, country, gospel, keep on listing...   The great Leon Russell’s “Hummingbird” bookends this digital EP, and Bonny and his assembled cast of LA musicians render it an exercise in contrast.  Using Russell’s famed Shelter Records soundboard for this one-off session--with its memories of Petty and Cale, and now owned by one Jonathan Wilson--Bonny introduces a pallet of musical soundscapes including the keys of "Farmer" Dave Scher, the porch-stomp grooves of Entrance Band rhythm section Paz and Derek and the claps of a thousand hands before letting the song "fly away" in a breeze of soulful psychedelia that stretches nearly twice the original’s length.   Next up: a cover of the traditional “Tribulations,” with Cairo Gang mainman Emmett Kelly, in a purely Appalachian reflection on judgment and fear and all manner of Old Testament threat.   Rounding out this EP, Bonny and band make a run at country master Merle Haggard's "Because of Your Eyes".  As always, Oldham’s soulfully solemn voice comes to the fore in this spare arrangement. The bottom line is utter beauty.  This version of "Because of Your Eyes" is only available on the inaugural (and very limited) Spiritual Pajamas Records 7 inch release, AKA Spiritual 000 which means, perhaps, that it really does...

Bonnie Prince Billy & Mariee Sioux

Bonnie & Mariee

Spiritual Pajamas

As great things often do, these sessions started with a simple conceptual challenge. In this case, it was the brainchild of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, after being asked by Spiritual Pajamas co-founder Britt Govea if he had interest in singing a song with Mariee Sioux at some point in the future. The idea has given birth to this wonderful collection of tunes.   Bonnie offers a stunning original and Mariee returns the favor with her own equally beautiful song. After these two were recorded, the fun and productivity simply could not be contained and additional cover songs were put to tape by analog recording master Jonathan Wilson to round out this legendary session.   These wonderful recordings feature a dream band of musicians: Paz (A Perfect Circle, Zwan and The Entrance Band) on bass, Nate Walcott (Bright Eyes) on keys, Jonathan Wilson on guitar and percussion, Farmer Dave Scher (Beachwood Sparks and Jenny Lewis) on slide and additional keys, Derek James (The Entrance Band) on drums and Dave Brennen (Dirt Blue Gene & Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions) and Emmett Kelly (The Cairo Gang) on additional guitars.   Flowering tongues, love skulls, whales trapped in ice, be thou not deceived and touch yourself a hundred times. These songs carve a place in your heart and tattoo your brain for ages to come.   This very limited edition double gatefold 7” vinyl release from Spiritual Pajamas is a must hear for fans of Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Mariee Sioux, and for all...