"This collection of mesmerizing psychedelic pop wonder is as close to perfect as any you’re likely to hear," says Hybrid in a "fresh" review of an album which has been around for ages, Mazarin 's A tall-tale storyline. While reallyrather can't go all the way with that verdict, it's a worthy candidate for revival. Catching them live back in March their strummy Love-meets-The Who psych-pop unfortunately succumbed to shrill noise-pop distortion a bit too often. This tendency is certainly around on the album but is happily outnumbered by enough cracking tunes (What sees the sky and rolling country-pop closer Limits of language appeal here) to make it worth snagging at a decent price...

With the radar still scanning for giddy pop goodness, reallyrather can report strong bleeping signals from a bedroom somewhere in Omaha. Not that it had ever formally begun but the search for the missing link between Mull Historical Society and the Polyphonic Spree may be over. In 2000, Fizzle Like A Flood (aka Douglas Kabourek) put out Golden sand and the grandstand, hailed by those who got to hear it as a 25-minute D-I-Y pop wonder:
~"There are at least seven thousand things that could go tragically wrong when a student/home-recordist decides to write a "symphony" based on a fictional history of the local race track, and then record it all by himself using only a Radio Shack microphone. Miraculously, Doug Kabourek has managed to avoid virtually all of those pitfalls" [Splendid]
~"With each track containing an average of 40 tracks..these are multi-textured, highly melodic indie pop songs" [Delusions of Adequacy]
~"Carefully chaotic indie pop...altogether compelling" [Allmusic]
Some great sample tracks from this Scotch Tape Brian Wilson are supplied by Side1 Records who will shortly be releasing Fizzle's follow-up. However, "One can be fairly safe in assuming it won't be anything like what I've done already," Kabourek told Ink19 recently. "I'm kind of burnt out on the whole layered opus thing. I don't think I can really do much more in that direction from my spare room..."

To Kings Cross for Norway's Poor Rich Ones at the WaterRats last Sunday. Pronouncing themselves more than usually pleased not to be Swedish that particular day, the five-piece were greeted with a cry of "Show us what you're made of, fucking Vikings!" from a swaying Scandinavian down at the front. Which they readily did, whipping up a Radiohead when they still did tunes-type storm, only to be cruelly abbreviated by the archaic Sunday licencing laws. Something must be done, etc...

Tomorrow night in New York Josh Rouse plays a one-off acoustic show with M. Ward , "one of my favorite singer-songwriters at the moment". Listen to Beautiful car from Duets for guitars #2 (the album before last) and he'll likely be one of yours too...