A totally obscure release from Youngstown, Ohio’s Tony Lavorgna and his late 70’s early 1980’s band: The St. Thomas Quartet. Like many private press albums, I was an ad for their set list, recorded on the cusp of cassettes and definitely before CD’s. So strictly vinyl it is. A mixed bag of tunes and influences, but two of the tunes absolutely leap into your ears.A Hammond led Soul Jazz version of Herbie Hancock’s ‘Chameleon’ at nearly ten minutes that seems to just get more drivingly funky and intense is absolutely inspired on this monster of a track. It makes you wonder why on earth more Hammond players didn’t make a feature of this tune?The other inspired choice is War’s ‘The World Is A Ghetto’ which just has to be one of the funkiest versions of this much covered tune. Some soulful sax from leader Lavorgna signposts the way for the rest of the band’s soulful and jazzy contributions. With Hammond man David Thomas underpinning the song with his funk drenched riffs.Tony Lavorgna is a one off too, his life story is available in Comic Book form under the title ‘Bebopman’ by American Splendor writer Harvey Pekar.

Since first bonding over Slowdive at a Texas karaoke bar six years ago, musicians Uriel Avila and Jonathan Perez have grown trauma ray into Fort Worths foremost flag bearer of crushing shoegaze. A five-piece rounded out by bassist Darren Baun, drummer Nicholas Bobotas, and guitarist Coleman Pruitt, the bands debut album, Chameleon, captures their evolving sound at an apex of majestic devastation. A fusion of downer hooks, gauzy melancholia, and bulldozer riffs, the album heaves and crashes across 50 minutes of stacked amplifier alchemy. Lyrically the songs trace similarly lofty and brooding terrain; Avila says The theme is death. And a chameleon, like death, can shape-shift in and out our lives in different forms.

Tracklist:

A1. Ember
A2. Torn
A3. Chameleon
A4. Bardo
A5. Bishop
A6. Elegy

B7. Drift
B8. Breath
B9. Spectre
B10. Flare
B11. Iso
B12. U.S.D.D.O.S.