I have just spent a dreamy forty minutes with this fine new album, and now feel it my duty to help get the word out and hopefully tune a few others into its subtle charms.
The now San Francisco based project Black Thumb is the brain child of Colin Wilde and began back in 2012, and his second album The Flying Propeller Group, following on from 2016 debut It Is Well With My Soul, has just arrived on the fine Dandy Boy Records label.
Indie Twitter/Instagram really worked its magic for me with this one, with the same loyal few shouting out and sharing until I inevitably took the plunge. As soon as I saw the splendid Peter Hurley (April Magazine) artwork I knew I was onto a winner, and the promise of vocal contributions from Kati Mashikian (April Magazine/Mister Baby/Reds Pinks & Purples) sealed the deal.
This is DIY outsider pop at it’s most potent. The machine rhythms bite hard when they need to (Come On), the guitars crunch and burn (Out Of Sight) and soothe and sway (Walk On By) in equal measure, and Wilde’s vocals intone their message throughout, plainly and without affectation.
The aforementioned Mashikian provides beautiful melodic counterpoints, and the at times mantra like lyrics, although dark in essence, somehow continuously find ways to uplift. These are serious times and it’s ridiculous to suggest otherwise, which makes it so important that albums like this exist to help us feel a little less alone.
These songs fuse the street swagger of The Velvet Underground with the psychedelic ambience of early Kosmische to forge a vital new path in the ever blossoming San Francisco underground. It is an album that rewards repeated plays, and once you find that point of connection and surrender to its will, you’ll come out the other side all the better for it.
Out now via Dandy Boy Records.
LISTEN/BUY/SHARE:
https://blackthumbdeath.bandcamp.com/album/the-flying-propeller-group
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