After the sunshiny, harmony drenched popsike sound on his 2002 album, the one-man-band pop wiz Rick Gallego, offers an alternate overview of his career.
Spanning as far as almost ten years ago, capturing some of his earliest recordings, lots of album outtakes, some tracks that were available only on Japanese releases, as well as a couple of cover tunes.
Of course, according to the album’s concept, you’re about to be exposed to a kaleidoscopic variety of sounds, ranging from the usual ‘Fanclub membership Big Star-gazing as heard in Got It Down, December You, Super Sun, Apricot Ash or Sound On Sound which is like the Fannies covering some of Brian Wilson’s early ballads.
Some other audio-delights that should stick in your mind after hearing them are the cheered up combination of late ‘60s Britpop and West Coast harmonies of Clover, the laid back psychedelicate harmony outburst of Green Grass Sunny Day, the noisy popsike shoegazing of Glistening and even those that remained in their stripped down, rough demo form, work really well like the Lennon-meets-Weller ballad Waiting There Without You.
Among the covers, you’ll find The Who’s Relax (made to sound as if the Sell Out album was actually recorded by the heavier early’70 Who), Things Will Work Out Fine, originally done by an obscure late ‘60s band Beauregard Ajax, Shoe’s Found A Girl and Teenage Fanclub’s Ain’t That Enough.
It may be of interest to some hard-core pop fans that the cover art is a fancy little tribute to two of Harry Nilsson’s albums (Aerial Ballet – obviously, and Nilsson Sings Newman).
[Released by JAM 2004]
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