Before this week, you couldn’t listen to the self-titled first record from local heavy-prog outfit Ga’an unless you had a boom box or a Walkman or an ’89 Celica at your disposal. The band released it in summer 2009 on cassette, and then Records on Ribs reissued it in the UK—also on cassette. But on Tuesday it finally came out on vinyl, thanks to Captcha Records. It’ll be available locally at Reckless and Permanent. The LP features a previous lineup of the band, with Jeremiah Fisher on synth and Jason Sublette on bass and synth—Fisher has since moved to Champaign, and Sublette was replaced in late 2009 by Tyson Torstensen. The current trio lineup, which also includes founding drummer Seth Sher (Coughs, Oakeater) and vocalist-keyboardist Lindsay Powell (Fielded, Festival), has been recording with Nick Broste (Herculaneum, Magical Beautiful) on and off for the past year, piecing together an album that’s due this spring. Torstensen’s label I Hear a New World has already released one of its tracks, the hypnotizing 19-minute epic “Call of the Black Equus”—again on cassette.
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Local rockers Bat Masterson play cute, sloppy indie pop, with stop-start Captain Beefheart adroitness and heaps of electrified old-timey banjo—but that said, we’re a bit suspicious about their decision to call themselves things like Motown Gravy and Boondoggle Strongknee. We’ve been to Motown (which usually goes by “Detroit”), and the gravy there is pretty bogus. Mr. Strongknee, what’s your middle fake name? Don’t try to trick us, people! Anyway, Quad Cities-based website Daytrotter released a free-to-download live-in-the-studio session from the band on January 16. Bat Masterson play Valentine’s Day at Reggie’s Rock Club, and they’re shopping an as-yet-untitled second album they recorded themselves and hope to release in May.
