[.ca] Antique Glow

Very Disappointing Soft Psychedelia:
If you like warmed-over Syd Barrett, here's your guy. A few nice tunes but becomes monotonous very quickly. Stoltz can't sing worth a damn - I'd like this a lot more if his vocals were wiped and a real singer overdubbed.

The strange world of Kelley Stoltz:
Antique Glow is quite a beautiful album. The opening track is by far the highlight, a slow, dreamy piece of modern psych that stays with you for days and days. The rest of the album, although slightly weak at times, generally maintains a solid and sometimes fascinating standard. The music is most definently psychedelic and the album in general gives off an aura of stoned delight. Jangly acoustic guitars and heavily delayed and fuzzed electrics abound. Contrary to what another reviewer said, I, as a vocalist myself, find his voice quite pleasurable to listen to. Word has it that his live shows are spectacular; he's become very popular in Australia where he played many gigs late last year (incidentally, the cover on the oz version of the album is completely different; it's a picture of a blue bunny rabbit, kind of like Donnie Darko). I highly reccommend this album to anyone interested in solid modern psychedelica.

The Best Songwriter You've Never Heard:
Kelley Stoltz is a true gem, a songwriter who channels his influences and speaks in tongues, wrangling with dinosaurs and tricky old 8-track machines as he duckwalks out jugular cords in his Mission bedroom. And out comes this handmade work of beauty, a sprawling crazy architect's house full of sonic nooks (listen with headphones). Its certainly not without its mistakes, but yet his mistakes are more interesting than most band's entire catalogs. And go see this man live. Never plays a song exactly the same way, his band members trying to keep up... I've seen bands with riffs and I've seen singers who can break your heart and I've seen songwriters who know more than I do, but I ain't seen all three in one 'til I saw Kelley Stoltz live.

A 5 Star Surprise:
I saw Kelley Stoltz play at a club here in Chicago. He was just playing acoustic with only one other musician also playing guitar. I was astonished by how strong his sonwriting was and what a great voice he had. He clearly is influenced by the greats: Drake, Nillson, Barrett, Young (Neil). But his style is all his own. Its like he put all of his songwriting influences in a blender and created something entirely new. I bought the album at the show and popped it in the car on the way home, and was completely shocked by what I heard. I was expecting an album version of what I heard on stage, but what I was met with were many of the same songs only being performed in much more fleshed out arragnements and with a really warm, intimate homespun/home recorded feel. I have never heard anything like this before and I have a collection of over 20,000 rock records. Subsequent research showed that Kelley recorded the basic tracks in his bedroom on an 8 track recorder playing all the insturments with only minimal proper studio work after he was done. What you get with this is an amzing sense of a songwriter writing and recording at the same time (and not in a lazy stream of conciousness way), you are listening to an artist use the recording as a key part of his creative process. The acoustic songs took on new depth and the record also shows that Stoltz can also bring the rock, "Tubes in the Moonlight" and "Mt. Fuji" are astonishing in their melody and depth. If you like great songwriting and lush arrangements that still rock, you will not be disappointed. This is one of my favorite records in a long time.

• Perpetual Night
• Crystal Ball
• Jewel of the Evening
• Underwater's Where the Action Is
• One Thousand Rainy Days
• Tubes in the Moonlight
• 26th Street Floor
• Are You Electric
• Please Visit Soon
• Listen Darkly
• Fake Day
• Mean Marianne
• Mt. Fuji
• My Silver Lining