Smally (The Wheelies)
Kris (Warchalking)
Jon of The Atom (Dead Canaries)
Jane Gilmore
Tim Kotch (The Hoborchestra)
Meghan Geiss
Katie Saul
Wind-Powered Rebekah
Dylan (The Pirate Pipsqueak Band)
Phillip & Louis
Influences
The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Donovan, Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, Jonny Cash, Dead Canaries, Joni Mitchell, Wes Anderson films, Ella Fitzgerald, Belle & Sebastien, Herman Melville, Socialism, The Stone Roses, The Velvet Underground, Rene Descartes, Daydreams, The Velvet Underground, The Kinks, Cervantes, Spiritualized, each other.
Kaleidonauts is a transatlantic recording project that began in January 2007 when Smally from Fifeclub's underground pop fuck-ups The Wheelies hooked up via Cozy Home Records with the legendary Jon of the Atom of Atomic/New Wave Dirt fame to collaborate on a song about an LSD trip with a girl called Caroline. A couple of months later they collaborated on another song about an old magic bench called "Roll It Up". Inevitably time ticked by and while both were busy making their own albums (see Dead Canaries "Critical Mass: Flying Things vs. Crawling Things", and The Wheelies "Strange Kid In A Daydream"), they often discussed making a collaboration mini-album together. Somewhere in amidst all that album making, Smally teamed up with the mighty Warchalking to add vocals to "Roll It Up" as part of a Daydream Collective recording project that never got off the ground. In December of 2007 he recorded an entire Wheelies album in 7 hours, unimaginatively entitled "7 Hours", but it was "fucking shit", so the best of the songs were turned over to JOTA to see if he could make any sense of them. And so KALEIDONAUTS was born. Between December 07 and March 08 they obsessively set about writing and recording an album called "I Do Not Currently Own A Spaniard (Mine Died)", enlisting the help of the brilliant Jane Gilmore to sing where they collectively couldn't hit the high notes. The formula was simple: Smally wrote and sang the songs in search of a white whale melody, Jon of The Ahab provided the music and production in the eye of the storm, and where there were gaping spaces these were filled by Jane (vox), Warchalking (guitar/vox), Tim Kotch (acrobatic trumpetry) and the equally brilliant Katie Saul (vox). The songs dealt with issues such as communism, smoking, transcending space/time, mental health, climate change, back gardens, daydreaming, LSD, communism again, insects, mollusks, and death. "Spaniard" is available to download for FREE exclusively from the Quixodelic Record Store over at www.daydreamgeneration.com from May 2008.
In the immediate aftermath of "Spaniard" (considered at the time to be a one-off project) Smally and Warchalking began work on another collaboration record. Initially it was planned as being half-Warchalking, half-Wheelies with each contributing backing vocals to one another's songs. After the relative success of songs like "Roll It Up" and "For A Girl I Never Kissed" on "Spaniard", this new collaboration project quickly spiralled a long way away from the original plan - songs were written and re-written from scratch, lyrics were penned on one side of the Atlantic and revised on the other, and throughout the summer of 2008 a blizzard of mp3s flew back and forth finally forming something that they latterly recognised was a continuation and fitting follow-up to the first Kaleidonauts record. For many reasons I won't bore you with here, the record was called "Tigermouse" and once again they enlisted the help of Jane Gilmore to sing on a couple of songs. "Tigermouse" is also available to download for FREE from www.daydreamgeneration.com.
There are of course rumours of a third and final Kaleidonauts record called "K2", some people speculating that it is an out-take album comprising of cut songs from "Spaniard" and "Tigermouse", and alternative takes, and others believing that this record will feature new collaboration tracks. Only time will tell whether either of these rumours are true.
Every once in a while a record lands in your life and blows you away. This is one of those records - an intelligent and heartfelt collection of folk-psychedelics, with songs that will linger in your mind like ghosts long after they have played. Dublin's THE LOADED WHISPERS are probably as great as lo-fi musicians get, combining the brilliant poetry of Jeremiah James and the unmistakeable mind-blowing voice of Syd Lane, over fuzzy stripped-back psych guitar and dancing piano keys. "Artists Use Lies To Tell The Truth" is a perfect introduction to what they do, with so many stand-out tracks that all you can do is let the record play out from beginning to end. And that really is the truth.
A 19 track sampler featuring a song from each of the 19 Quixodelic Records we've released in the last year. From rock and roll space psychedelics to twee indie folk/pop.
DOWNLOAD IT FOR FREE
And just when you thought it couldn't get any better, the first 50 lucky downloaders will find themselves the proud owners of a limited edition cut out and keep deck of UTICA FLOWER COMPANY TOP TRUMPS...
Now this is exciting. Been a long time since we first heard and were blown away by River Speak English's "Puzzle Piece" on Daydream Generation 2. A year and a half later and we're made up to be hosting one half of the aforementioned collaboration's debut record. "Well Under Thirty" is a collection of Bob Dylan covers by Sucks To LaLa Land's Keith Crain - as well as being a beautiful introduction to this talented singer/songwriter, it's arguably as great a collection of Dylan covers as I've ever heard. Listening to the 8 tracks featured was like discovering Bob Dylan all over again.
You can download it for FREE at the Quixodelic Records link on our site right now
We're doing well. We'll start recording a new single next weekend. I think you'll like it -- it's a little ELO, a little My Bloody Valentine, a little Bacharach/Wilson . . .
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