
I probably haven't been through as much music these last six months as in other years, but I do think I have spent more time with what I have heard. My favorites of 2011 didn't take much thought. All of these have been in regular rotation in the Ambler household. Iron & Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean . This might be the most impressive record of the year. Sam Beam opened the late 70s AM songbook and picked some of the [...]
Mr. Andy Votel and the rest of you psych detectives over at Finders Keepers, I salute you. It's been a hard fought battle to find any sort of obscurity compilation I enjoy more than the recently released (and DCed) Persian Underground, but I think those gods of rare at Finders Keepers may have just slipped [...]

Various Artists – Thai? Dai! - The Heavier Side of the Luk Thung Underground Finders Keepers continues to mine the encapsulated musical movements that spread in the wake of the West's movement into heavier musical grounds; though the relative "heaviness" of the Thai tunes on display here is fairly subdued relative to a worldwide scale. Not quite as chock full of heavy fuzz as their excellent Well Hung and The BYG Deal comps, but still a satisfying mix of indigenous song and Western amplifier bleed to be sure. [...]

Jaw Dropping doppelganger Sab-Jam from Sukothai psych-rocker Sroeng Santi. Iron Man meets Yama Yama on this original composition by a musical all-rounder who produced a string of Thai hard rockers until his freakish death in 1982. Backed with an equi-disfunctional slice of outsider punk-funk complete with bottles & bells breakdown this tidy compacta 45 provides a freak-preview of our forthcoming 'Thai Dai' comp of Far-Eastern esotericism. Sroeng Santi - Iron Man http://www.finderskeepersrecor ds.com