Pisces - A Lovely Sight

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4...according to our Phil on Thu 23 Jul, 2009.

This Pisces CD on The Numero Group is awesome. It's called A Lovely Sight and the first time we played it we pretty much all liked it which kind of never happens. The opener 'Dear One' is a spit for an early Portishead track with the vocalist sounding just like Beth Gibbons. It's well eerie. The whole album is a just an amazingly good psyche pop album. It reminds me of some of the early Jefferson Airplane stuff that I've heard. I think this is the first time it's been reissued since the original issue? Well it's coming out on vinyl in a couple of months with a bonus 7" so that's something to look forward to as The Numero Group always do awesomely thick weapons grade packaging. It's got a slightly weird haunting sound to it and the production is really interesting considering it came out in the late 60s. I think that's what sets it apart. It's well worth checking out and if you're into 60's psyche pop and you're a fan of the West Coast sound then get on it.

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Dear One   Pisces
Children Kiss Your Mother...   Pisces
Motley Mary Ann   Pisces
Say Goodbye To John   Pisces
Mary   Pisces
Genesis II   Pisces
Sam   Pisces
The Music Box   Pisces
Like A Hole In The Wall W...   Pisces
Are You Changing In Your ...   Pisces
In The Dreams Of Paula   Pisces
Elephant Eyes   Pisces
Circle Of Time   Pisces
A Flower For All Seasons   Pisces
In The Summer The Grape G...   Pisces

1969's A Lovely Sight, Pisces' only attempt at an LP, never made wax; but the fuzz guitar phrases and tambourine shuffle of "Dear One" instantly illustrate the band's woozy realm. Deeper inside, bass scales borrowed from Sgt. Pepper give way to Who moves wrecked by bad fidelity and harsh intrusions of found sounds. Jefferson Airplane's swirled, lysergic Haight Street utopia melds with the urban narcosis of the Velvet Underground's East Village.

But Pisces hailed from another ghost town altogether: Rockford, Illinois, where rusted, endless plains bear close resemblance to a bummer acid trip or a junkie's rock bottom. In 1969, the industrial Midwest was hurting for the hard stuff, but what it got was plenty of the White Album - enough to have Jim Krein, Paul DiVenti, and Linda Bruner recording through a glass onion all their own. The unsettling balance of their unissued LP combines homespun psychedelic vision and secondhand studio trickery with naive readings of the rock sound of the day, resulting in a diverse, haunted rock headspace few coastal bands ever flew through, let alone over.