Fungi Girls –
Owlsey Knows b/w Glare # 2
(Group Tightener)

The second single I’ve acquired from this canny Texas group, who seem to have found a happy place anchoring themselves to the notion of not doing anything new exactly, but studying the old stuff harder than anyone else, thus emerging fresh by default. If ya see what I mean.

Moving away from the Flying Nun echoes of their Hozac single, this disc finds them closer to home geographically if not temporally, engaged in a thorough excavation of the International Artists back catalogue. Harnessing the reassuringly ‘off’ sound of ’66-’68 Texan psychedelia, Fungi Girls undertake their borderline historical re-enactment with a bright-eyed panache so distant from the drug-mashed stumble of this music’s original practitioners that it sounds kinda refreshing, and inviting. Like, bands making this kind of music aren’t supposed to play together exactly on the beat, maintain a jaunty, upbeat pace throughout and put in the studio hours necessary to get a really lovely mix of complementary instrumental tones, y’know… but wouldn’t it be nice if they did?

Clearly, a preppy, cleaned up take on first album 13th Floor Elevators sounds like a hideously redundant notion whichever way you squint at it, but, well, what can I say? A band who christen their A-side in tribute to the recently departed Mr. Owsley obviously feel no shame in their retrogressive agenda, and nor should they - like that first Strange Boys record, Fungi Girls do the still-sounds-good-to-me thing with enough grace and vibrancy to really send ya, so to speak, zeroing in on that strange moment where a crisp, surf-rock rhythm section meets post-Byrds electric guitar, early whiffs of drug-fiend hipster consciousness creeping in via stinging bolts of weird tremolo and mumblin’, brain-blown lyricism… summer’s coming on and it still sounds good to me.

http://www.myspace.com/fungigirls
http://grouptightener.tumblr.com/

Labels: Fungi Girls, singles reviews, Texas