umbrellaweather

Garden Gate Records is a relatively new record label founded by Craig Morris (Thee American Revolution) and Marci Schneider (wife of Robert Schneider), with a preference toward the psychedelic.  Their first release was Big Fresh’s album B.F.F., and their second will be Laminated Cat’s debut album, Umbrella Weather.  Which gives me, at long last, a reason to write about one of my favorite underground bands, whom I first saw at Athens PopFest back in 2007, delicately submerging a mid-afternoon performance at Little Kings into a dreamy but startling showcase, with impeccable songwriting gifts and a sound that could have emerged from San Francisco in 1968 or ‘69.  Not much later, I received their first version of Umbrella Weather in the mail, a collection of eight demos which confirmed, to my ears, that the band was the real thing.  How strange but fitting that in 2009 the album should resurface on Garden Gate, now filled out to fourteen songs, and further polished to a phosphorescent sheen, with some assistance by Craig Morris as well as Jason NeSmith (Casper & the Cookies), with cover art by Will Cullen Hart and Bill Doss (The Olivia Tremor Control), and Robert Schneider calling them “the best young psychedelic band in years.”  Laminated Cat has two principal songwriters, Tanner Smith and AJ Griffin, both of whom provide vocals, guitars, and a wild assortment of other sounds; Tanner’s younger twin brothers Camden and Cooper Smith fill out the band on drums and bass, respectively.  On album opener “Sweet Sixteen” all those sounds collide into something compelling and oddly sinister, as Smith sings, “I turned sweet sixteen today/how my mother disappoints me.”  And after the lyrics have tangled themselves up in imagery which seems to come from the same queasy-surreal universe as the films of the Brothers Quay, or perhaps Neutral Milk Hotel, the words and melody are subsumed beneath a cacophany that ultimately resolves itself into the dreamy “Angel, I am Coming Home,” one of their most splendid songs (featured on last year’s compilation album Build Your Army with Potatoes).  To listen to this is like swimming with the mer-people in Jimi Hendrix’s “1983.”  But they quickly prove they can expand into the heavier (”FYBS,” “Kosmoknot,” and the expansive “Red Devils”), into sparkling pop (”The Driving Song,” “Aquamarine”), even dabbling in funk (”Take Me In and Lock the Door”)…albeit the druggiest funk I’ve ever heard.  If you’re a regular to this website, there’s a good chance this collection will hit your sweet spot. 

Note that upcoming releases from Garden Gate include the long-awaited album by Robert Schneider & Craig Morris’ Thee American Revolution, Buddha Electrostorm (Nov.10); as well as Herald,  a previously-unreleased folk-rock LP from 1972 by one of R. Stevie Moore’s first bands, The Goods; and a compilation album which is slated to include tracks from Circulatory System,  The Apples in Stereo, Bill Doss, Martyn Leaper (The Minders), The Deathray Davies, Elekibass, Supercluster, and more.  Umbrella Weather will be released September 29th.  MP3 below:

Umbrella Weather,

by Laminated Cat
1. Sweet Sixteen
2. Angel, I Am Coming Home
3. FYBS
4. Mother Please
5. Red Devils
6. The Driving Song
7. Kosmoknot
8. Say Goodbye to My Ghost
9. Take Me In and Lock the Door
10. Follow Me Around
11. Girl with No Soul Song
12. Aquamarine
13. Celery Eyes
14. Tea for Tigers