Anton Barbeau

I've been a fan of Anton Barbeau's buoyant, mildly psychedelic power pop since I got his King oF Missouri collaboration with Bevis Frond in a big box of review CDs for Splendid half a decade ago...and he later sent me Splendid Tray, which was also good. Here he's grabbed two-thirds of the Soft Boys, plus Nick Salomon, as cohorts in a new album which is just as enjoyable (and just as likely to be ignored), as all the others.

Anton Barbeau & Three Minute Tease
Three Minute Tease
(Pink Hedgehog)

Anton Barbeau is one of the world's great underappreciated songwriters. He is incapable, it seems, of going three minutes without an indelible hook, tossing off ear-wormy tunes with the profligacy of a Davies or, possibly, a Barrett. He sinks these hooks deep into fuzzy piles of psychedelic overload, embellishes them with Magritte-ish verbal absurdities and blares them hard and sweet out of Nuggets-era guitars, bass, drums and keyboards. And, year after year, the world at large fails to notice.

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