MP3 exclusive: Major Stars

Published Jul 18 2005, 04:01 AM by webteam

Twisted Villagers, put us on your Christmas card list: here we have one of two brand-freaking-new songs by the already beloved and soon to be revered psych-metal group Major Stars. Yes, Pitchfork just gave an 8.5 to their last album, and they have shared vinyl sides with Comets on Fire, but that stuff is a couple years old. The track we're bringing you, from the above-pictured single, is hot off the presses -- other than here, you can only get it on vinyl. Harvard Square weirdos know the group's core duo, Wayne and Kate Village, as the proprietors of the most insane noise/freejazz/improv/psych label/record store on the face of the earth. (TwVg is pretty much single handedly the reason Other Music never had a chance in the Square, and had to pack its shit and run back to NYC in the middle of the night. Kate & Wayne's website is worth visiting for album descriptions alone, which make Byron Coley and Thurston Moore's rants scan like the Herald's op-ed page.) But musically speaking, Kate and Wayne have been killing netherworld Terrastock types since the early '80s (see: Crystallized Movements, Magic Hour, Vermonster, etc.), most recently with the hate-fuck improv group Heathen Shame.

The thing is, Major Stars isn't weird or strange or hard to understand: their record store might be stacked with obscurities, but their brand of psych-rock is comfort food, heavy riff stuff, generally with one genuinely ecstatic Hendrix-type freakout thrown in. The big surprise is that now they've added a female singer, and not just any female singer: Sandra Barrett late of the off-the-charts amazing art-punk band LA Drugs (of "Bathroom Stall" infamy), who put out our favorite CD-r of 2003 (scroll to bottom of link for Phoenix take). Simply put, it sounds a cross between Black Sabbath and Bikini Kill . . . or, if that's too square for you, try Hawkwind meets Phantom Pregnancies. By any measure, it fucking owns.

LISTEN: Major Stars, "Pocket" (mp3). [Go buy the record]

[Editor's note: if you downloaded Major Stars earlier and were totally confused when the track info came up as Keiji Haino/Peter Brötzmann's "Evolving Blush or Driving Original Sin" circa 1997, rest assured the song you were hearing was the Major Stars. The file was just mistagged. We've since called the song doctor and everything's all better.]

Major Stars celebrate the release of the new single TONIGHT at CHARLIE'S KITCHEN in Harvard Square.