I’ve often wondered what became of the Jewelled Antler musical collective who appeared out of thin air in San Francisco in 1999 back when New Weird America was a thing.
I recall trying to keep track of the regular stream of releases I read about online and this led to me downloading a unique CDR box set library of four discs by various artists from America and Finland.
Some of the creative band names attached to this collective were Painted Shrines, Teenage Panzerkorps, The Buried Civilizations, The Floating Birthday Children and The Skygreen Leopards.
The brains behind the collective were Loren Chasse and Glenn Donaldson and if truth be known these two were probably part of all the bands listed above. The latter now turns out to be the man behind The Reds, Pinks and Purples.
The good news is that Donaldson seems to be a prolific as ever. This the ninth album under his new mantle and he has apparently written over 200 songs in the last six years.
This latest batch of fourteen tunes were recorded in his San Francisco apartment; mainly in the kitchen where the acoustics were better!
Without any background information you’d swear blind that Donaldson hailed from Northern England. Adopting what he calls the “emotionally exposed main character in the songs”, he is following closely in the footsteps of Pulp, The Wedding Present and The Smiths.
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With inspirations like these, romantic desolation is the key note with thoughts of inadequacy and mortality colouring most of his life views. The jangly melodies make all this self-conscious melancholy palatable.
The song titles alone are so good that the record deserves to be heard for this reason alone. Examples are The World Doesn’t Need Another Band, Slow Torture Of an Hourly Wage, You’re Never Safe From Yourself and Richard In The Age Of The Corporation
The final track is There Must Be A Pill for This which is probably an accurate observation but the drugs don’t always work and this man needs no cure.
The Reds, Pinks & Purples at Bandcamp
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