Common Loon’s first official release is a two song 7”, out now on Berkeley, CA based label Ideal Utopia. At a very stripped down level, the duo that make up the band, Matt Campbell and Robert Hirschfeld, are doing something that resembles what a band like Apples In Stereo did with “Strawberry Fire” off Her Wallpaper Reverie, and they create their LSD-inspired sounds pretty well; it seems that they have mastered the genre’s sound upon the recording of their first two songs.
The sonic pallet of 96 tracks that Robert Schneider uses for the aforementioned Apples in Stereo brand of neo-psychedelic fun is certainly recalled on “Dinosaur vs. Early Man”. The song starts with an organ intro and moves into floating guitar picking that last the duration of the song with a chorus ably backed by classic oohs and ahhs.
The second song, “Palestine Everywhere” is the faster paced of the two with solid tom based drumming over a fluid guitar riff and Robert’s boyishly charmed vocals. There is enough energy here to keep us interested throughout and looking ahead towards a full length, something that will be highly anticipated by the Champaign faithful.
What I’m really getting at here is simply put: these are two great songs. As to whether both will be included on Common Loon’s debut full length remains to be seen. So make sure to store these two songs in the back of your cerebellum to hold you over until then. Every 7” comes with a free digital download code to drop the songs into your computer digitally. Then, go out and hear them live on March 22 at the “Canopy Club”:http://www.canopyclub.com supporting Parasol’s own “The 1900s”:http://www.the-1900s.com and headliner from across the pond, “British Sea Power”:http://www.britishseapower.co.uk.