Happy Puppy is proud to announce a new group to the roster: Scarm.
This Russian-based group dropped this album on us out of the blue, and it's quite interesting.
A curious blend of atmospheric guitars and drums with a experimental and improvisational edge, emotional, darkly melodic noise ambient. This could easily appear on a soundtrack to an underground indie film, but also stands completely on its own. The band describe it as "a storyline about one uncommon day of an ordinary person. It starts at the midday and ends late at night. And the darker street comes the more heavy, terrible and noisy music turns."
Download it here...
I first discovered the music of Reggie Regan in 1990 while sifting through a box of 45s at my local Winnipeg University radio station - CDs were just becoming more common, and the station manager wanted to make room, so he said I could take whatever 45s I wanted. Wrong thing to say to me.
While digging through the milkcrates of neglected vinyl, I found this indie release entitled Reggie Regan's Greatest Hits Volume 1 (yes, he did it before the Rheostatics). I was intrigued, especially when one of the songs was "Burning Swedish Meatballs".
I listened to it at home and I was taken by it's quirky charm, a blend of new wave and slighty off-kilter pop. Who was this guy? No info available on the label, other than it was released in 1984. I looked him up in 1997 when I got online but there was nothing.
Fast-forward to early 2011, and going through some of my vinyl that I was transferring to CD I wanted to upgrade my copy and thought to look his name up online again.
This time, I discover a lot more about Reggie, mostly through his friends blog: Reggie lived in Winnipeg for a time doing the odd gig and released this one and only record (now a hit in cult circles).
He also knows how to fix transmissions, fixes up spare houses, he's an emergency flight-crew nurse, he's a medical legal consultant, and he spends alot of his time building bat houses in efforts to control mosquito populations - one of the unknown heroes from Canada (ok technically he's been in the States for a long time too).
And now with Reggie's kind permission, he is going to take over the interweb by re-releasing his only-ever record available for free download on Happy Puppy. He also generously donated a scan of the original vinyl sleeve art (mine didn't have one) so you can get the full Reggie experience. Click here to get it!
And as always, both of these are available at the Free Music Archive...
See you soon!
