The Garbage And the Flowers - The Deep Niche (2016)

2016 archive release. If you were a certain type of music fan in the mid-'90s, you may have heard tell of an incredible, incredibly hard-to-find double-album by The Garbage & the Flowers, Eyes Rind As If Beggars. Each jacket was hand-painted, and all 300 copies sold out in a flash. Thankfully, the great Bo'Weavil label reissued it in 2013. If you haven't heard it, please do listen... OK, you heard it now? You're welcome! The group was Helen Johnstone, Yuri Frusin and Paul Yates - an inspired trio who emphasized lyrical collaboration and sound manipulation as part and parcel to their melodies. They didn't last long as a group, but luckily, they got a lot of their songs recorded. The Deep Niche is music they made before Eyes Rind and it is every bit as revelatory. Johnstone sings over raucous and raw instrumentation. It's real rock, the real real thing. Torben Tilly joined just in time to contribute some keyboard to the track "29 Years," although he mostly was their guitarist. Just in time, too, because The Deep Niche presents a band fresh to playing with some massive tools - The Tools Of Rock, natch. These songs are every bit as powerful as what you hear on Eyes Rind As If Beggars. Believe it.