Kelley Stoltz

★★★★ Antique Glow THIRD MAN. DL/LP

Portastudio auteur’s 2001 psych-pop jewel goes double for 20th anniversary.

The breakthrough second album by this Detroit-born, San Francisco-based one-man band (and sometime Echo & The Bunnymen auxiliary guitarist), Antique Glow revealed a savant’s facility for assimilating core ’60s texts

– as equally au fait with Roky Erickson as Ray Davies – into his own distinct universe. And while no surprise to discover the prolific Stoltz left off as much as he put on, the quality of this expanded edition’s 13 extra songs (all debuting on vinyl, with 10 unreleased on any format) is nonetheless astounding. The now doubleLP’s second disc opens with the chiming piano melancholy of Old Pictures, a Lennonesque counterpart to the original album’s Harrisonian sunrise Perpetual Night, then duly proceeds down a parallel path: gutbucket blues drollery (Harmonica Makes The Doggy Go Wild), ramshackle motorik groove (Discount City VU), psychotic garage stomp (You’ll Find The Truth In A Frying Pan), heartsore Buckley balladeering (Umbrella), and the occasional slide into karaoke (Too Beck). A pocket symphony to cheer the soul, Antique Glow’s eternal virtues shine ever brighter. Keith Cameron