Turns out F-Spot Records (home of funky reggae covers super-group Night Owls) has a new subsidiary label – Pangea International Recording Co. – and not one but two new forthcoming 45s on said subsidiary! The first of those is by The Sand Dollars and once again we’re in super-group covers territory with two psychedelic sixties classics re-imagined in a tropicalia style by a band consisting of Connie Price, jazz singer Gretchen Parlato, trumpeter Todd M. Simon (of Dap Kings and El Michels Affair fame) and The Lions’ Steve Kaye. But what about the tracks themselves? First up is a gorgeous psych-bossa take on The Kinks’ most famous track now re-titled Waterloo Bossa that’ll ensure you turn on, tune in and drop right out while the B-side instructs you to Get Thy Bearings, making an instro out of a cut off Donovan’s Hurdy-Gurdy Man LP that pretty much weighs in at the ‘instrumental hip-hop’ setting on the scales. Both are so fresh it’s surprise to discover they were both recorded in the early 2000s. Still, difficult think of a better way to launch a label with psych, folk, and world groove focus!
(Out 19 May on Pangea International Recording Co.)