One of the coolest reissues of the summer is this one from Sproton Layer. The band featured Roger Miller (Mission of Burma) and his brothers Ben and Laurence (later in Destroy All Monsters), as well as Harold Kirchen (brother of Bill Kirchen of Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen). The Michigan outfit recorded this stuff in 1969 and 1970 and it's out there, but still accessible. Collected on the fine new 12XU compilation Press Your Hand and the Whole Room Fluctuates, the music is rowdy psych-rock, with a cohesion in the effort that is a little surprising.
"Strange Lands" and "Lost in the Sky" are more Nuggets-ish than one might guess, the one-mic recording probably not doing justice to what might have been more powerful in 1969. Still, this stuff is cool, and there's a real lo-fi charm to these recordings. Author Michael Azerrad said something along the lines that Sproton Layer sounded like Syd Barrett fronting Cream and that sort of makes sense. The grubby fuzz of "Space Red" is fantastic, and there's a real vibe here that suggest The Pink Floyd (not Pink Floyd), if you know what I mean. "Ozonic Temple", a real highlight here, roars with a sort of bad intent almost like something from The Standells or The Chocolate Watchband.
This band from the Miller brothers, once called Freak Trio Electric, managed to morph into Sproton Layer by the time With Magnetic Friends Disrupted was released in 1970. All the 1969 and 1970 material collected here has a real lo-fi appeal. If you like early Pavement or early Sebadoh, you'll likely be one to dig this. It's rough around the edges, but remarkably sharp in terms of song structure. The band were doing freak-out music, but what's here on Press Your Hand and the Whole Room Fluctuates is, oddly, almost more accessible than stuff from era peers like The Red Krayola, for example. There's a little here that echoes early Beefheart too, but this stuff aligns more closely with a Nuggets aesthetic than anything else. Highly recommended.
Press Your Hand and the Whole Room Fluctuates> by Sproton Layer is out now via 12XU.
[Photo: Francie Miller]