Sad Eyed Beatniks - Ten Brocades

A whole new set of psych-jangle interpolations from San Francisco DIY lynchpin and Paisley Shirt don, Kevin Linn. Something close to the seventh Sad Eyed Beatniks long player, Ten Brocades is especially notable for being a mini Bay Area love-in, also featuring the talents of Mike Ramos (Flowertown, Tony Jay) and Karina Gill (Cindy, also Flowertown). The three have history performing together as Hospital, who released a great Swell Maps styled tape on Paisley Shirt this time last year, but they're in very different form here, Linn's songwriting most clearly steering the ship. We know this to be true because there's already so many other Sad Eyed Beatniks records to compare this to, and Linn's interest in Velvets-by-way-of-The-Clean jangle drive and nasally delivery is markedly distinct, whether alone or supplemented by others. But if this is obviously a Sad Eyed Beatniks record, then it's also a slightly more muscular one than previous outings, benefiting from the presence of a full band (albeit the least muscular of players!), a little motorik chug and background shading (in pastels, of course) to flesh out the persistently melodic tales of longing and the lost that Linn keeps on at. It's probably a touch less odd than 2022's Claudia's Ethereal Weaver, but what we lose in experimental digressions we gain in a more streamlined presentation of West Coast indie-psych writing that feels kinda classic in both concept and conception. Yep, it's San Francisco right now and it's delivered again.