Sad Eyed Beatniks - Claudia's Ethereal Weaver

Sad Eyed Beatniks is the project of Kevin Linn, head honcho of Paisley Shirt Records, the mostly cassette-focused label at the centre of the current indiepop boom in San Francisco - Linn has released tapes by Cindy, April Magazine, Flowertown++ and feels very tied to his hometown and its musical community. Claudia's Ethereal Weaver, a somewhat psychedelically-inclined title that speaks loudly of Linn's influences, is the sixth Sad Eyed collection and, perhaps inevitably given the activity around Paisley Shirt, the most collaborative, relatively speaking. Though Linn continues to record alone, members of Cindy and April Magazine contributed to a live incarnation of the band that originally allowed these songs to develop, the first time any SEB record has been made with what might be understood as rehearsal or preparation. That said, the results of that change in approach aren't immediately discernible - Linn continues to make hermetic, lo-fi indiepop with a patchwork, psychedelic quality that feels trapped in a halfway state between Living Room era Creation (Nikki Sudden, Dan Treacy) and Haight Ashbury daydreamy idealism, all underscored with a deeply personal quality that feels very much his own. It's not insignificant that while Linn is a huge champion of so much of the music that surrounds him, his songwriting sounds mostly unaffected by it. You imagine these songs would exist in this form, sound this way, regardless of whether there was a supporting scene around them. It's that unabashedly pure approach that makes Sad Eyed Beatniks so likeable, the type of introverted indiepop that lives on its own axis, always finding its own space.