Alongside Edinburgh’s Dropkick, Ian M Bailey has been foremost recently in reviving the jangled and sun kissed era of Los Angeles pop and folk rock with particular reverence given to the sound of the Byrds and Roger McGuinn’s 12 string Rickenbacker.

This time around, on Lost In A Sound, Bailey and his co-writer, Glasgow’s Daniel Wylie, continue to mine the goldmine that is the heyday of California music but there’s less of the jangle and much more of the introspection and social awareness which characterised the shift from chart oriented singles to much weightier topics as the 60s progressed. The opening song, Rooks, blasts out, much as the opening song on The Byrds’ album Younger Than Yesterday did but instead of  singing about wanting to be a rock’n’roll star, Bailey delivers a fuzz fuelled anti war diatribe. With lyrics which could apply equally to the Vietnam War and current events in hot spots across the planet, Bailey and Wylie have a protest song which sings for the ages.

Of all the Byrds, David Crosby seems to be the guiding light on several of the songs here. While there is more than a whiff of Gene Clark on I’ll Be There To Save You Crosby looms large on White Whale and Deep Blue Water, songs which plug into his love of seafaring and his ecological awareness, years before the rest of us caught on. White Whale comes across as if Captain Ahab had forgotten his vengeance and grew to love and admire his nemesis, surrendering to the submarine sounds of the song. Deep Blue Water then wades in with stately piano and a myriad of fuzzed guitars, synthesised keyboards and, ultimately, a deep sense of calm as Bailey and his fellow player here, Alan Gregson, weave a hypnotic pillow of sounds.

Desert Star is a trippy instrumental which could fit well into the confines of The Byrds’ kind of in between album, Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde while the following Welcome To the Desert is a true descent into 1967 pop psychedelia. Never Read The Signs maintains the desert theme but in a much more cinematic style with its twangy guitars and sweeping string sounds reminiscent of Morricone and, more topically, Calexico. David Crosby’s ecological awareness is back to the fore on the sweet tones of Don’t Let The Garden Die, sweetened even more by some gorgeous lap steel playing and the album closes with a flourish on the grandiose swell of The Desert Could Be Mars, an ecological warning wrapped within a sci fi fable which abruptly ends with Bailey’s equivalent of the closing chord on Sergeant Pepper.

Along with his co-pilot Daniel Wylie, Ian M Bailey has mined this rich seam of Byrdsian pop/folk/rock over several albums now and Lost In A Sound shows that the pair continue to discover gold.

Website

“If it ain’t broke then don’t fix it” goes the old axiom and, in Ian M Bailey’s case he certainly adheres to it. A veritable one man band, Bailey has just about cornered the market in revitalised California inspired jangled pop and rock over the past couple of years and You Paint The Pictures reinforces this, albeit with more nods to the trippier side of LA than on his previous album Songs To Dream Along To.

Once again Bailey has co-written all of the songs with Glasgow’s Daniel Wylie, the pair seeming to be in, a word which has recently become all too familiar, lockstep. And, as before, their collaboration comes up with golden nuggets such as on the sunshine rays of Life Without You which is just about as perfect a candied California pop confection as one could wish for. In fact, several of the songs here inhabit a similar terrain with jangled guitar and heavenly harmonies coalescing as on Change Is Easy and I Wanted The Sun To Shine while I Don’t Want To Start Again zones into mid sixties Gene Clark territory and does so brilliantly.

The trippier aspect looms large on the instrumental The Year Of The Tiger, a mobius strip like repetition channelling The Doors with its groovy organ pulse while Brazil, a Mondo Hollywood like loose limbed slinky affair really should come accompanied by psychedelic lighting and painted go-go dancers being ogled by Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda. However, it’s the mini epic Dreams Of Love which really takes all of the honours here as Bailey wanders, wide eyed, through a psychedelic mindscape peopled by the likes of David Crosby and Curt Boettcher, creating a truly impressive trip of a song. Sure enough, You Paint The Pictures is coloured by the past, but Bailey and Wylie bring that past bang up to date with a super high definition fidelity. It’s a gorgeous listen.

Buy You Paint The Pictures here

Following on for their collaboration on the Shots Of Sun EP, Ian M. Bailey and Glasgow’s Daniel Wylie have co-written this full length album which, as with Bailey’s (and Wylie’s) previous releases, is a quite joyous celebration of 1960’s sunshine paradise pop, as practised by The Byrds, The Beau Brummels, The Association and many others, and the soft rock sounds of the early 70s as exemplified by America, Seals & Croft and numerous offshoots of the whole Byrds/CSN/Burritos clan.

Bailey remains a one-man band, playing all of the instruments (aside from a string section on The Sound Of Her Voice) and, as before, it’s quite impressive that there’s no hint of this in the final delivery. The songs are fresh and show no sign of being assembled whatsoever and the harmony singing (again all Bailey) is outstanding. Listen to Everything Will be Alright and try not to imagine that it’s a band like the trio America singing it.

Bailey is an experienced practitioner in the art of 12 string Rickenbacker jangle and this is to the fore in the opening song, This Is Not A Feeling which opens with a Beatles’ like acoustic guitar strum before the 12 string sparks up and we are offered a Gene Clark like song which aches with a romantic melancholic feeling. Take It Or Leave It is in a similar vein with more mid 60s’ solipsism although here it’s less melancholic given the powerful thrust of the verses and the waves of keyboard which pump throughout the song. Further along the track list, Slow Down River and Just Like A Child (Dream Catcher) remind one of the latter day Byrds, their jangled pop reined in by the likes of Clarence White and Gene Parsons who brought in new sensibilities rooted in old American music. Meanwhile, I’m Not The Enemy, still suffused with gleaming 12 string, is more akin to the Paisley Underground bands who revitalised these sounds in the 80s, even though its lyrics remain rooted in the original psychedelic underground.

As we said, Laurel Canyon and its denizens also loom large and it’s easy to imagine songs such as A Place To Live, Everything Will be Alright and The Sound Of Her Voice being performed by a sensitive soul on The Old Grey Whistle Test back then. The latter in particular, with its sweeping strings, reminds one of Dan Fogelberg which, we have to say, is no bad thing. The highpoint is the delicately delivered and harmonious What’s Happening Now which is a dreamlike meander with gently flowing guitars along with a slight undercurrent of menace courtesy of a muted yet decidedly psychedelic electric guitar. There’s also fun to be had in the mock Eastern exotica of Midday At The Hope Lodge which can’t help but remind one of The Beatles’ flight from the murderous cult pursuing them in their movie, Help!

Despite the surplus of names we’ve mentioned, Bailey and Wylie have come up trumps with Songs To Dream Along To. It’s a glorious listen that certainly rises above its influences.

Website

A short while ago, Blabber’n’Smoke praised Set Your Sights Towards The Sun, a delightful album from The Lost Doves, a collaboration between Ian M Bailey and Charlotte Newman. Now we have to hand an EP recorded by Bailey and which snuck out in January. The title suggests that Bailey still has his controls set for the heart of the sun, not in a Pink Floyd context, but delving ever deeper in the sun infused pop and rock of California in the ‘60s and early ‘70s.

As with Set Your Sights, Bailey has worked in collaboration with another musician, in this case Glasgow’s Daniel Wylie, ex of Cosmic Rough Riders and no slouch himself when it comes to delivering sun speckled jangly rock. While it’s Bailey who sings and plays all the instruments on the four songs here, all are co-authored with Wylie, with Bailey giving Wylie credit for the initial seeds which eventually flourished into what we can hear now.

Unabashedly retro and with 12 string Rickenbacker often to the fore, the songs here are genuine nuggets, although there is enough variety on show to enable each one to stand alone. The opening track, Take It Or Leave It, has its chiming 12-string surge but is also adorned with piping organ providing brass like flourishes allowing for a kind of melange of baroque pop and new wave energy. What’s happening Now is much more mellow as it floats along with an ethereal air, recalling elements of David Crosby circa Younger Than Yesterday with Bailey adding a lovely backwards sounding guitar solo midway. His three part harmonies here are spot on and, in a blindfold test, it would be hard not to consider this a long lost ‘60s gem.

Slow Down River packs more of a punch as it zips along, recalling the likes of Teenage Fanclub or Dropkick in its zest and handclapping propulsion but it kind of pales in comparison to its companions, especially the excellent closing number. Everything Will Be Alright gathers together much of what made early ‘70s LA rock so popular and in particular, it hones in on a band, America, who were initially considered copyists even back then with their Neil Young sound-alike songs. Hitching a lift on Ventura Highway, Bailey positively glides along this sun blissed two-lane blacktop with joyous inspiration.

Website