Artist: Dust Galaxy
Album: Dust Galaxy
Label: ESL
Release Date: Fall '07

Listen to the track "River of Ever Changing Forms":

If you missed Dust Galaxy at their Knitting Factory gig last Friday, have no fear, you can pick up their excellent self-titled CD. Dust Galaxy is the solo project of Rob Garza, co-founder of scenester label Eighteenth Street Lounge (ESL) but you won't be hearing any of the ESL's signature bossanova or other latin sounds. Dust Galaxy is a psychedelic romp through a landscape of 60s-style sitar jams ("Sun In Your Head", "River of Ever Changing Forms"), DIY punk rock ("Limitless", "Cherubim Sing"), dub ("Sons of Washington"), and classic rock ("Crying to the Night").

Garza recruited accomplished sidemen from bands such as Primal Scream, Brazilian Girls, Cornershop, and Fugazi, and you can see that these individual members influenced the overall product as reflected in the wide range of genres listed above. It's a really fun album despite Garza's sometimes thin and overly-earnest voice (he does all vox). The remarkable music and instrumentation carries through any shortcomings, and if anything should be carried over from the ESL template, it's more tracks with minimized or zero vocals. As a big fan of ESL, I think this is an incredibly brave record for them to put out as it is like nothing else in their catalog. Listen to the sample track above and check out more at their website or Rob Garza's MySpace - and, as usual, please buy your music.