Goldcard

Charlie Cambell's Goldcard project could have been another lost gem of orchestrated psychedelic pop like Brian Wilson's legendary album Smile. But after friends from Grandaddy and Quasi helped Cambell finish the songs — first put to tape in the mid-90s and passed around very limited circles like a cult classic — the Goldcard recordings are finally seeing the light of day. The outcome is a wholeheartedly brilliant record, as much a sketchy folk album in the tradition of Skip Spence and Syd Barrett as it is a shimmering pop outing. From the Grandaddy-esque melancholy charms of "We Only Doubt Which Theory We Will Be Proving First" to the glowing, could-be the Beach Boys singing about physics and math number, "Destroy and Recreate" to the Beachwood Sparks-sounding "Picture of a Horse", Cambell has a real knack for fusing a single song with contradictory moods, much like the Flaming Lips on their masterpiece Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. In between tracks are untitled interludes — strange little compositions, ranging from piano to acoustic guitar to drum machine, that are really as spectacular as the lyrical pieces that stand beside them. By the end of the record, it seems that Charlie Cambell must be completely lost and have gone entirely over the edge, but the album that was found in the process is pure gold, with a heart carved from wood.