Two from Big Stir: Lannie Flowers and Anton Barbeau

 By Henry Lipput

LANNIE FLOWERS, FLAVOR OF THE MONTH

One of my favorite discoveries of 2021 was the reissue of Lannie Flower’s album Home. Originally released in 2019 by Spyderpop Records, the reissue was the result of a partnership with Big Stir Records. In 2018 Flowers was working on the songs that would become Home but also coming up with a lot of songs that didn’t fit his vision of the album. Rather than putting those tunes aside he decided to issue them as free monthly downloads as a March to Home series.

The new Lannie Flowers album, Flavor of the Month (SyderpopRecords/Big Stir Records), not only contains all of the March to Home tracks (which have been personally remixed by Flowers) but also the new single “Summer Blue” and is the first physical release of these songs. The album is a masterful popscape of the people and places, working folks, and women he has known or wants to know.

The straight-up rock and roll (with some power pop thrown in for good measure) on the title track and “Don’t Make Me Wait” are recommended if you like the early Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers especially Damn the Torpedoes The album also features the pop delights of “Summer Blue,” “This One,” and “Day Glow All Night.” “About You” begins with an acoustic guitar and a string section, then moves into a pop/rock middle and concludes by repeating the opening’s arrangement; it’s a suite piece of work.

Of course one of the many things I like about Flowers is his use of Beatles references. For example, he surely knows when he sings “I should have known better” on “What Did I Know” what the line and the near Mersey beat feel conjures up. And on “Lost in a Daydream” he goes all in with the Fab stuff for a magical mystery tour-de-force.

“My Street (Back Porch Version),” a song from the Home sessions, does make an appearance on Flavor Of the Month. It’s one of three versions of the song, with one on the Home album and the other (the one I like best), the “Nashville Version,” was released last year as the B-side to the “Home” single.

ANTON BARBEAU, POWER POP!!!

You never know what to expect from an Anton Barbeau album. And that’s a good thing.

His 2016 album Magic Act included the track “Heavy Psychedelic Toilet” and he has written amazing, dreamy songs for the two albums he produced for Allyson Seconds (the first of these, Bag of Kittens, was reissued by Big Stir in 2020). He has brought on former members of XTC and The Pretenders to play on his albums. And on the album Kenny vs. Thrust he enlisted two very different bands from two very different countries to provide backing for his vocals.

Barbeau’s new album, Power Pop!!! (Big Stir Records), is, due to COVID restriction, mostly a home-grown affair. It resembles his 2018 album Natural Causes in that it has songs and sounds from across the musical spectrum from the pysch-out of “The Sound,” with its lyrical references to The Byrds, The Beatles and XTC and a monster ending not unlike the ending of “It’s All Too Much,” to “Whisper in the Wind” a broken-hearted lament with an 80s drum machine beat and bass line.

The psychedelic also sound raises its head on songs like “The Never Crying Wolf Boy” and the country rave-up of “Hillbilly Village.” The ode to “Drugs” revels in the use of them but in terms of the sounds Barbeau produces it’s not what you might expect because there’s a Macca-esque piano as a foundation and a Dylan-inspired spoken word segment in the middle. The last song on the album before the instrumental "Prologue, Literally," is one of the album’s highlights. “Valerie’s Waiting” has a harpsicord and synth in addition to a wonderful vocal turn from Barbeau.