“Dark Green Sea is a genuinely unique concoction, drawing mainly from Spector-esque wall of sound pop but taking in British Invasion R&B, 70s dub sonics, 80s post-punk atmospherics, 90s guitar squall and even a touch of 00s electronic noise. It’s like a musical time capsule signal beamed back from a 50s B-movie vision of the future. Front-man Tom Owens is a scarily ambitious songwriter, approaching these compositions with the perfectionist precision of a master like Bacharach or Brian Wilson, adding and taking away instruments and dropping key changes and rhythmic shifts to create several movements within each song.” -The Quietus

“a collection of never the same thing once, frequently: the memorable parts of a traffic jam, the bad handwriting from marginalia; the heavy, little, sleepy things in spilled moonlight, the penny behind the washer and dryer; the mood a freshly painted wall could make, the third conversation about the weather today; the worst parts of freedom, the initial thrill of change; the famous laughs of your past, the best part of pancakes.” – Orchid Collective

In order to get a more palatable sense of what the band sounds like, combine one part honey with three parts whiskey. Add a borderline Vaudevillian temptress (Melissa Smith), a backwoods noise junkie (Rob Kenagy), a musical bibliofreak (Mark Arciaga), and a dash of lemon. What you’ll get is an atmospheric, electric beverage, one that sways like Phil Spector and staggers like Neil Young.

Pistol Beat’s Forty One Pills was PAR’ s pseudo-inaugural release sometime around 2005. With the help of friends Jamie and Paris, Pistol Beat got a CD-R released with hand sewn paper inserts. Weeks later, Pretty All Right came into being. We are still waiting for Lawrence Robert McMahon to drop his next collection of transmissions from outerspace.

Sam Adams has a keen ability to write songs as well as large-scale musical documents. A music fanatic of all shapes and sizes, Sam has been making “bedroom pop” since before the genre existed. He has quietly been kranking out albums since he was 14 (or maybe earlier). His early high school experiments covered all sorts of wild turf, drawing heavily from Boredoms, Syd Barrett, Todd Rundgren, and K records. When Tom and the PAR crew met Sam, he had completed the EP Assorted Sirens, which mixes dense, experimental lo fi pop with folk balladry a la Tim Buckley. With degrees in both classical and jazz, Sam continues to strive toward the perfect pop recipe, currently residing in Portland, Oregon.

THEY WERE THIEVES is a breath of fresh air on a morning when the grass is still damp. Their songs manage to make you feel comfortable while taking you through beautiful times of pain and sometimes pleasure. With heart-aching melodies, nice grooves, ambient excursions, and occasional rock-and-roll songs, these songs bring you back to the good times before we had the ability to broadcast via blogs and had to type our thoughts on a typewriter, or maybe even scribble them down on paper. These dudes seemingly live and breathe the midwest mindset. Recommended before or after listening for your next fishing excursion at the lake.

The person behind Pretty All Right. Tom released his EP Hush (PAR 001) in early 2006, at age 20. He has since become active in the DIY scene of Chicago, founding the performance space Halfway Lounge (now defunct) and delving into several different projects and bands including Distractions, Pet Lions, Ganges, Gorges, Famous Laughs, as well as his ever growing body of yet to be released solo work under the name Potions.