Jean Karakos formed Celluloid Records in the waning hours of disco but the label took off internationally once the label chief tied with the likes of Bill Laswell, Fab Five Freddie, Manu Dibango, Richard Hell, and the Last Poets, all of whom lend a shiv to this cacophonous two-disc rumble.

With its flurry of jubilantly jangly guitars, fuzzily opaque vocals and funky art-rock experimentalism, Sonnyskyes’ self-released debut, The Imaginary Friend Ship, could easily be the latest HoZac Records release. Sonnyskyes revels in a fresh presentation that eschews predictable and traditionally packaged rock music for a more untutored, irreverent palate.

With the Neumans and the Black Mambas, the Hurricanes are part of Wild’s new new breed—respectively, that’s 60s garage, 70s Dolls-punk, and the unrelentingly hard-ass mod/ R&B/garage sound of the Hurricanes.

Sometimes getting there is half the fun, and this CD is a road trip the likes of which we’ve rarely seen since the Pink Floyd or Zappa albums of old.

“Coast to Coast” is the hit here, a beautiful summer California tune that actually does kinda sound like exactly what their press materials claim it to be, the Beach Boys with a hint of Pavement, though I think the Paley Brothers, dBs, and Dwight Twilley might be equally apt comparisons.

While Joe Volume does wear a cowboy shirt on the cover of this, his umpteenth album, he’s more rockabilly than country on this toe-tapper.

I love the 13th Floor Elevators underwater space guitar, and the rhythm section that sounds like a mountain falling down a mineshaft, and the way every song ricochets off the impenetrable everyday incoherence of modern life, and there’s lots more to love past that, too.

It’s odd to think that a band that never smiled on stage, except in contempt for all that was pure and holy, could bring so much joy to its fans.

When indie trio Regal Degal traded in taxis and pizza for floral prints and palm trees and migrated from Brooklyn to Eagle Rock almost a year ago, they recorded music that sets them on course for a tsunami-sized wave of a climax and they already have their protective cups on.