Slightly bombastic, crammed with grounded yet ethereal vibratos, and most of all not taking itself too damn heavy, Anthony Mudrick’s first solo single “Sunshine Radiation” (out now on Portland’s Ten Dollar Recording Company) will get your fingers tapping while simultaneously glazing your eyes over. And given the band of merry pranksters and fleet of magic buses they’re riding deep in over at TDRCO, Mudrick is amongst kindred company. Cryogenically steeped in a classic West Coast flower child shindig that’s just on the verge of clawing the clothes off and bugging out to the woods all aboriginal and whatnot, “Sunshine Radiation” also sports an enmeshed Ray-Ban cool streak peppered all over a 90’s junkyard-pop aesthetic, with the results coming in predictably sun-flecked. This one is all picnics and party favors, with the tongue in cheek delivery laid easy over a fuzz-jangle melody line growing more infectious as the track progresses. And steady as she goes, the line of sight, over-arching ease in the lyrical department invites the listener to get horizontal, rendering this radiation largely poppy – no lead jacket necessary.

Despite cleaving by and large to the same riff/melody line for the whole of the track’s five minutes of runtime, “Sunshine Radiation” manages to not beg for change at any point; rather this trip is on repeat, so to speak. With its echoed calls of “We’re digging on the sun; We’re tripping out on the sky”, Mudrick’s inaugural solo effort is solidly ratcheted to a technicolor sky. And right on ideological point with the rest of the Ten Dollar Recording Co. roster, where the end results are always anything but conventional. As with so much of the label’s back catalog, this one’s got the same things going for it: forward focused backward glances shot through with a willfully independent, sing along day-glo goodness, hummable melodies, and lyrics that are simultaneously contoured and throw-away. Mudrick’s storytelling here is similarly down to earth, and the results add up by track’s end to a kind of prismatic sing along, all heads bobbing to the call and response “sunshine radiation, sunshine radiation…”.

Furthering the TDRCO bloodlines, Mudrick’s brother-in-arms (and, well, brother) is none other than Thomas Mudrick, one of TDRCO’s not-so-secret musical weapon/wunderkinds, with whom Anthony played in Salem fuzz rock outfit The Blacklights, alongside Oscar Ordiano and third brother Bryan Mudrick. For “Sunshine Radiation”, label founders Ryan Michael Block and Mariya May (also of many TDRCO projects) lent their multi-armed musical talents, and the results are expectedly out of this world. Be on the lookout for an Anthony Mudrick full length later in 2013, but for now keep digging on the sun and tripping out on the sky, kids. (REED BURNAM, June 18, 2013)

Release Date:June 21, 2013

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