With the start of the new month, I’ve updated the Recommended column on the right side of the scrubbles.net front page. My friend Ion sent me a mix disc recently that contained a song by Camera Obscura, “If Looks Could Kill”. I immediately gravitated toward its punchy guitars and winsome, retro-’60s female vocals — so I got their accompanying album Let’s Get Out of This Country as part of my “new music once every six months” cycle. The album was enjoyable and different, although none of the other tracks have the same immediacy as “Looks” and the lead-off, “Lloyd, I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken”. The group is nice but not as distinctive as, say, Belle & Sebastian. If anything, these guys remind me of mopey, fey ’90s groups such as The Sundays, The Cranberries and Mazzy Star.

Also, in the course of assembling an awesome mix of “synthy soul’ from the years 1985-87 I decided I must download all of The Best of the Pointer Sisters off iTunes. Here is one of those groups that you might think in retrospect is kinda cheezy, but actually they’re kinda cool. Much of that coolness comes from the gals’ fantastic harmonies, but you also can’t deny the crispness and warmth of Richard Perry’s production. I can remember being absolutely wowed by “Automatic” when it came on the radio in 1984, and it still sounds dynamite today — beautifully layered and totally state-of-the-art. On a side note, I also remember seeing the Pointers in some computer commercial from back then, and lo and behold YouTube has it! Thank you, YouTube, and thanks to Ruth, June (R.I.P.) and Anita for brightening up my week.