Rascal Reporters Bonus Tracks

Here's something my friend sent way back earlier this year that I've enjoyed enormously in the intervening time with its intense mixture of truly, truly progressive music.  We have everything we could ask for: oddball ballads, chamber or modern classical compositions, electronic weirdness, abrupt and angular RIO, the entire wide and bizarre gamut of kaleidoscopic sounds we expect from truly, brilliantly creative musicians, guys who don't give a hanging sh** about being popular, the only thing they seem to care about is finding new ways to assemble complicated de-Fouriered sound waves in heretofore never heard ways or impressing their fellow musicians whose jaws drop at the sound of a bizarre melody with the thought, "how does that even work???"

As an example of a tune that seems designed to be commercial but, obviously, will never be played for you at work on your favourite stupid station endlessly playing "Everybody Dance Now!" & "Candle in the Wind," a tune fittingly called Fallen Mind:

For their skills at instrumental composition (and arrangement) consider the following mini-masterpiece I've listened to 100s of times, called Sonata in Blue:

The Reporters shouldn't need an intro, but I'll quote the discogs summary, which sounds like it was written by the artists:

Based in suburban Detroit, formed in the mid-1970s by high school chums Steve Gore and Steve Kretzmer, the Rascal Reporters made music together for over 30 years, until Gore's death in March, 2009.  Call it Progressive Rock, Avant-Garde Pop, Sound Collage, Experimental, Rock in Opposition, Sentimental Tear Jerkers, Quirky Folk Tunes for Casio, Elevator Music from Hell, or whatever category you like, this duo of Steve Kretzmer (keyboards, percussion, vocals, guitars) and Steve Gore (keyboards, percussion, vocals, guitars) delighted in confusing audiences and smudging the lines between genres over the course of one 7" single and 7 studio albums.

There's an enormous amount of music to slog through here, but take your time, it's worth it. And don't be put off by the RIO label since so much of the music isn't.

PS: The other release I've been enjoying enormously this year is the lost Missus Beastly album, In the Diving Bell: strongly recommended to everyone, truly another lost masterpiece.  What a shock to see that one turn up.
I wouldn't want to post it since it's an official GoD release.