The Best Music You Never Heard: Splashdown -Richard

Every once in a while you get sick of the radio. You reach for a CD case or iPod, but nothing seems to jump out as you thumb through your music collection. You want something new, something that you haven't heard on the radio every hour for the past week. You want something MTV doesn't have in their 30 minute music rotation. You want...

THE BEST MUSIC YOU NEVER HEARD

For me it was listening to 105.9, The Laser, in Middle School. It is where I discovered Radiohead and Ben Folds, years before "Karma Police" and "Brick." The Laser was a semi-college station out of Lawrence Kansas, and the Quazi-Pro DJ's could play most anything they wanted -- so they did.

A few years later it changed, then went away altogether... like all great Alternative stations. Still, I had my older friends and their older siblings who were in college and they always seemed to have the best new and retro music. They showed me bands like The Flaming Lips and showed me what I was missing in Bob Dylan, David Bowie and Johnny Cash.

Pretty soon I was making my friends listen to The Ditty Bops and Muse before they hit it big stateside. As well as this band...

THE BEST MUSIC YOU NEVER HEARD: Splashdown

My ex-roommate Dave introduced me to Splashdown my Junior year of college. Normally his taste in pop-rock was atrocious, but something about Splashdown worked. Splashdown was fronted by the incredibly talented Mellisa Kaplan on vocals and piano with guitarist/bassist Adam Buhler and Kasson Crooker doing all of the programming (i.e. drum machine). The trio managed to combine the catch of pop with the rawness of grunge and the harder alt. rock of the '90s. This is most prevalent in their second LP, "Blueshift."

"Blueshift" starts off with the harder pop-ballad "A Charming Spell." It's not the most unique piece in the world, with obvious influences by Garbage and Frogpond at times. Next is the R&B/Jazz song "Presumed Lost" which shows off Buhler's playing and Kaplan's amazing voice. Other tracks of note include "Iron Spy" which suffers from a little post-grunge angst, but shows off the much darker side of the band; "Waterbead," a pop song that rocks out in the middle for no reason, making it all the more cool; and my personal favorite, "Mayan Pilot."

"Mayan Pilot" has the best bass riff since Yes's "Roundabout." It's a mix of Funk bass, melodic vocals and a touch of Latin guitar. Vocally reminiscent of Nora Jones, it's the swan song of the album.

Sadly, Splashdown never broke into the mainstream and broke up over label issues just after they got the song "Karma Slave" on the "Titan AE" Soundtrack. Still, the band welcomes downloads of their material. Almost all of their material can be found Here

Just follow the link and enjoy.

-Richard