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While there’s a hell of a lot of clutter and noise on the internet, there’s also a lot to be discovered. By randomly clicking a link it’s possible to discover (or rediscover) a whole new world.

Like, for instance, A Diamond Age, Atlanta, Ga.-based musician M Leer’s ever-mutating (mostly) solo project. While he’s busy putting the finishing touches on his next record, you’d do very well to download his beautifully-curated mix tapes — very heavy on Technicolor psychedelia and rarities from the glory days of Cinecitta.

Whatever you do, don’t pass up Beguiling the Hours, Leer’s track-for-track tribute to Gareth Williams and Mary Currie’s collaborative project Flaming Tunes.

Williams’ post-This Heat project only saw limited release on cassette in the 1980s. Thanks to Mick Hobbs’ Life and Living Records, it was given a proper reissue last year.

When Leer, a dedicated This Heat fan, stumbled upon an FT bootleg in 2007, he was amazed to discover that the album wasn’t more well-known, even among the cognoscenti.

“What initially grabbed me was that it was in a different place from This Heat, but with a similar cadence. You could tell where it was coming from,” he said in 2009. “Essentially, [it’s] a pop record —a song-oriented, soulful thing.”

Cheers to Dan Selzer at Acute Records for alerting me to this wonderful video of Gareth Williams, filmed in the ‘80s and completed after his untimely death in 2001 by friend Colin Harrison.

“Nothing’s On” and other rarities can be downloaded at Flaming Tunes. (The links are very quietly hiding out on the right, under the photos.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5VmnqUTbeI

A Diamond Age, “Raindrops from Heaven” (from Beguiling the Hours, 2007)

Gareth Williams, “31” (demo)

IMAGE: LETTER FROM GARETH WILLIAMS TO MARY CURRIE, FROM FLAMING TUNES

Brighton group Ebsen and the Witch are a rather mysterious lot, all sepia-toned and wintry on their Myspace page. (Which is to say, I know next to nothing about them.) Today they released a limited edition single as part of the newly-reinvigorated too pure singles club—which is reason enough for me to pay attention to them. Reason #2 is a recommendation from none other than producer Mark van Hoen —always a sign of something wonderful going on.

Like the fog, this track tip-toes in on little cat feet. But it gathers in power as it goes along, turning into a storming, fuzz-drenched, JAMC-by-way-of-Phil-Spector-before-he-went-completely-psycho delight. (How I love bands that harken back to the glory days of shoegaze.)

The song’s mix of delicacy and power brings to mind Sian Alice Group, the Cocteaus (all those ringing guitars), with dreamy echoes of Julee Cruise, Beach House. Thematically, this is akin to AC Marias’ “One of Our Girls (Has Gone Missing)” —taking the dramatic ending of The Awakening as a starting point, a new beginning. (Like the book, both songs are melancholy but hopeful too.)

Welcome back, too pure, Kick my ass again with something this great, I dare ya.

Esben and the Witch, “Lucia at the Precipice”

PHOTO BY ANDREA FELDMAN

I’m still in quiet shock over Vic Chesnutt’s death. Some people have such an indelible presence that it’s impossible to imagine the world without them. Vic was one of those people.

Through his beautiful, incisive songs, the world seemed to blaze a little brighter. As Kristin Hersh wrote in her incredibly moving tribute:

I don’t think I like this planet without Vic; I swore I would never live here without him. But what he left here is the sound of a life that pushed against its constraints, as all lives should. It’s the sound of someone on fire. It makes this planet better.

A few years ago, my friend Giles wrote a wonderful post about discovering Vic’s music for the first time:

Arriving home, I placed the A-side on my turntable. A few plucked notes that bent upwards, a plaintive harmonica, and then the first line, “I dreamed I was dancing with Isadora Duncan.” I was smitten, and devastatingly so. … This, this music, this little song, was simple, sad, and crushingly beautiful.

Rest in peace, Vic. You are missed.

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Kristin Hersh has set up a Paypal donation page to help Vic’s family defray the expenses associated with his recent hospitalizations and death. 100% of all funds raised will go to Vic’s family.

For more about Vic’s music, visit Constellation Records.

Vic Chesnutt and Kristin Hersh, “Panic Pure” (live)