I know I probably won't convince anybody, but really, Martin Phillipps is easily as gifted as Nick Drake, Syd Barrett, Alex Chilton or any of the other oddball/tragedy/visionaries whose career minutiae are obsessed over in the pages of MOJO. 1990's Submarine Bells (there's a great master's thesis to be written on the comparison of Submarine Bells to Pet Sounds if you can find the right advisor) is my favorite LP of that decade, and the Kaleidoscope World anthology of early singles and EP tracks is endlessly delightful and wonderfully odd, as well as frequently impossibly sad. Even Brave Words, which was faulted at the time for it's production, now sounds like a great collection of unique twisted-heart discoveries, hooked by the incredible "Night Of Chill Blue." All of the above contain perhaps the most moving pop music I have ever heard. In addition, they had a reputation as a great live act; I didn't catch them until the Submarine Bells tour, but they were just unbelievable, tight and confident and much noisier than the studio recordings, with occasional passages that crescendoed into a maelstrom of nearly Sonic Youth proportions. This remains probably my favorite show I've ever seen.

Tons of Chills oddities/B-sides/rarities were rounded up for the fan club 3-CD set Secret Box, which contains today's entry.