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In 2002, Plush, aka Liam Hayes, released "Fed," an album that a few people I know -- and I've come to agree with them -- consider to be one of the great musical achievements of recent memory, an album that inspires hyperbole along the lines of "one of rock's great lost albums," which starts to sound eminently reasonable once you hear it. Unfortunately, hardly anyone actually has. A true perfectionist, Hayes spent so much money recording (and re-recording, and re-re-recording) this batch of songs that by the time he was finished, no U.S. label was willing to pay what he was asking to license it, so "Fed" is only available as a Japanese import (you can buy it here). Fans not obsessive enough to pay the $30-plus it costs have had to make do with "Underfed," a Drag City release of "Fed" demos, which is still excellent but no substitute for the real thing. Good news: "Fed," the genuine article, is going to be available for digital download soon. And here's one of the album's best tracks, a chance to hear Hayes' exquisitely phrased vocals and anachronistically lush, harmonically rich orchestral pop, the work of one of the greatest and most underrecognized songwriters of our time.
-- T.B.
