Bent Leg Fatima - 'Mouse b/w Crow, Cat & Snake' (Lounge)

This two-song, 33rpm single is Bent Leg Fatima's vinyl debut (I guess), and a bit of fun if you haven't just listened to the LP, like I did. But, if you are going to distill a great LP into two of its best songs and put out a single before the album comes out, I guess these are two great choices. I can't tell how different these recordings or pressings are - I'd like to say that 'Mouse's organs have a bit more room to breathe here than on the LP, but I can't really say that with confidence. Things do crescendo here and the cymbals threaten to overwhelm, but the band holds tight and the poor mouse has nowhere else to go. 'Crow, Cat & Snake' mellows it out a bit, though you'd think those animals would be fighting each other like maniacs. It's a deep Philly groove, not an ass-shaker but a headscratcher. Though it falls into mellow indie-keyboard territory, I do like the way the bass guitar, electric guitar and keys fall in and out of phase with each other - its an old trick to kick some trippyness into 4/4, but it works well. (I'm not oblivious to the idea that these instruments represent the animals of the title, in which case guitar is crow). The URL printed on the sleeve (www.voicenet.com/~lounge) is long dead (2004, according to the Wayback machine at archive.org) and I think we can assume the same about Lounge Records. I couldn't find images for this or the LP online which might put this band at the perfect cusp of pre-Internet saturation (1997-98, the golden years, eh?).