Anton Barbeau

Anton Barbeau embodies the very notion of a cult hero, as his surreal yet melodious psychedelic guitar pop carries echoes of XTC, Syd Barrett, Julian Cope, and Robyn Hitchcock. Breakthrough recognition arrived in the pop underground during 1994, when his debut album The Horse's Tongue captured the Sammie from the Sacramento Area Music Awards for album of the year. An unbroken succession of well-received recordings has appeared since, among them Drug Free, In the Village of the Apple Sun, Manbird, and Power Pop!!!, while collaborations have involved musicians drawn from XTC, the Soft Boys, the Bevis Frond, Cake, the Loud Family, Elf Power, and the Corner Laughers.

Born and raised in Sacramento, California, Barbeau began shaping his self-described “pre-apocalyptic psychedelic pop” throughout the 1980s. Early-1990s regional success prompted this noted anglophile to divide his time between Sacramento and the U.K., placing albums with labels such as Idiot, Frigidisk, and 125 Records. Antology, Vol. 1 surfaced in 1999 as a collection of previously cassette-only material, accompanied by A Splendid Tray that featured the Loud Family’s Scott Miller and Cake’s Gabe Nelson. King of Missouri followed in 2003, recorded in England with members of fellow psych-pop enthusiasts the Bevis Frond. Another partnership with Scott Miller materialized on the Loud Family’s 2006 release What If it Works?, the same year that yielded two of his most admired solo albums, Drug Free and In the Village of the Apple Sun. Automatic Door appeared in 2007, Plastic Guitar in 2009, and Psychedelic Mynde of Moses in 2010. Barbeau assisted Sacramento singer Allyson Seconds on her 2009 album Bag of Kittens and again on 2016’s Little World, the latter containing guest contributions from Colin Moulding of XTC, Kimberley Rew of the Soft Boys and Katrina and the Waves, and Scott Miller. Two further albums took shape with Andy Metcalfe and Morris Windsor of Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians under the Three Minute Tease banner, yielding Three Minute Tease in 2011 and Bite the Hand in 2014; Magic Act then emerged in 2016 on the Spanish label You Are the Cosmos. Natural Causes arrived two years later, followed by additional solo releases including Manbird in 2020, Oh the Joys We Live For in 2021, and Power Pop!!! in 2022.