The Red Tyger Church

Although communal living arrangements for musicians once seemed tied exclusively to the close of the 1960s, the existence of outfits such as Acid Mothers Temple and Sunburned Hand of the Man demonstrates that ample space remains for them today. The Red Tyger Church occupies that space, yet the reticent ensemble may amount to nothing more than a conceptual collective, one devoted to concise psychedelia that shades into Velvet Underground-inflected pop and rock rather than marathon percussion rituals. Mike Diaz, a seasoned participant in groups including the Warlocks and the Pretty Girls, fronts the five-piece on vocals, guitars, and assorted instruments, while Mel Berlin supplies vocals and tambourine. The Sacramento-based quintet coalesced in 2002, cultivating local notice through frequent area performances whose vocal exchanges between Diaz and Berlin evoked the male-female pairings of the B-52's and X. Patrick Boissel's Alive/Total Energy Records proved a natural fit, given Diaz's earlier Warlocks tenure, and the band's first album, Free Energy, appeared in early 2004.