You may not have heard of Adam Marsland. You may not have heard of his former band, Cockeyed Ghost. But as we’ve tried to demonstrate, time and time again, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Radio is a wasteland, the RIAA is waging a toxic war on the artist, and the explosion of media and Internet channels has so fractured and nichified the listening audience that the Second Coming of The Beatles probably wouldn’t be noticed by more than a few hundred people. Upshot: there’s a lot of great music out there that you and I haven’t discovered yet (although I’m searching as hard as I can).

So today we call your attention to Mr. Marsland, a Southern California indie/pop undergrounder whose new double CD actually is making some noise, hitting the Amazon.com best seller charts on the day it dropped. Adam covers a lot of ground in this release, and at times he’ll remind you of everyone from early Elton John to Todd Rundgren to The Beach Boys to Stevie Wonder – a range that calls to mind the stellar (and also not very well known) Lewis Taylor, although Marsland’s funk vibe is more upbeat.

I talked with Adam recently and he was so obviously excited about Go West that he could barely contain himself. “Sam, this is the best CD I’ve ever done.” I think he’s right, too. It isn’t his first really good record by any stretch, but the range, the confidence, the songcraft and the sheer excellence of the performances make Go West the yardstick by which the rest of his catalog, past and future, will be measured.

In another day and age you wouldn’t be hearing about this disc on a blog like S&R. You’d be listening to it on your local radio station.

Hear more: MySpace / Lala / Last.FM

Purchase Go West