Duncan Browne, Give Me Take You (side A)

At some point, 1968's Give Me Take You moved from forgotten folk oddity to coveted collector item, and it's also a memorable oddity.  Moving past Browne's exaggerated lyrical themes (most memorably "Dwarf in a Tree"), the songs are well-written, with beautiful melodies and some lyrical subtlety inside of the stylized themes.  Browne sings in a tenor both rich and airy, and his acoustic guitar playing exhibits both detail and taste.  The scooped frequency response, even of old pressings, hints at more modern recordings, though it's not as exaggerated as many modern releases.  While Browne's voice is thinned some, it often provides the only low-mid content — the emphasis on sibilance created by this equalization would benefit from de-essing.  The bass sits mostly in low-frequencies with little harmonic content.  Some songs are very sparse, others have subtle string and keyboard arrangements, and others are layered with surprisingly odd, and very psychedelic, string parts.  The cover design emphasizes the fairy-tale quality of the lyrics.