Music for small groups of players has flourished since the Baroque era. Whether composed for a consort of viols, a string quartet, or even a group of unconventional instruments, the genre is known as chamber music, which has been a staple of classical listening for more than 400 years.

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The Australian quartet Royal Headache helpfully answer a nagging musical question you may have posed at some point, namely what would happen someone messed with the whole time/space thing and somehow Otis Redding ended up fronting the 1977 Damned? Or maybe if Wilson Pickett ended up being backed by the Saints. Okay, so maybe you never asked that question but the guys in the band (Law, Shogun, Shortty and Joe) did at some point and their answer gets them an A+ in my book. Their self-titled debut album just came out on What's Your Rupture last week and the garage soul intensity and incredibly catchy songs knocked me out. Guitarist Law was kind enough to send us a list of stuff he's been digging lately, complete with some snapshots.

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It was the year that grunge retreated from the center stage, signaling the rise of post-grunge on modern rock radio and indie-rock on the stations that existed on the left of the dial. It was the year the Wu-Tang Clan consolidated their strength via individual projects from Ol' Dirty Bastard, Raekwon, and Genius/GZA. It was the year electronica made inroads into the mainstream via Chemical Brothers and Goldie. It was the year D'Angelo released Brown Sugar, ushering in an era of neo-soul. It was the year trip-hop took hold. And it was the year where Britpop peaked, with Pulp releasing the classic Different Class during the thick of the Blur vs. Oasis battle. It was the year 1995 -- the year when pop music in all its forms began to fracture into niches and, maybe because of that diversity, it was one of the best years of the '90s.

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