Terry Eason's recorded output dates to 1984, when his band North Equator Nine issued Sorta Like Normal, a platter that earned Steve Albini's highest accolade: "Sorta like f---ing cool" in Matter magazine.

Four-track explorations commenced shortly after, resulting in 1990's Therefore...Um solo cassette, an instrumental exercise that garnered rave reviews in the indie press. Gigs with local lights like Dylan Hicks and Babylon Pink cemented his reputation as a first-rate guitarist but failed to satisfy his artistic yearning, so Ultrasonics was born.

The group's 7-inch debut, "Supernatural" b/w "Stone's Throw," appeared in 1994. The moody garage-pop on the A-side was accented by some caustic-psychedelic soloing from Eason. The flip was even better, a post-punk Buffalo Springfield with beautifully busy bass by Steve Parker and Pat O¹Brien airily propulsive on the drums. The following year saw the self-release of the Shooting Time CD, a jewel of a record that drew favorable comparisons to XTC, Robyn Hitchcock, Paul Westerberg and other pop masters. Ever busy, Eason continued his sideman work, playing on Rhea Valentine's Shrug (a Twin Cities chart-topper in 1995 along with Shooting Time) and Dylan Hicks' 1996 TRG Records release Won, plus contributing to a couple compilation CDs.

Eason's previous work was impressive enough, but his new CD, The Sun Also Says Howdy, is a huge leap forward. An eclectic collection of home recordings, Howdy is a fascinating, enchanting record that girdles the pop globe from the Stones to Eno, XTC to AC/DC, Todd Rundgren to Ian Hunter. Eason drapes it all in a hazy, blurry ambience. Don't call it "lo-fi"; it's a deeper, stranger sound than that, in a league with Mercury Rev or Television Personalities. "A lot of the sound of Howdy is probably because of my limited access to good sound gear," Eason says modestly. "I didn't really know what I was doing when I mixed it." Eason is a terrific songwriter, particularly in his reflective moments. "All That I Can Do" and "Sometime This Century" would put Billy Corgan to shame (if he had any). No surprise, then, that the University of Minnesota's Radio K put Howdy in heavy rotation shortly after its release last May.

Encouraged by the response to his solo work, Eason has put Ultrasonics "on the back burner" and is focusing his attention on his new ADAT machine (he's finally retired the old Fostex X-15) and a follow-up records to Howdy. "The new record is turning out to be a little more straight-forward, song-structured kind of thing" he says, acknowledging that too much diversity could be "commercial suicide".

"Not to say I'm done with it yet", Eason hastens to add, I want to throw a couple of weird things in there."

-- Jim Santo