*** Mr. Airplane Man

(self-released)

Combining the dark mystery of backwater Mississippi blues with the energy and attitude of snarling punk rock is the kind of accomplishment that deserves a record contract. But Mr. Airplane Man's debut EP is a self-released affair, cut live in the studio, with half its tracks recorded by Morphine's Mark Sandman -- a guy who knows his deep blues.

And this local duo do go deep. Margaret Garrett plays slide guitar with the authority of a budding musical visionary and sings like the tortured-soul(mate) of Jessie Mae Hemphill (or Howlin' Wolf). Tara McManus plays drums as through she'd been born in the Delta or Chicago -- 70 years ago. She's mastered a roiling style of working the kit that predates rock, driving songs with a loose martial rumble akin to African-American fife-and-drum music. So traditional numbers like "Jesus on the Mainline" (which benefits from their beautifully aching harmonies) and Wolf's "Moanin' for My Baby," and traditional-sounding originals like the growling "Baby," "My Hand" and "Rain So Hard" all seem as old as the atoms that began the universe. Or voodoo. Because this young band's combination of trance beats, reverb, and arrangements works its own distinct psychedelic magic.

-- Ted Drozdowski