Pretty Darlin' by Eric Relph

Written 5,000 feet up in a cabin the sierra mountains, Eric Relph’s Pretty Darlin’ started as a just-for-fun project that gradually snowballed into a timeless document of breezy California living in the late 1970s. With collaborators like Bill Champlin (Sons of Champlin) and Michael Allsup (Three Dog Night), Relph cut his one and only LP at producer Allsup’s studio in Santa Monica and self-released it to little fanfare in 1978. Perhaps due in part to the evocative cover by surf artist Bill Ogden, psych gradually aficionados took notice, elevating the album to lost classic status.

A visit to the Numero office makes it very clear that ‘the stacks’ is a literal description of our process: we accumulate stacks of records, master tapes, photos, flyers, and old newspapers while assembling a project. From The Stacks is our way of illuminating the experience: the selections here are presented without curation. While we’re digging for gold, these are the lesser minerals we find.