Odder than oddness itself: The Red House Painters don't do interviews, don't have their photograph taken and simply don't believe in doing anything to advance their cause. This is all very laudable, but it's the sort of behaviour you normally associate with bands whose music can't live up to their anti-image. It's not just that The Red House Painters create the sort of most beautifully sad music you can hear this side of Nick Drake and American Music Club's Mark Eitzel; it's more that, within its own genre, it's pretty nigh perfect.

Not that it's all minor chords and tales from desolation row. This is a band that has the scope, imagination and humour to do memorable covers of songs by Yes, Wings and, most memorably, Kiss.

Basically a vehicle for Ohio native Mark Kozelek (someone who, in a Drew Barrymore sort of style, found himself addicted to drugs at the age of 10, and attending a rehab clinic at the age of 14), the band was never meant to be a band and for the first few years made music purely as a hobby. Coincidentally enough, somehow and somewhere Mark Eitzel got to hear the tapes and he promptly sent them over to Ivo WattsRussell, the boss of the renowned English indie label, 4AD. Demos by their nature are rough and ready, to be varnished up before they reach the record shop, but such was the stark beauty of these half-finished songs, that WattsRussell put them out as the mini-album, Down Colourful Hill.

This title would prove to be as expansive as it came for the band. The two next albums were both, confusingly, called The Red House Painters, although connoisseurs know them by their artwork - the "Rollercoaster" album and the "Bridge" album. Lyrically they were distinguished by sadcore concerns, but there was no doggerel on offer here - Kozelek wrote with a rare sense of resonance.

Although they rarely played live, and when they did, they were hardly a full-on Iron Maiden experience, the records still sold and the band managed to have an appeal beyond the usual constituency for this genre of work.

Things went very David Lynch, with the 1994 EP release Shock Me, which was a cover of a Kiss song - perhaps the most diametrically opposed band on the musical spectrum to the acoustic meanderings of the Red House Painters. It was no real surprise, though: Mark Kozelesk, like Billy Corgan from The Smashing Pumpkins, had grown up in the mid-West at a time when ol'fashioned rawk ruled the airwaves - hence Corgan's cover of a Thin Lizzy song and maybe a clue as to why Nirvana's (I know they weren't from the mid-west) Smells Like Teen Spirit sounds like a Boston (as in the band) song.

A last album, Ocean Beach followed on the 4AD label, and apart from the Yes cover, Long Distance Runaround, it was a typically fragile and soft affair. A lot of these songs you would mistake on first listening for Joni Mitchell material, the rest sound like they were blueprints for Wilco's Being There album (which, by the way, is a good thing).

No longer with 4AD - the last time anyone heard from them they were on Island records - a very well-assembled two-CD retrospective has been released by their number one fan, Ivo Watts-Russell. The first CD is a compilation of their greatest recorded work (and there are some gems here), the second is a collection of rarities, including demos, live recordings and even the odd cassette that had gone amiss on a tour bus. If you've never heard of them (and not many have), this is the perfect introduction.

Retrospective by the Red House Painters is on the 4AD label.

Well worth keeping an ear out for is the debut single from the new Dublin band, JJ72. Called October Swimmer, it's a brash power pop-tinged tune and is available on the local Lakota label . . . Hole need a new bassist following the departure of Melissa Auf der Maur to the Smashing Pumpkins. They've put out an APB for a replacement and if you're an Irish female bass player (all three of you) and are interested, send two copies of your photo, a biog describing your style and influences, and a demo to: Bass Player, PMB 394, 2658 Griffith Park Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90039.

Brian Boyd can be contacted at bboyd@irish-times.ie