Wide-Eyed is a band with Tina Lambright and Patrick Pyne.
Though the origins of the group go back to 1994 in Seattle, Wide-Eyed was formed at the beginning of 2001 in Ypsilanti, MI, and over the next 6 1/2 years, would record 6 albums (described below).
But first, about this collection:

Hidden From Sight is intended as an introduction to Wide-Eyed
Not a chronological hits-style collection, but more of a cross-section of the group's albums and songs.

Instead of rating songs against each other, or trying to assemble a "best of", the band chose tracks they felt work well together, some less obvious song choices than others, all to give the listener an idea of the group's personality, and a sense of what they might hear by continuing further...

"We would rather show a bit more of the variety, and leave the 'hit mining' for the listener, especially since everyone has different ideas on what they like and want to hear."

As for the Wide-Eyed discography
The songs are all available individually,
Or together in their respective albums,
OR,
if you're feeling adventurous,
They're available as a collected bundle called "Hidden From Sight"
(digital "box set" with no box)
which contains all 6 albums:
LUCK
maven
Ypsilanti Records
Aurora
Dead Fuzz
Sky Pipes (demos & oddities)
- No plea for completism, just a quantity discount, for those who are bravely taking a dive into the deep end.

Currently all of these albums are available only as digital downloads, with CDs and LPs to hopefully follow someday (though the band previously released all of the albums independently on CD).

As they recorded these albums, the band had dreams of vinyl releases, so they imagined potential LP side breaks, as well as different feel or mood for the A and B sides, so with that knowledge, hopefully your listening will be further enhanced.
"We just sequenced the songs on each album, with our own sense of flow, and taking into consideration 'side breaks' for vinyl, even if that becomes sort of invisible on the CD/digital versions of the albums"

"All of this is for fun, and additional layers of enjoyment on repeated listenings, and not being precious about any specific order. It's just how the songs are being presented, individually, and together in a sequence as albums...."
Patrick reflects,
"That said, since each song has its own thing going on, I wouldn't be surprised at all, if someone's device, while playing individual tracks on random, may result in a flow of songs the listener enjoys more."

The very desire to listen and find out, is exactly what this sampler seeks to inspire...


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Now, a basic rundown of the 6 albums that are the source materials for this collection.
These descriptions are in broad, general terms, but can still give you a brief sense of the band's history, and what each album is about: (hey, you're reading the "information" section, so here's some info)

LUCK (2001-3)
In choosing the name Wide-Eyed, Tina and Patrick were hoping to connect ideas of psychedelia in non-cliche ways, so the band's debut was an attempt at presenting their songs cohesively, despite diversity of sound and styles; to make music that can be artistic, without "art rock" pretensions, funny without being comedy (intentionally, at least), and to "rock" without the many cliches there as well, the band's name being "against type" specifically.

"We share a distaste for describing our music, because to us, any description either sounds horribly pretentious, or just doesn't accurately describe it; the music describes itself, which to me is the opposite of pretension because it's not trying to be anything other than what it is", Patrick explains

"It's not diversity for diversity's sake, but more like just writing without the boundaries that styles create, then diversity just naturally happens when you're just trying to not repeat yourself, song to song, as engineers, producers, performers and songwriters. LUCK easily had twice as many songs in residency, at one time or another, so the stylistic spread naturally happened over time, as songs were replaced, or refined."

"The songs were initially an ever-changing set, and the demos were originally to give potential band members an idea of what they would be in for, but we became so focused on writing, practicing and recording, we remained a 2 piece, and rotated instruments for the recordings. We were just finding our way, and making it work with what we had."

"Live shows were their own thing. Most of our shows were as a 2 piece with Tina playing bass, and me on the drums. If we had a friend playing the drums, then I would play the guitar."

LUCK reflected a newness and youthfulness of the band itself, and the ideas they hoped to convey through their writing and the atypical sound of their debut album.

maven (2004)
After completing LUCK, the band began working with a large batch of tracks that didn't end up the first album. They decided to work on maven and Aurora concurrently. Desipite this, from the outset, maven was considered the 2nd album, and was thought of as more of a rock album with some weird edges to it, while...

Aurora (2006)
Would be considered to be more psychedelic, and less pop-song-oriented than maven (though both albums have aspects of each other).
Work on tracks for both albums continued, and in one very brief session, the band members decided which songs went to maven or Aurora (they intentionally remained undecided before that point), and the order of the tracks.
Even though there was this parallel timeline for the two albums, Patrick and Tina hoped Aurora would have a "next step past maven" feel to it.

Ypsilanti Records (2005)
While right in the middle of working on maven and Aurora, Fred Thomas (who played drums on a few m/A songs) approached the band with an offer to put out an album (of new songs, exclusive to this release), so Tina and Patrick took a short break, wrote and recorded 5 tracks each, all solo recordings. The result was, yet again, a different view of these two songwriters. The first 50 copies were released on Ypsianti Records, with Wide-Eyed's subsequent re-release after those were gone.

Dead Fuzz (2007)
Wide-Eyed's final album to date. After completing the marathon that resulted in the previous 4 records (5 if you count the material that made up the Sky Pipes collection, released later), the band was preparing to take a break from constant recording, when they decided to make one more album, a "quick and immediate record" in the Stooges/Sonics vein... at least that was the original intention, but Brian Wilson, and a few others, crept into the mix somewhere along the way.

Though much of the insistent drive was maintained, the album took some very different directions, and evolved into something else altogether, with soundscapes and layers, all unexpected at the outset..
Patrick points out "in retrospect, it does make a good companion bookend to LUCK, and touches on a lot of different ground before being done."

Sky Pipes (2008)
"B-Sides", unreleased tracks, and alternate versions.
In a way, this record has been a work in progress, all of its own, from the beginnings of LUCK in 2001, until the completion of Dead Fuzz in late 2007. Many songs were set aside or left behind, for many different reasons, and some of them surface here.
Sky Pipes also has different versions of released songs, like the original version of Cabochon (also included on Hidden From Sight), that was the first Wide-Eyed song to be played on the radio (WCBN), and is notably different from the final version that appeared on Aurora.
These songs and more, just to lighten the mood.

Sky Pipes was originally intended to be only included as a bonus 2CD/2LP, as a part of the physical product version of the box set, but in releasing all of the albums digitally first, they decided to just make it available along with the rest of the albums, and to sell the complete bundle for less, still retaining the bonus album idea.

All of these words, to inform
and all of this music we hope you enjoy...
.