It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine: 2017

“Rock St. Trop” - Lenny Helsing in conversation with Wally Waller of The Pretty Things

Lenny Helsing talks to The Pretty Things’ Wally Waller about the exciting remastering project that now gives us a brand new restorative re-release of the album “Rock St. Trop – Philippe Debarge with The Pretty Things” out now on Madfish/Snapper on both LP/CD formats.

With their truly magnificent S.F. Sorrow LP complete – yet still languishing in record racks – and the groundbreaking Parachute opus yet to be dreamed up; and with founder / lead guitarist Dick Taylor choosing to have a sabbatical from the group, the summer of 1969 looked a little dour for the Pretty Things. But that didn’t stop vocalist Phil May and bassist Wally Waller from creating an endless vat of songs within their infamous Westbourne Terrace digs. Furthermore, a new experimental idea brought to them by well-heeled French fan Philippe Debarge had just been agreed upon; a project that would involve Debarge taking on the role of lead vocalist, with the Pretty Things providing all the songwriting and musical backing – all other vocal duties would also be carried out by the group’s strong vocal arsenal: Phil May, Wally Waller, keyboards player and percussionist Jon Povey and the group’s new guitar maestro Vic Unitt – on loan from fellow underground freaks the Edgar Broughton Band.

Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - On The Echoing Green (Mexican Summer, 2017)

https://shiningskullstudio.bandcamp.com/album/on-the-echoing-green

On The Echoing Green is a definitive change of heart for prolific ambient and noise artist Jefre Cantu-Ledesma. Released this summer, the album is ripe with a warm haze that beguiles and transfixes. The journey is gentle yet visceral, tenebrous yet astral. Swimming in and out of hard-edged loops and syrupy walls of sound, we float down into our seats. The bus has left the station. We are already on our way.

Hiya, here’s some new recordings by Los Marbles.

This first studio recording is three songs and we’re currently looking to see if some like minded soul would be interested in pressing it up on vinyl together with us.

Musically it’s a mix of all stuff we love, with no limitations. The pop sensibilities are here in form of melodies and arrangements and at the same time it’s a free form soundtrack to the movie we live - or would like to live - in. Our influences are everything and nothing.

Philosophical questions about the constructionist reality of past present and future and how to maybe change things for the better by altering how we see and describe it are there - but there’s also hedonism, freedom to choose how to live your life and of course the eternal call to just let go of your ego and come on and dance!

Music may even be a wormhole to other dimensions and maybe magic will seep into the world through it!

The band:

Måns P Månsson - Guitar, vocals, fx

Indy Neidell - Keyboards, vocals, fx

Tobias Resch - Bass

Jim Halvarsson - Drums

Jeremy Morris - “Invitation” (2017) review

Jeremy - Invitation (JAM Recordings, 2017)

Comprised of material recorded between 1975 and 1979, Invitation not only features Jeremy Morris’s freshman recordings, but the disc also marks the first time any of these pieces have been issued. Several years after these home tapes were laid down, Jeremy formed his own label - JAM Recordings - and since then, he has cut one album after another, which continually garner high-fives all over the world. Aside from being an ace singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, the Portage, Michigan artist plays and excels at a variety of genres, encompassing radio-ready pop rock, psychedelic rock, progressive rock, instrumental rock and spiritual rock.

JuJu is the brainchild of Sicilian multi-instrumentalist Gioele Valenti (Lay Llamas, Herself). Following on from the project’s 2016 S/T debut – widely hailed as one of the best, most innovative psych albums of the year – Valenti has signed to Fuzz Club for the release of sophomore LP Our Mother Was A Plant. Carrying on in its predecessor’s footsteps, the new LP is a continuation of JuJu’s ritualistic sonic exploration into the cultural implications of the ongoing refugee crisis and humanities increasingly strained relationship with Mother Earth.

Our Mother Was A Plant Pre-order:

https://fuzzclub.com/products/juju-our-mother-was-a-plant

One of the most out of sight singles was recorded by the Glass Sun. “Silence Of The Morning” is now considered garage-fuzz classic. The band recently released a wonderful book about their time.

An interview with members of Sir Robin & The Longbowmen. We talked about their latest album, upcoming tour and even upcoming album.

https://sirrobinandthelongbowmen.bandcamp.com/

Who’s in Sir Robin & The Longbowmen and what do you all play? Have you all made any changes to the lineup since you started or is this the original lineup?

Right now we are six people on stage: Konrad Reichel (vocals/percussion), Stefan Hühn (guitar/sitar/vocals), Friedrich Griese (guitar), Manuel Puschmann (organ/synthesizer/vocals), Robin Heller (drums/vocals) and Felix Franzke (Bass). Only Manuel and Robin are playing in the band since it started, we had a pretty intense change of members over the course of the years. The first album for example was recorded with D.A. Humphrey (former member of The Blank Tapes) and Martin Uslaub (guitar) and Felix Raskiewicz (bass) as well as Thomas Jahn (synthesizer).

With their third album Are You Waiting ? the French psychedelic jokesters Frank Sabbath present a concentrate of their composition style in four songs, ranging from high energy psychedelic rock, to progressive doom-laden melodies, and trippy atmospheric soundscapes.

The first track off the album, “Sasume,” album premiere is a japanese infused psychedelic tune, reminding the seemingly forgotten times where humor did belong in rock music.

Are You Waiting ? will be released on CD and digital format by the new associative label Bermuda Cruise, which is focusing on psychedelic, experimental and improvised music. The date of release for the album is set to October 2nd.

https://www.facebook.com/franksabbath.band/

https://franksabbath.bandcamp.com/

Remembering Jimi Hendrix (November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970)

In four years he built a world

Between Venus and Neptune

Planets of love and the sea

Stoned from the sun

Lighting its pastel colors

The lightning comes at midnight

Again in late November

And the road is revealed

Some dare to walk

Though many follow in his

Footsteps, none have filled his shoes.

(in remembrance of September 18, 1970)

By Kevin F. Wozniak

Larry Conklin & Jochen Blum - “Jackdaw” (1980) premiere

Larry Conklin bought his first guitar, a Gibson J-45, in 1970, after he got out of the army. “I taught myself to play. I wrote songs and instrumentals (at that time Bert Jansch was my guiding light). I listened to a lot of people - Leo Kottke, John Renbourn, Django Reinhardt, Lonnie Johnson, Robert Johnson - and especially Rev. Gary Davis, who played only with his thumb and index finger as I did.”

Larry's first record, Jackdaw was self-released in 1980 and includes beautiful solo 12 string acoustic guitar tracks, as well as gentle acoustic duets with violinist, Jochen Blum. Larry met Jochen in Florence, Italy, in 1980 and commented that “his violin playing put excitement into my music. It was special. I pressed 300 copies and sent them out into the world.”

Neil Young - “Hitchhiker” (2017) review

Neil Young - Hitchhiker (2017)

If anything, Neil Young is predictably unpredictable … and truth be told, I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a drawback, because right after he releases something brilliant such as Psychedelic Pill, he’ll come out of left field with something that leaves me scratching my head as nearly nothing, other than a few songs here and their come even close to the moving and specular material he laid out during the late 60’s and early 70’s, especially with his band Crazy Horse.

“It evolved into being about my life in music, my record obsession, my role in discovering mysterious LPs, bands I was in, my early days in NYC... a capturing of my human being vibe overall.”

Paul Major has lived resolutely on the vanguard of musical culture for nearly a half-century; as a pioneering record collector turned eminent rock and roller, his influence is vast, far-reaching and woefully unsung – until now. Feel the Music traces Paul’s singular trajectory from his early days in the Midwest, through his years in the New York punk scene, and headlong into his trailblazing career as a connoisseur of the weirdest records of all time. Illustrated throughout with unseen photographs from Paul’s personal scrapbook and eye-popping rare record covers and animated by Paul’s witty, inimitable storytelling style, Feel the Music is a deluxe tour through the farthest-out reaches of rock and roll history. [http://anthology.net/]

Your new book is absolutely fabulous, especially for a guy interested in collecting the “real” stuff.

Thanks man, freaks me out that such a book could exist and that the pre-internet secret society of collectors has grown into a worldwide scene. The “real” stuff that only hundreds of people were into back in the day sometimes hits hundreds of thousands on Youtube. While the book features lots of more famous psychedelic LPs it’s the more bizarre private pressings that are the things that I feel like I had the most to do with saving from the scrap heap of history.

One of the rare occurrences that took place around Kozfest was the performance of Spirits Burning, augmented by Chumley Warner Brothers who played an amazing set on Day Two of the festival. Both bands also gave stellar shows at Widcombe Social Club in Bath the previous Wednesday as a kind of “dress rehearsal.”

Album reissue on Out-Sider (2017) / Originally released on Project 3 (1972)

Guerssen

The lone album from Philadelphia’s Rain is an interesting melting pot of harmonic pop (‘Let Our Hopes Run Our Dreams’ prefigures Supertramp’s prog/pop and ‘Can You Help Me Sing My Song’ could easily have featured in a Partridge Family episode on American TV), hard rock (‘To A Dreamer’ features imaginative synth AND organ solos (!) from keyboardist/songwriter/vocalist Cobb Bussinger), and intricate jazzy prog (‘Mother’s Evil Child’ has some tasty guitar licks from Michael Kennedy). Perhaps the amalgam of styles hurt its chances of finding an audience who couldn’t quite make out what the band’s musical intentions were.

Based in London, psychedelic alternative rock maestros NUKLI have a message: “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood!” A UK free festival veteran, vocalist and guitarist Kev Hegan originally formed the space punk band PSi, which was a figurehead on the many Stonehenge Festival stages. That band changed its name to PSi NUKLI, putting out an underground cassette in 1988 entitled 9. After dropping the “PSi” from the name, NUKLI released its first cassette in 1993, Mushroom Bunglow Musick, and finally its first CD, The Time Factory, in 1997 on Delerium Records. The band’s current members are Hegan – vocals, guitar and keyboard; Mark Huxley – bass; and Peter Out – drums.

“I’d play drums for 5 seconds, take that tiny loop, loop it over, play a little piano motif, build that, and it all turns into a creature of some sort.”

Take a look at his discography and you see an emerging ambient artist sporting a repertoire evocative of Teengirl Fantasy, Atlas Sound, Sigur Rós, and Animal Collective. His sound began to blossom as a kind of avant-folk wrapped in disjunctive guitars and delicate falsetto, but before long his craft shifted to twirling cello loops and dinner conversation sound collaging. Most recently Panda Rosa has released, Neochina, a concept album that straddles the line between shoegaze and vaporwave.

The Dream Syndicate - How Did I Find Myself Here? (Anti- Records, 2017)

In all honesty, after all this time, I never expected to hear another Dream Syndicate album, so when How Did I Find Myself Here? found its way to my front door, the album’s philosophical title gave me pause to wonder the same thing regarding my own life.

Festival: Folk Music at Newport 1963-1966

A Film by Murray Lerner

Criterion Collection Blu Ray/DVD 2017

Part of what makes D.A. Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back – his documentary film of Bob Dylan’s 1965 U.K. tour – so remarkable is that Pennebaker didn’t set out to simply capture Dylan’s gigs from that time and present them in a straightforward way. He shot and edited the footage in an artful manner that made the viewer experience the moments in the heady and often chaotic way they must have felt to those present. You get inside the tour, and not only via the concerts but throughout all the other episodes that were part of the whirlwind series of events. Filmmaker Murray Lerner – who, sadly, passed away earlier this month – accomplished this same kind of comprehensive artistry in his 1967 feature Festival, which presents a collage of moments Lerner shot at the famed Newport Folk Festival over the years 1963-66.

Tom Rapp Pearls Before Swine:

City of Gold / Beautiful Lies You Could Live In

(BGO Records BGOCD 1285)

Pearls Before Swine are placed in the liner notes somewhere between the Incredible String Band, Mimi & Richard Farina, Tim Buckley…and Love: wide indeed, but justified. Some liken one of these albums to alt-country but that’s only a fraction: for most the biblically-named Pearls Before Swine are really a full-throttle vehicle for Tom Rapp and the first dawning of American psychedelic folk. Their nearest cousins this side of the Atlantic are post-debut Dr. Strangely Strange, with American angles rather than the beguiling Irish-English whimsy, though listeners will hear a lot of their likes surfacing while the always-interesting Rapp ploughs his own plot.

Originally from Portland, the New Tweedy Brothers were formed by brothers Fred and Danny Lackaff plus Dennis Fagaly and Steve Ekman. In 1966, they relocated to San Francisco, where they were part of the exploding, nascent psychedelic Ballroom scene, influencing none other than Jerry Garcia and sharing stage with bands like The Warlocks (pre–Grateful Dead), Quicksilver and Big Brother among others. Upon returning to Oregon, they self–released in 1968 their only album, housed in a striking hexagonal, over–sized silver foil cover, now a holy grail between psychedelic collectors. Innocent vocal harmonies, fuzzy bass, jangly guitars, raga sounds... Guerssen Records recently made a wonderful reissue and they managed to get us in contact with Fred Lackaff to talk about their blend of psychedelic jangly folk rock.

Where and when did you grow up? Was music a big part of your family life? Did the local music scene influence you or inspire you to play music?

I was born in Vancouver Wash. in 1941, so I got a good taste of the era of crooners and big band jazz and boogie woogie. Both my parents were talented performers as well as record collectors, so we had access to the sounds of the time; my favorites were the boogie, couldn’t believe what those guys were doing with their left hands and with the rhythm. Most nights after dinner mom and dad would run thru their repertoire on piano and sax: “Sleepy Time Gal,” “I’m Confessin’ That I Love You,” “Sunny Side of The Street,” come to mind, all the pop hits of the day.

Heroin in Tahiti – Remoria (Soave Records, 2017)

https://soave.bandcamp.com/album/heroin-in-tahiti-remoria

Fade in. The echoes of a jaw harp cloak you in a deep apparitional enigma. Shakers and sporadic percussion induce a prodding momentum. In the periphery, high pitched squeals float and turn in on themselves. You feel yourself diving down, perhaps into a hallucination, perhaps into your own hysteria. The drumming subsides into a sea of cicada-like shakers and glistening bells. And then a pound, an omen. You do not belong here. This is not your territory.

The Raised By Wolves - Sadie Hawkins (2013)

http://music.theraisedbywolves.com/album/sadie-hawkins

This DC-based group has been described in the past as reminiscent of The Flaming Lips with a bit of The Police mixed in. But when I turn on The Raised By Wolves’s debut album, I pick up on a greater eclecticism. Any 90s pop rock comparison only begins to dive into the experimentation that gives this release life.

“We Hear You’re Leaving, That’s OK…”

Walter Carl Becker 1950-2017

Steely Dan. Frank Zappa once famously referred to them as “downer surrealism”. I never got that. They weren’t depressing at all, nor were they “surreal” in any sense of the word. Rather, they crafted their tunes around a series of characters, usually New York/Urban in origin, whose foibles exemplified the human condition in the modern world. Cynical, yes. But surreal? More like hyperreal. Maybe Frank felt some professional jealousy toward a pair who beat him at his own game of “conquering from the fringes”, as Donald Fagen put it, subversively and repeatedly landing their poisoned darts at the top of the charts.

Indeed, their very name was subversive. By hijacking William S. Burroughs’ fictional dildo for their band name, they left thousands of confused girlfriends of musicians in their wake (“which one is Dan, the singer?”, “No babe, that’s Don”, “So why does he call himself Dan?”, “Babe, never mind…”). Becker and Fagen probably giggled like schoolboys when Dick Clark announced them on Bandstand…

Hi Barry, thanks for taking the time to share the story of your musical adventures, especially your time with The Legend, the band that cut one of my all time favorite LPs under the name Dragonfly.

Hi David, thanks for taking the time to share your story as drummer of two of Texas’ most famous psychedelic rock bands, Zakary Thaks and Bubble Puppy. For me, it doesn’t get any better than that!

When and where were you born? What part did music play in the Fore household?

Born in 1950 San Antonio. My dad was a drummer in big bands in the 1940’s and ‘50’s. I never saw him play, as he quit when he married my mom. But I saw newspaper clips of his band, “Records Ramblers”, and every night he played drums with his hands on the arms of his chair in the living room. I do the same thing. We had tons of 78 records, like all families in the ‘50’s.

A brand new podcast hosted by Ross Beattie (The Night Tripper)

A Middle Sex - Cry Waves

Jean Jacques Perrey - Space Light

Quicksilver Messenger Service - Gold And Silver

Vibracathedral Orchestra - South

Robert Wyatt - Little Red Riding Hood Hit The Road

William S Burroughs - Manhattan Serenade

SQÜRL - The Dark Rift

Joseph - Trick Bag

Grobschnitt - Food Sicore

Stone Harbour - Grains Of Sand

Fuzz Orchestra - The Earth Will Weep

Ilyas Ahmed - Night Song

Les Rallizes Dénudés - The Last One

The Incredible String Band - A Very Cellular Song

Feel free to submit your music directly to Ross for upcoming podcast at: ross_bt@yahoo.com

Guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Dan McNabb of Washington, D.C. trio The Beginner’s Mynd recently took the time to answer a few questions about himself and the band for It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine readers.

Something unexpected happened in my conversation with David Ivar Herman Dune, when he expressed an admiration for the darkness of Jonathan Richman. Certainly it was true Richman had never spared addressing darkness throughout his career, but I’d always thought of him as someone able to transist that impulse into something better, as in Franny Glass’s understanding, in the Salinger story named for her, that a real poet must leave something beautiful on the page to earn the name.

Magic Bus are from Totnes, Devon, and with two album releases as well as a Fruits de Mer single, they describe their music as “a love-in of late ‘60s early ‘70s Canterbury scene and U.S. West Coast hippie.” A staple of UK psychedelic/progressive rock, the band’s current members are Paul Evans – lead vocals, guitar; Terence Waldstradt – lead guitar, vocals; Jay Darlington – keyboards, vocals; Viv Goodwin-Darke – flute, vocals; Wihil Mellorz - bass; and Billy Burls - drums.

Frozen Planet....1969 have wasted no time in following up their album from early 2017 Electric Smokehouse with another 40+ minutes of improvisational sonic-psych chaos. Available on splatter or black vinyl and CD. Headspin Records & Pepper Shaker Records

Don’t forget to read our interview with the band: Frozen Planet.... 1969 interview

http://www.headspinrecords.nl

https://www.facebook.com/HeadSpinRecords/

Shiny Beast Mailorder

https://www.facebook.com/shinybeast.nl/

https://www.facebook.com/Frozenplanet1969

https://www.facebook.com/peppershakerrecords/

Dominique Lawalrée

“Music to find consolation in and to quiet the mind”

Dominique Lawalrée is a 62 year old self-taught classical composer and church organist from Brussels who got mostly associated with the ‘New Simplicity’ movement. He made over 500 recordings which he mainly released on his own Editions Walrus label. The recently released First Meeting album on Ergot Records is a compilation of his first four LPs.

I asked Dominique 12 questions via e-mail, he replied with: “Thank you for the questions. Excuse my poor English. Feel free to make corrections.” I decided not to.

Chelou - The Quiet (The Weird & The Wonderful, 2014)

https://chelou.bandcamp.com/album/the-quiet-ep

While this London based artist is still in his infancy, having only released a handful of singles and a couple EPs, his first release is an atypically talented hallmark of minimalist folk fused with electronic pop. Spanning only 4 songs, The Quiet, is consistently lo-fi in just the right way.

Drywater “Backbone Of The Nation” (RPC, 1973/Gear Fab, 2017)

Recorded in 1973 by guitarist/vocalists, Dennis Cheplick and Jack Sarvis, aided by Cheplick’s brother, Greg, on drums and Sarvis’ future brother-in-law, Ken Turcic on bass, Backbone Of The Nation was originally released on the RPC label in a limited pressing of 25 copies. The album was recorded “live” by the quartet at a local Pennsylvania studio, Marjon Records, with the LPs ten tracks being recorded in 3 hours with no overdubs or editing, at a total cost of $100. In this Gear Fab Records reissue the album’s ten tracks are supplemented by two bonus tracks, for a total run time of slightly over 41 minutes.

Hard Stuff - The Complete Purple Records Anthology 1971-1973 (Purple Records, 2017)

Hard Stuff came to life when the musical differences between guitarist/vocalist John DuCann and drummer Paul Hammond with keyboardist Vincent Crane reached a boiling point regarding the direction that Atomic Rooster would follow in the wake of their #4 UK hit “Devil’s Answer.” Crane wanted to follow a soulful direction while DuCann and Hammond favored a heavier rocking sound for the band. Quatermass bass guitarist/vocalist John Gustafson was asked by DuCann to join Atomic Rooster, and agreed, only to find that Crane owned the rights to the band’s name.

A few days later I found myself just off the interstate at the Phillips 66 station watching the last of the giant moths dance in the erie haze of the vapor lights. It was October, the fume-dreamers were already wrapped in surplus Army blankets, their eyes were blank, rolled back in their heads, their tanks already filled. In the backside of their brains they were racing the moon across freshly harvested cornfields, dancing the dust out of splintered floorboards, or laced in the trails of vapor-locked winged insects being picked off one by one by tiny bats, while field mice, fearing nothing from these motionless beings snuggled in the pockets of their flannel shirts, making a meal of the Snickers Bar they’d bought with their last dollar to quench the morning sweet-tooth of a huffer’s high.

Widowmaker - Running Free: The Jet Recordings 1976-1977 (Esoteric Recordings, 2017)

Widowmaker was formed in late 1975 by ex-Spooky Tooth and Mott The Hoople guitarist Luther Grosvenor, at the time known as Ariel Bender, as a means of recording songs he had written, something he had been unable to do since Mott The Hoople’s recordings were dominated by Ian Hunter penned tunes. Grosvenor was joined by ex-Lindisfarne drummer Paul Nichols and former Mungo Jerry and Chicken Shack bassist Bob Daisley. The trio became of the nucleus of the new band, with Grosvenor handling all the vocals.

Kozfest opened on Friday July 28th just as a major storm front moved into Uffculme, UK, the precise area where the festival was being held. The weather for the entire duration of the festival varied in its intensity, but intense it was. The heavy rain and wind may have incited the musicians to reach real heights of creativity, but every band that performed played as though their survival depended on it. Perhaps they were simply in touch with the elements.

Los Bravos - Black Is Black: The Anthology 1966-1969 (RPM Records, 2017)

Formed in 1965 by members of Madrid’s Los Sonor and Mallorca’s The Runaways, Los Bravos, in 1966, became the first Spanish band to have a single sell more than a million copies. Manager, Alain Milhaud, who was given full control of the band’s performances, musical direction, recordings, and image, put Los Bravos in the studio with producer Ivor Raymonde. One of the songs from those recordings, “Black Is Black” written by Tony Hayes, Steve Wadey and Michelle Grainger, and featuring performances by studio musicians including Vic Flack and John McLaughlin, reached #2 on the UK charts and #4 on the US charts, becoming the biggest selling song by a Spanish band in either of those nations and giving Los Bravos a permanent place in pop history. Although the band did experience some success in the following years they would never approach the heights gained by this tune.

The Eddies - Best Of The Eddies (Snap! Records, 2017)

For the past decade or so, the Eddies have reaped universal acclaim with their perfectly punchy pop rock tunes. Consisting of twin brothers Dale (vocals, guitar) and Dean (vocals, bass) Hoth, and Len Curiel on drums, the Southern California based band also features the multi-instrumental talents of famed producer Earl Mankey. Culled from cuts off the group’s trio of previous studio albums, Best Of The Eddies locks in as an ideal introduction for virgin listeners as well as long time fans who aspire to collect everything the group releases.

From the Lo-Fi, fuzzy depths of Brighton’s underbelly emerges the brand new single “CREATURE” from the heavy psych/garage two-piece: SKINNY MILK. A disgustingly heavy yet catchy King Gizzard-esque 2m 23s single is set to make chaotic waves this Autumn.

https://www.instagram.com/skinny_milk11/?hl=en

https://twitter.com/skinnymilk11?lang=en

https://www.facebook.com/skinnymilkband/

Rick Deitrick left his solo LP’s on hiking trails, “so people would find them.”

Tompkins Square is proud to release two solo acoustic guitar albums by Rick Deitrick, out August 25th. Gentle Wilderness was released as a private press LP in 1978. River Sun River Moon consists of previously unreleased recordings from the same time period. Deitrick came to our attention via Brooks Rice and Michael Klausman, who compiled Imaginational Anthem Vol 8 : The Private Press, which features Rick’s “Missy Christa” from Gentle Wilderness.

Morels - Drift (2017)

https://morels.bandcamp.com/releases

Stepping out from behind the hazy blue smoke curtain and dripping orange sky of his tripped out band Bad Liquor Pond, Dave Gibson heads straight into the intoxication of sunlight, where Morels’ first album Drift ebbs and flows, awash in warm breezy layered blissful stoner nods of light-handed delight.

Asimov - Truth (New Records, 2017)

https://asimovstenarmusik.bandcamp.com/

Truth is the third album from Lisbon, Portugal’s heavy psych monsters Asimov. Their heady brew of heavy psych stew is generated by just two dudes, Carlos Ferreira and João Arsénio, who, alongside the standard guitars, drums, and organs, include “visions” and “dementia” in their arsenal of headfrying and shapeshifting “instruments”. Ten-minute opener ‘Nothing In Return” (not the Roky Erickson song) pulsates like a hellbound train with a hypnotic, motoric beat driving an improvisational vibe similar to krautrock kings of oblivion like Can and Amon Düül II blowing bongloads of righteous boo with Hawkwind. A biker’s roar emanates from the vocalist’s guttural tonsils like the prince of darkness presiding over a bonfire of fried synapses. And that’s just the appetizer!

Surf City - We Knew It Was Not Going to Be Like This (Fire Records, 2013)

For Surf City’s Jekyll Island I wrote: “With ever present jangling guitars, sonic reverb overlays, a solid rhythm section, and drumming that lays down a cool groove, it takes few effects to support the agreeably front and center vocals that grab your attention and hold you transfixed. Surf City have nailed down their use of pop melodies, understand the essence of hooks, the impact of texture, where they lay out a panavision Valium sunset that surrounds and completely engulfs with hazy washes that are so warped that you will be laid out horizontally, floating in mid air.”

In late 2008 Sky Sunlight Saxon, the Vibravoid and Atomic on guitar teamed up for a 5 weeks period to record and play some shows.

Over 8 hrs of music have been recorded - live and improvised - to select some of Sky´s best late work from it.

Tracks like “You Can Let Love Start” present a reflective and acoustic Sky Saxon with a heart breaking song.

“A Kettle Of Tea” feature Sky´s precise and meaningful lyrics to a masterful extend filled with an abundance of dreamlike Mellotron sounds.

We included 5 unreleased tracks, that were not released on the sold out 2010 album “A Poetry Of Love” that only featured 4 tracks of the recording sessions.

Most of the music is experimental, rocking, shocking and different to one might expect – but showcases the art and performing qualities of an ingenious spirit.

We can only say that the time we have spent with Sky was the most unique and wonderful we could ever experience, we could revive a glimpse of the true spirit that made the 1960s the decade of Rock, Pop and Psychedelia.

We hope that we are able to help Sky to spread his message across the world, because it is a very good one:

“Make Love Not War – Flower Power is real, if you want it!”

http://www.stonedkarma.com/

https://www.facebook.com/vibravoidofficial/

Clear Blue Sky - “Clear Blue Sky” (1970) review

Clear Blue Sky: The First Album Now Remastered

Back when there were less cloudy horizons across the world, global record labels were actually eager for new music (what they’d have called, from their expense-laden desks, the new music) though rarely exporting what’s now called world music. They set up specialised subsidiaries for new cross-genres: EMI started Harvest, Decca had Deram, and Philips founded Vertigo. Starting in 1969 with Colosseum and Juicy Lucy (featuring a teenage Mick Moody), Vertigo signed a power trio with an average age of 18 (the guitarist was younger) for a debut and the label’s 19^th release exemplifying the creative passion of contemporary hard prog-psych adapting the structures of heavy blues. As sure as a policewoman falls in love with a policeman, Clear Blue Sky cut the mustard.

Balagan come from the hebrew for “chaos” and this is how the sound of this Berlin based Israeli/Icelandic garage outfit can be described. The songs of their debut EP are powerful, wild and impetuous and definitely make you want more.

Balagan is a heart project for the three musicians from Iceland and Tel Aviv who have already made a name for themselves in the Berlin music background with bands like Haxxan, Plastic Gods or Haangli. With Balagan they create their very own romance, deeply hidden in the musical chaos, which they play with heartfelt.

Recorded in the legendary Funkhaus studios, A Mess now appears on the newly founded Berlin label ROOD WOOF Records.

Soft Speaker - “Nautical Romance” (2017) review

Soft Speaker - Nautical Romance (Edelweiss Grammofon, 2017)

Soft Speaker’s Nautical Romance took me by complete surprise, and I assure you, is nothing like you’d expect from viewing the front cover, and certainly less from the album’s back image; with both featuring members of the band.

Sunrose are an independent 4-piece band based in the hills of Byron Bay who create timeless psychedelic pop/rock and translate their lifestyle of ocean, nature & sunshine into a sonic swirl of haunting vocals, grooved out rhythms and harmonic undulations dripping with vibrato & delay.

New music video for “Fever,” the lead single from forthcoming debut EP Cosmic Horizon. The song is a fun, upbeat take on excitement & the delirium of sickness fusing surf pop rhythms, melodic hooks and a roller coaster ride full of twists & turns.

Pages

Pages

It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine