It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine: October 2018

JAZZ CORNER Presents: Mahan Mirarab - “Persian Side Of Jazz” (2010)

Mahan Mirarab - Persian Side of Jazz (2010)

It’s worthy to note that many American jazz musicians who’ve been embraced overseas often fail to find a footing here in the States. With that in mind, I’ve been deeply captivated by those from other nations who’ve been influenced by the works of American jazz legends, and even more-so, by those who’ve taken that next step, infusing and lacing their sound with that from their respective countries.

Heaters are back! And on this, their fourth LP in as many years, we find their sound has aged like a fine wine.

Memphis Graham (2009)

Sadly Memphis Graham have graced us with but a single album along with an EP, both from around the year 2009, and nothing since; almost as if, without leaving a word, they just end up and disappeared. The good news is that both of these presentations are available for your wasted listening pleasure as free nocturnal wonderings on bandcamp.

“All bathed all the time in the echo, gave birth to a new concept, “electronic music performed with only a guitar”!!!”

Forty years later the mythic album is at last available! The story of a magnetic tape that contained a trade secret. After Daniel Malempré sent the original recordings to two famous record companies, only to later suspect that a famous guitarist working for one of the companies would copy his concept? Now it doesn’t matter as the recordings are available for us to enjoy.

Lime Eyelid is a project by Josh Schultz (Travelling Circle) using old school four track tape technology and various of synthesizers. The result is a very interesting experimental project with sublime atmosphere.

Bootchy Temple was formed in Bordeaux, France, in 2012. The band recorded their first demos during trips to Les Landes, slowly crafting their music in the calm of the southwestern countryside. From these experimenting sessions came out Bootchy Temple’s sound: touching, melancholic home made pop music, reminiscent of 90’s indie music (Beat Happening, Yo La Tengo) and Sarah Records’ Twee Pop.

Miss Alex White & Francis Scott Key White are sibling rock’n’roll duo White Mystery from Chicago. Since April 20, 2008, White Mystery self-released eight records and played 1000 shows on three continents. A few years ago we interviewed them (see here) and today we are discussing their latest album Hellion Blender.

New video from danish space punkers Måneskjold. Watch as the members of Måneskjold become the first victims of an imminent alien invasion the soundtrack to which is a straight forward space rocking track, that is certain to pull you out of your armchair and send you flying around the room.

Planes Of Satori included members from bands like Sweet Chariot, Golden Void, Futuropaco and Once and Future Band. Inspired by that golden era of late 1960s and early 1970s Krautrock luminaries, Oakland, California quartet Planes Of Satori was largely informed by the rhythmic repetitions and mechanical mantras of what was happening in Germany during the late 1960s.

Los Acidos are a psychedelic rock band from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Their album is super intoxicating piece of psychedelic music.

The Moth Poets - Doll (Bearsuit, 2018)

The always fascinating Bearsuit label are back with the debut release from The Moth Poets, the nom de group of Edinburgh-based musician Billy Gilbert, who wrote, recorded, and produced this. We previously encountered Mr. Gilbert in his split album with Senji Niban (Live At The River Lounge, Bearsuit (2016) and as part of the international collective Anata Wa Sukkari Tsukarete Shimai (The The Lost Charles Underscore, Bearsuit, 2013).

“Righteous animalistic behavior”

Knight Howls is the a capella duo Adam McCarthy and Frank Hurricane. They howl at the moon. And on a debut 12” soon.

“We want to be free but we’re not”

Crazy Doberman is a black hole free jazz band from LaFayette Indiana. They released about 15 records in one year.

Long before federal prohibition in the U.S. took hold, before the subsequent criminalization of cannabis and the U.S drug war of the 1960s, cannabis and psychedelics enjoyed medical legality for some time.

Prior to the Pure Food and Drug act of 1906, medical cannabis existed as an ingredient included in many patent medicines. These medicines, though unlabeled, treated things from sore throats to asthma and coughs. For example, Bees Laxative B Cough Syrup by E.C. Dewitt & Co. was described as, “Pleasant to take for coughs, colds, spasmodic croup, whooping cough, etc. Contains tincture Cannabis.”

The music on Diluvium was played by very young guys from Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Their album is one of the true pillars of German progressive and heavy psychedelia. It’s among the rarest. Released as a private press in 1973.

Patrick Grant – “FIELDS AMAZE and other sTRANGE music” (Peppergreen Media) interview

https://tiltedaxes.bandcamp.com/album/fields-amaze-and-other-strange-music

Patrick Grant put out A 20th Anniversary Edition of FIELDS AMAZE and other sTRANGE music at the beginning of this month. The LP comes from his early days as a composer and is remixed, remastered, and even includes bonus tracks. Grant was kind enough to answer some questions on the release and shed some light on his process as an artist.

Galapaghost - Sootie (Self-released, 2018)

https://gpghost.bandcamp.com/album/sootie

The Austin-based artist Galapaghost recently dropped Sootie, his second full length album of 2018. The release is an eclectic mix of indietronica and dream pop that ebbs and flows with equal amounts of adrenaline and serenity. Spanning 9 tracks, the release covers a lot of ground emotionally and aesthetically. It should impress the passive listener as a soothing electronica exploration, while shooting up subtle flags to more active listeners as one step of many in the artist’s maturing career.

Prana Crafter is William Sol, a musical mystic who blends the raw energies of nature with guitars, synthesizers, singing bowls, and a dose of flow-consciousness.

Chelsea Lovitt & The Boys - You Had Your Cake, So Lie in It (Fat Elvis Records, 2018)

Twangy gritty country music is seldom taken seriously, so when Chelsea Lovitt’s You Had Your Cake, So Lie In It arrived at my door, I was more than a bit rocked back with her interplay of blues and country honk. Then her wry dark offbeat in your face sense of humor filtered in, sounding for all the world as if she’d grown up with Dylan’s Blonde On Blonde quietly playing in the background.

“This world is too much with us!” - William Wordsworth

Where and when did you grow up? Was music a big part of your family life?

Except for one psychotic year in 1972 at age of three in beautiful Lisbon during the final and perhaps most paranoid era of Jesuit-fascist Portugal’s ‘Novo Estado’, not long before the planned military ‘coup d’état’, while its bloody war in the African colonies (part of my family was still there in Angola, some fighting as captains in the army, but some even supporting the communist guerrilla, in some ways pretty much comparable with the Vietnam War, though with much less restraints regarding ‘brutalism’ required (since there was no free press and electorate to bear in mind), was at its high (or better say low?) peak.

In these digital and interconnected times, it’s very rare to find an album from the 60s-70s which hasn’t been documented or “discovered” yet. That’s the case with a mysterious demo LP titled “A Very Snug Joiner” by a band called Mad Timothy. In words of Steve Krakow (of Plastic Crimewave / Galactic Zoo): “A friend of mine found this no-jacket LP at a thrift shop, and there is ZERO information on them--no one knows anything and I’ve spoken to many collectors. Very cool sludgy Blue Cheer/Majic Ship/Mount Rushmore kind of vibe--with a few folkier tracks---it’s all pretty charmingly primitive-- I think people would want to hear this!”

Even knowing that our efforts to track down the band were fruitless, we thought that this rarity deserved to be shared with the world, so we at Out-Sider / Guerssen in collaboration with Steve’s Galactic Archive imprint, are doing a vinyl edition of the Mad Timothy demo album, hoping that any of the band members will see it and contact us.

Beachglass - And the Sunset (2018)

https://beachglass.bandcamp.com/

Beachglass have wandered back with a hazy intoxicating new single from their forthcoming new EP Sunroom Sanctuary, which will be available next month (November of 2018) for downloading.

“Ian Curtis (Frying Burgers)” is the story of a twisted romance with its anti climax in a Berlin burger joint with a chef resembling Ian Curtis and the teller being a homage to Phil Lynott.

Paul Jacobs, presently residing in Montreal Quebec, has come a long way since his original one man band days. Five years later, with a full band backing him, his live shows have grown to an explosive level. The experience is an untamed, wild and manic energy, a true purge of raw emotions. Paul writes, performs, records and mixes all the music he releases. He has released eight full length albums, numerous EP’s and singles, always accompanied by his personal animations and art work. He’s gained notoriety with the success of 2016’s Pictures, Movies & Apartments. Paul continues to grow as an artist, with Easy; and acclaimed by Iggy Pop no less, on his BBC6 music show – an album he’s jam packed with pop hooks, while maintaining his original lo-fi sound. He has relentlessly toured North America, and the U.K. and is scheduled to return to Europe this fall to promote Easy.

In this digital age, the phenomenon of the ‘b-side’ is an endangered one. All too often, the recordings which comprised the flip side of even the best selling 45rpm singles were relegated to obscurity. Oftentimes, this is fair- particularly within the confines of the 1960’s UK music scene. God knows how many half baked, rushed b-sides went out, groups being all too aware that the A-side was the moneymaker, what would gain them airplay on the pirate radio stations and perhaps win them a slot on Top of the Pops, with the B- side considered the stale space filler. I can’t even begin to count the number of songs named with variations on the obvious title ‘A Quick B’. It was, to understate enormously, often considered an afterthought. Take the Marquis of Kensington, for example, with their 1967 single, ‘The Changing of the Guard’. Here, the B-side, ‘Reverse Thrust’, was the A-side played backwards. Snap, crackle, pop, that’ll do, let’s get on with it.

The Hazytones - II: Monarchs Of Oblivion (Ripple Music, 2018)

The Hazytones, a trio from Montreal, have, on October 5th, and in conjunction with Ripple Music, released their newest collection of songs. II - Monarchs Of Oblivion is the first album I’ve heard from the band, and, for the sake of fresh ears, I chose to dive into it without going back to their earlier work. That being said, this is a groove filled, fuzzed out, killer record, and a great intro to the band for new listeners.

Rhythms is the debut album by Goatman, a new solo project by one of the mysterious members from the Swedish collective GOAT. Recorded in GOAT’s northern Swedish home town of Korpilombolo in late 2017 - the 6 tracks on Rhythms reveal a true collision of African Rock, Jazz, Reggae, Gospel and Psych, but all put through the famous GOAT filters. Rhythms is a very apt title for the album as each track is an exploration of the ‘groove’. From the Fela Kuti‘esqe drums and horns jam of Jaam Ak Salam, to the frantic gospel-jazz of Carry the Load. From the fuzzed Can via the ‘Bristol sound’ track of Hum Bebass Nahin, to the cinematic, Spacemen 3‘esqe drones of the album closer Baaneexu. The end result is quite an astonishing and very unique album, like what you would expect from an album made by a member of GOAT – an album that is hard to put your finger on, but one that you will keep revisiting, the more it’s sounds reveals itself. Goatman plays all the instruments on the album bar some additional drums by Hanna Östergren from fellow Swedish bands Hills and Träd, Gräs & Stenar, and an added horn section courtesy of Johan Asplund and David Byström. One of the standout highlights of the album though is the collection of great guest vocalists Goatman has enlisted. Tracks “Jaam Ak Salam” and “Aduna” feature the very special voice of Senegalese singer Seydi Mandoza. You will also hear the vocals of Swedish based singers Amanda Werne on “Carry The Load” and Amerykhan on “Hum Bebass Nahin”.

Rhythms will be released on 12th of October via Rocket Recordings.

Review, including full song explanations and band anecdotes

Dry Ice - Dry Ice (Morgan Blue Town, 2018)

Formed with the foundation of guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Paul Gardner and drummer Terry Sullivan, Dry Ice was a UK psychedelic rock band that went through three incarnations during 1969, the last of which managed to record and album worth of material and a single. The single found release in November, 1969 on IBC Records. The album tracks, however, remained unreleased for forty nine years, finally appearing on the Morgan Blue Town label, and the band’s complete recorded legacy, eleven finished masters, two demos and an alternative mix are reviewed here, along with track by track comments from songwriter Gardner and anecdotes supplied by Gardner and drummer, Terry Sullivan.

Centuries and decades had to pass so that we would be able to talk openly about psilocybin.

This surprisingly beneficial compound found in certain species of mushrooms has been underestimated medically for decades and now is the right time to start exploring it in all its glory.

Latest album by JJUUJJUU is called Zionic Mud. It’s available on Dine Alone. Released in a kind of unusual way, as one record of the band’s expansive, surprisingly danceable space rock and a companion release featuring alternate versions of the album tracks created by some of the band’s friends and supporters including J. Mascis, Liars, METZ, Warpaint’s Jenny Lee, and Autolux.

Limassol psych-rockers Arcadian Child have launched an airy and surreal video for their new single, and it’s now streaming on It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine. Titled “She Flows”, it’s taken from their upcoming album “Superfonica”, which is set for a release on 23 November via Ripple Music and Rogue Wave Records.

Pre-order it: http://geni.us/superfonica

Video created by Iam Nothe - https://www.facebook.com/IamNotheMMXI/

Dead Sea Apes & Adam Stone - “Warheads” (Cardinal Fuzz, 2018)

Cardinal Fuzz favourites Dead Sea Apes are no strangers to It’s Psychedelic Baby and their latest finds them reuniting with multifaceted singer/actor/musician Adam Stone for an apocalyptic dystopian mindfuck that forges a head-on collision in your skull that’s equal parts Dead Kennedys-meet-The Fall über-punk rant (‘Inside Of Me’) and fuzzy-headed, thousand yard stares punctuated by Stone’s Speaker’s Corner soapbox ramblings. Only problem is that the two don’t often sync up (as on the two 11-minute centrepieces ‘Reduced To Zero’ and ‘Retreat To Your Bunker’) and the listener is faced with a decision – zone out to Dead Sea Apes’ heavy-lidded jamming or try and make sense of what Stone’s on about. [A lyric sheet might’ve been a good idea, although fans of Bob Calvert’s similar poetic pronouncements on all those Hawkwind albums (cf., Space Ritual) may have an advantage!]

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

Earthless - Acid Crusher
Kungens Män - Centrala Mellanplanet
Primus - My Name Is Mud
The Residents - Freaky Wake
Acid Mess - El Vuelo del Cóndor
Altered Hours - Hey No Way
The Myrrors - Call For Unity
Kingdom Of The Holy Sun - Seven Orange Skies
Atavismo - Sapo Sagapo
D.R. Hooker - A Strangers Smile
Lonker See - One Eye Sees Red
Vocokesh - Eddie’s Hallucination
Astral Son - This Trip
Holy Mushroom - I Am The Darklight

“I’m interested in freaks, outsiders, anomalies, loners”

Radical Documents is a Los Angeles based record label that focuses on unique, experimental, and often obscure transmissions of sound from a wide range of artists.

“Sometimes I’m happy, sometimes I’m sad”

Arkm Foam’s Adam McCarthy says in this interview about his Bloodroot Spitball album that it’s potent and medicinal and intimidating and mostly just a dirty ass trick. There’s nothing I can add to that.

The Mañana People, a chaotic mix of theremin honky tonk, zombie centric electro pop and horror spiritualized with sounds, release their new single “Anthropophagus” which they collaborated with Bonnie Prince Billy.

Seattle singer/songwriter Deb Montgomery is about to release All The Water, a chamber folk EP that sounds as contemporary as it does primordial. We’re excited to premiere “Mend,” the final track off the record, plump with tender vocals and swoon-worthy fingerpicking. Montgomery’s voice seems to swoop in and out of the foreground with a rare grace. The moments of falsetto are intimate, as if the artist is sitting right in our living room.

“Old Camera, New Film” is Junkboy’s contribution to the compilation album Music Minds. Music Minds is a 3 x CD set which aims to raise money and awareness for mental health. The compilation features many talented artists including Nik Kershaw, Paul Young’s Los Pacaminos, Phillip Rambow and many more!

From The Vault: Curtis Mayfield - “Superfly” (1972)

Curtis Mayfield - Superfly (1972)

Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly stood at the crossroads, ushering in a new bright and infectious sound, one that was all about the ghetto, though with its groove laden background, reached out and captured the hearts and minds of white listeners during the hot summer of 1972, where the record went on to sell more than five million copies.

French krautrock-inspired electro-psych band La Femme released, “Runway,” a new track that acted as the soundtrack to fashion designer, Hedi Slimane’s latest showcase for the luxury clothing brand, CELINE. The electro-pop odyssey spans twenty minutes and is chalk full of ghostly vocals, pounding synths soaked in psychedelia and ominous voices scattered throughout.

“San Francisco’s The Imajinary Friends, mercurial pranksters of soundscape and pop, continue to turn in the unexpected with their unique brand of original and uncompromising music.”

- Pete Kember aka Sonic Boom

Initially formed by members of the original line-up of The Brian Jonestown Massacre in the Summer of 1993 with Travis Threlkel, Ricky Maymi and Graham Bonnar (Swervedriver). Later on, Matt Hollywood (The Brian Jonestown Massacre) and Tim Digulla (Tipsy). Excited about the new band, Greg Shaw of Bomp! Records cut them a check to make the record without ever hearing a note or seeing the band (who hadn’t even played live yet...(!). The Imajinary Friends debut Lunchtime In Infinity was released on Bomp! Records in 1994. Read out interview with Ricky Maymi who is currently touring with The Brian Jonestown Massacre.

Magic Bus - Phillip The Egg (Back To The Garden Records, 2018)

Phillip The Egg is Magic Bus’s third full-length album release. Hailing from Totnes, Devon, they are a staple of the psychedelic/progressive rock festival scene in the UK and have received international radio and print media attention. The personnel on this album includes Paul Evans – lead vocals, guitar; Terence Waldstradt – lead guitar, vocals; Jay Darlington – keyboards, vocals; Viv Goodwin-Darke – flute, vocals; Wihil Mellorz - bass; and Connor Spring - drums.

11 questions to Jan Van Den Dobbelsteen over e-mail, about his LP Kringloop / New Adventures.

“Looking straight at the sun on a bright winter day”

Finnish artist and musician Olli Aarni made two great records again: the noise album Loputon and the feedback record Kehä.

“Just fist that chicken”

Vegetarians is a one-sided 7” which contains a phonatic imaginary language sounding like English.

I mainly know you from your performances, but recently bought a 7” from you. The Vegetarians. I’ve been listening to it, but I can hardly understand a word of it. Is it English or a phonatic imaginary language which sounds like English?

The last. I listened to a record of Bukka White long ago with a good friend of mine and this record stayed in my mind. Now and then it pops up like ghost visiting. The fact is that since quite some time I work with spirits and ghosts for specific occasions. A specific focus in that is on unknown and/or forgotten poets/poetry which finds its way in my performance series ‘And We Don’t Talk Like That’. This spirit of Bukka White is pretty relevant regarding the Vegetarians 7” you’re talking about, but is surrounded as well by many more voices. I do these runs directly as a lathe cut in my studio, which is to be seen as a performative situation. It is about getting in the right mood; being relaxed but sharp as a razorblade. I like this way of working in seances. Question finally is if it is an imaginary language. Vegetarians and their ideology lead to an amazing amount of incredible weird behavior, so imagine this man being somewhere and preaching his statement and experience to an unknown audience. You could say it is about romanticism. Foolish Schopenhauer etc. Nevertheless if you take it more political it is sheer realism.

New album by Boston’s Perhaps is currently being pressed over in Germany. The LP will be officially released by Riot Season Records in mid October and is a limited 300 only black vinyl edition in a high gloss finished sleeve. It’s wonderful kraut/psych/space-rock from their own little universe. NOBODY sounds like Perhaps. And that can only be a good thing!

REO Speedwagon - The Early Years 1971-1977 (HNE Recordings, 2018)

In 1966 University of Illinois students Neal Doughty and Alan Gratzer, who lived in the same dormitory, met and became friends. Gratzer was the drummer in a couple of local bands and Doughty, a keyboard player, began following one of them, sitting in occasionally. The two wanted to play music different from the typical fraternity drinking songs that other bands were playing, preferring to include songs from Hendrix, The Kinks, The Beatles and The Doors, so they decided to form a band.

Mountain - “Flowers of Evil” / “The Road Goes Ever On” (BGO Records, 2018)

Your first image of Mountain might be their natty hippy clothes ransacked from Haight Ashbury of ’Frisco fame, where the Grateful Dead, Airplane and Janis Joplin smoked in their pads, but these titans of hair and tie-dies adorned leading musicians (one a producer) on the New York rock scene. They soon went on to become dubbed, in two incarnations, as a supergroup so beloved as a term of the music press in those heady days.