Marmalade Knives, the bicoastal US psych-rock collective, are set to unleash their awaited second full-length album, ‘Paradigm Lost,’ on September 26th via Electric Valley Records.

The record is a musical ritual that maps the cosmos while plumbing the depths of the human spirit. Born in the verdant, mystical mountains of Santa Cruz, CA, the band’s initial spark came from guitarists Clinton Wilkins and Justin Spivey. They quickly grew into an ensemble, drawing on a deep well of influences that stretches from the pastoral echoes of Popol Vuh and the motorik pulse of Neu!, to the jazzy exploration of Annexus Quam and the psych freak-outs of Amon Düül II. Their 2020 debut, ‘Amnesia,’ was a work layered with abstract sound collages, freeform freakouts, and old-world folk modalities.

But the journey continued, marked by shifts. Original guitarist Wilkins relocated from California to the mountains of Asheville, NC. The band integrated Adam Kriney (The Golden Grass, La Otracina), who had previously helmed the debut’s production. And the lineup was further fortified by Zachariah Blackwell (Danava, Lecherous Gaze).

‘Paradigm Lost’ emerges from this evolution as a majestic, kaleidoscopic expression of contemporary progressive psychedelia. It’s a universe unto itself, filled with searing guitar overload and rhythms that drift through ambient lysergic fog into realms of jazzed-heavy rock.

The band describes the intent behind this powerful work:

“‘Paradigm Lost’ is a liturgy of a heavy psychedelic song cycle aimed at ritual absolution and uplift for all our planet’s people. A psychedelic mass, a call to meditation (‘Invocation’) for the masses bound by illusion (‘Maya’) and grief and loss yet awakened and empowered through trials (‘The Appalachia Codex,’ ‘Sacramental Lamb’), finally arriving at consolidated strength, nourishment, and harvest (‘November’). Conveyed by a symphony of guitar overload and hard psych/prog rhythms, this is a vision that acknowledges the plaintive and dark but presses onward and upward in search of a human empyrean.”