Premiere: See an enthralling live session from Paisiel
The duo of João Pais Filipe and Julius Gabriel – Portuguese drummer and German saxophonist respectively – released their second album as Paisiel last year, Unconscious Death Wishes: a single-track behemoth of glorious rhythms and scorching sax blazes, it’s cinematic scope luridly and flexuously stretching the piece to the breathtaking limits of it’s potential. In …
Album Review: Land Trance & Aging produce utter cinematic-sonic immersion with ‘Embassy Nocturnes’
Very rarely does a record manage to capture a spectrum of cinematic detail in it’s profoundly illustrative composition, spinning yarns across it’s runtime like neighbouring scenes. However – with far greater ambition and grace than any crassly conceived concept album – the new collaborative project between Land Trance and Aging does just that, envisioning a …
News: CAN’s next live instalment gets release date
Earlier this year, the grand archives of Can’s long dormant live bootlegs were reopened to the public, with the series started by the band’s legendary 1975 performance in Stuttgart. Irmin Schmidt himself oversaw the series alongside engineer/producer Rene Tinner, sharpening the decades old bootlegs to their enormous potential. Now, the deeply thrilling “prospect of further …
See: Empath return with psychedelic trip ‘Born 100 Times’
Though Philadelphia’s Empath have been championed in The Guardian for the wantonly freewheeling verve of their gigs, and celebrated across numerous other publications, it remains that the part-psych, part-punk quartet have nowhere near the level of praise they deserve. ‘Born 100 Times’ – produced by Jake Portrait of Unknown Mortal Orchestra – is the band’s …
Premiere: see the visual delights of Smote’s ‘Poleyn’
As their debut full-length on Rocket Recordings awaits release, Smote have shared the video for ‘Poleyn’, created by Rocket’s own John O’ Caroll. The track shares the album with ‘Drommon Pt.1’ and ‘Drommon Pt.2’, released as a limited tape/digital release earlier this year, as well as the previously released lead single ‘Hauberk’. Thematically focused with …
Album Review: Smote – Drommon
Newcastle has been a veritable hub for a wide spectrum of psych and noise, from the raw trio of Blóm to the relentless clamour of Pigs x7; the same city’s Smote offers a different, but similarly singular, vision of psych. Drommon comprises the previously released titular, two-parter, bookending new material ‘Hauberk’ and ‘Poleyn’; a more …
EP Review: Lazarus Kane – ‘Psychobabble’
Just as one rainy British season follows another, the increasing excellence of another Speedy Wunderground alum is surely similarly guaranteed; Lazarus Kane perhaps no finer example. Their funk, Americanism-heavy swagger brought them the cult following they deserved. However, the band have just as abruptly dropped the character and thrust their complex yet incessantly repeatable song-writing …
Album Review: GOAT – Headsoup
All manner of questions abounded throughout the long absence of psych collective Goat, since the 2017 release of their third album Requiem. Would the great Gods of psych-dom return, especially considering the fullness and finality of this last record – and the ambiguous, ominous meanings given off by the title? Would a goat – perhaps …
Track: Lazarus Kane continue headspinning experimentation with ‘Williston, ND’
Like numerous other, similarly diverse acts, Lazarus Kane’s emergence through hallowed label Speedy Wunderground – via the vibrant bewilderment of Narcissus, a refreshing exploration into the superficiality of modern life – sent earthquake-like jolts through alternative music. The arrival of the gripping ‘Night Walking’ further illustrated the blurry space the band occupied between sincerity and …
Track: Goat follow up grand return with ‘Fill My Mouth’, their sleaziest recording yet
A reputation for fashioning heady, world music influenced rhythms and an innate effusion of fuzz-tinged riffs, making for practical infestations of earworms, has always prevailed – and in fact grown ever more feverish – with the mere whisper of psych deities Goat. However, their latest outdoes even that majestic reputation. Taken from their upcoming career-wide …