Psych albums
Album review: The Holy Family – ‘The Holy Family’: an exultant, double-album trip into innerspace
MASTERFUL psychedelic imprint Rocket Recordings has added another string to its bow with the signing of the hallucinatory collective The Holy Family, whose first album arrives this Friday. And a hell of a trip it is, too, roaming freely across modern electronica and the oldest, earthiest folk, the most dronesome of motorik and the molten …
Album Review: Land Trance – ‘First Séance’: dazzlingly cinematic and truly exploratory
A cinematic vista of an album, stitched seamlessly through each siphoning of emphatic, elevating, melancholic elation.
Album review: ROY -‘Roy’s Garage’: a magic carpet ride around the psychedelic pop globe
ROY does nothing exactly new with Roy’s Garage, but he does everything with a deft touch and real understanding. If you love British and American psych circa 1966 to 1968, has many an album on Bam Caruso, Edsel, Sundazed, then you should embrace this record wholeheartedly; if your experience of this particular era of psych – before what scientists call the Iron Butterfly event horizon, when pop melody and brain-feeding sonic exploration sit in balance on the scales and before the freakout totally becomes the event – then this album is a great gateway drug. ROY knows. You’d be wise to let him guide you through. It’s time to make a little more room in your psychedelic pop-lovin’ heart for him.
Album review: TEKE::TEKE – ‘Shirushi’: a deliciously wonky, delectably trippy psych debut
RULE one: Japanese bands do brilliant, brilliant things with guitars: this is just fact. From the mind-blowing chaos of Melt-Banana to the heavy psych stylings of Acid Mothers Temple and Bo Ningen, down through the garage-rawk of Guitar Wolf and the dreamy, trippy-hippy psych of Ghost, new and deeper appreciations of how to wield and …
Album review: E.R. Jurken – ‘I Stand Corrected’: a psych-folk debut full of catharsis and melody
E.R. Jurken’s first full missive into the world reveals quite the saddest tale at an angle, never telling, always hinting. It also shows an absolute grasp of songcraft, of melody, and an abiding love of British psych-pop and later American geniuses such as Neutral Milk Hotel and Elliott Smith
Album Review: Electro Indie beauty from R Zak ‘s ‘Dialetcs’
Review : 9/ 10 There’s a certain folkloric quality that’s embedded in your mind, as the music shifts from the nuanced beauty to the darker , more solemn places in between. Portland based singer -songwriter R Zak ‘s album ‘Dialects’ is truly a kind of extended passage of discovery, gentle at times then suddenly haunting …
Album review: iogi – ‘everything’s worth it’: a beautiful collection of songs
everything’s worth it is a really refreshing album from Yogev Glusman, a lesser known psych pop artist from Tel Aviv, and admittedly an ambitious one – but by now it’s clear that the divide from what is considered amateur and “professional” is completely blurred. everything’s worth it (sic) is as bit as professional as you …
Album Review: Tommy Guerrero – ‘Sunshine Radio’
Tommy Guerrero’s ‘Sunshine Radio’ is the latest release in his pretty consistent turnover of albums, with the skateboarding legend turned musician averaging at least an LP every three years since 1997’s ‘Loose Groove And Bastard Blues’, as well as slotting in other projects (check out last year’s ace Los Days). On a similar path to …
ALBUM REVIEW: Pet Grotesque brings the late summer nights with ‘Female Synth Player’
PET GROTESQUE is the solo project of Calum Armstrong, who can also be found in the excellent Tiña (who released their debut album, Positive Mental Health, last week). Channeling King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard in terms of work ethic, Calum Armstrong has just released another album within the space of just a week under …