Psych
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 …
NEWS: The Peacers return with March set for Drag City; see ‘Irish Suit’
SIC ALPS were one of those bands which, with the amount of the talent in its ranks, could only burn bright and, like an unstable isotope, emit members to spin off into other musical pursuits, eventually to transform itself in a musical half-life. Tim Hellman went into the ranks of Thee Oh Sees; Mike Donovan …
ALBUM REVIEW: The Besnard Lakes – ‘ … Are the Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings’
Are the Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings is the sound of a band set free, wings spread; big, theatrical, but not self-indulgent. They know exactly what these songs demand and are prepared to give them everything they need. In terms of scope, file next to Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space and The Soft Bulletin. A lot going on, in short. Trust in their vision; they’ve got this.
Say Psych: Video: Nero Kane – Mechthild
Nero Kane has recently released a video for ‘Mechthild’, the second episode of the short film directed by Samantha Stella that launched the album Tales of Faith and Lunacy, released last October. The first episode was ‘Lord Won’t Come’; Kane and Stella were the protagonists of the short film that, following the cinematic concept of …
Say Psych: Track Review: Shame – Nigel Hitter
Shame have recently shared their new single ‘Nigel Hitter’, a track taken from their long-anticipated new album Drunk Tank Pink. Alongside, the band have shared a Maxim Kelly directed video which repurposes archival footage from old research centres on the development of children. Using deepfake technology, the babies start to lip sync along with the song, while the …
Soundtracks of Our Lives: Farmer Dave Scher
FARMER DAVE SCHER may be better known to you from the string of excellent bands he’s both been in and collaborated with down the years. He was a member of the brilliant West Coast country-psych outfit Beachwood Sparks, who took on Sade’s “By Your Side” and completely won (and actually chaps, while we’re here, could …
Say Psych: Album Review: Viagra Boys – Welfare Jazz
Viagra Boys’ Sebastian Murphy dreams about everyone hating his guts. A lot. “I kept having this recurring nightmare where my mom was crying and my friends were all pissed off at me,” he recalls, almost reverently. The band’s latest, Welfare Jazz out last week doesn’t bargain with the anxiety in that defeated feeling, but rather …
ALBUM REVIEW: Farmer Dave Scher & The Wizards Of The West – ‘Farmer Dave Scher & The Wizards Of The West’
Dave Scher & The Wizards Of The West is like a finely reduced sauce; it packs an awful lot of psychedelic flavour and fun into a fat half-hour. Afrobeat, surf rock, funk, straight psych, country psych, jazz, shoegaze, are all seep through a lovely record with three of four moments of proper excellence and a lot of red-eyed, 1am lava lamp big-grinned fun besides. It’s good to see him back.
Track: Psychedelic Porn Crumpets release new single, Pukebox
The latest offering from their upcoming fourth album, the Porn Crumpets’ concoct a barnstorming, guitar-heavy implosion with new single Pukebox. At just over 3 minutes, Pukebox has a similarly relentless momentum to their recent single Tally Ho, though featuring an altogether more off-kilter, affecting fret wizardry. The track’s succinct but elevated Porn Crumpets’ psych-serenade marks …
ALBUM REVIEW: John Dwyer, Nick Murray, Brad Caulkins, Tom Dolas and Greg Coates – ‘Witch Egg’
There’s so many ideas in Witch Egg, from so many genres and eras: mod, krautrock, free jazz, even acid jazz; they’re arrived at, explored at once, captured, moved on from. It speaks much of the restless creativity at the heart of this, John Dwyer. It’s quite a journey for a fringe music head