psychedelia
Music Reissues Weekly: Status Quo - The Early YearsSunday, 31 March 2024
“So Ends Another Life” is strange. Very strange. The song’s dolefulness is immediately set up with a strummed guitar along the lines of the intro to The Bee Gees’ “New York Mining Disaster.” “In a world of agitation, there’s no time for compassion”... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: The Mystic Tide - FrustrationSunday, 17 March 2024
Crashing chords are followed by a spindly, untrammelled solo guitar. After this subsides, the singer lays out the issue: “I try, I cry, I just can't see why. It's clear, she's near, the sights and sounds I hear.” He’s distressed, his anguish... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 82: Human League, Hawkwind, Roberta Flack, Kid Acne, Photek, Rudimentary Peni and moreMonday, 04 March 2024
VINYL OF THE MONTHMito y Comadre Guajirando (ZZK)Mito y Comadre are Guillermo Lares and Shana Comadre, a Bogota-based pair of Venezuelans whose debut album is produced by Christian Castagno (a man who’s more likely to be found helming outings by... Read more... |
Album: The Bevis Frond - Focus on NatureMonday, 26 February 2024
Musically, the assured Focus on Nature knows exactly what it is. Fuzzy, psychedelic-leaning, folk-aware pop-rock with an emphasis on guitars about captures it. And what tunes – this 75-minute double album’s 19 songs are immediate, instantly... Read more... |
Album: Laetitia Sadier - Rooting for LoveWednesday, 21 February 2024
It must be kind of unreal living in the Stereolab universe.A band of geeky introverts, beloved of the type of hairclip-and-satchel indie ultras a friend of mine used to call “the Scooby Gang” for their tendency to resemble Shaggy and Velma, over the... Read more... |
Album: MGMT - Loss of LifeMonday, 19 February 2024
The dolefulness of the title Loss of Life is reflected by what’s in the grooves. The lyrics of the Todd Rundgren/Queen-esque fifth track “Bubblegum Dog” include the line “None of this seems like fun but maybe that’s the point, man.” Further in, “... Read more... |
Album: Helado Negro - PHASORWednesday, 07 February 2024
Floridian-born, longtime Brooklyn resident, now Asheville, North Carolina based Roberto Carlos Lange doesn’t rush things, but he gets them done. This is his ninth album in 15 years, during which time he’s built a substantial body of audiovisual /... Read more... |
Album: The Telescopes - Growing Eyes Become StringFriday, 02 February 2024
Back in 2013, fuzz-heavy space cadets the Telescopes headed off to Berlin and then back to Leeds to record an album of intoxicating tunes that were written as they were recorded while relying on “the heightened instinct of being entirely in the now... Read more... |
Album: J Mascis - What Do We Do NowWednesday, 31 January 2024
It seems like time flows differently for J Mascis. He’s now not far off 60, it’s 40 years since he founded Dinosaur Jr, and he’s been involved in untold musical project from the most rarefied of abstract psychedelia to guesting with Lemonheads and... Read more... |
Album: Gruff Rhys - Sadness Sets Me FreeWednesday, 24 January 2024
Halfway through this album, “They Sold My Home to Build a Skyscraper” unlocks it. On first listen I’d been nodding along with the first few songs, enjoying how they find glimmers of more or less forlorn hope in amongst sadness and middle-aged... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Hawkwind - Space RitualSunday, 24 December 2023
As Britain headed towards the end of 1972, pop fans had fair cause to scratch their heads about a single which first charted in July. In mid-August, Hawkwind’s “Silver Machine” peaked at number three behind Terry Dactyl and the Dinosaurs skiffle-... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: High Tide - The Complete Liberty RecordingsSunday, 19 November 2023
High Tide were one of many late Sixties and early Seventies British bands unearthed in the early Eighties by record collectors digging into what came after psychedelia. The bands didn’t have similar musical styles but were united by their obscurity... Read more... |
