Browsing Tag

Psych Pop

Area 51 has nothing on Koosha Azim’s psychedelically sensory experience, ALIEN

Posted on 24 June 2022

Haunting and transcending are two rarely joined adjectives; the Iranian American contemporary artist, Koosha Azim, pushed them into a tight-knit while exploring alt-hip hop and psychedelia in his sensory soundscape, ALIEN.

The bleeding vocals, cinematically ethereal layers, and playfully unpretentious creativity are a stellular pleasure which scarcely resembles any Avant-Garde score that experimentalists have left behind before.

If he keeps pushing in this gratifyingly trippy and obscure direction, the San Francisco Bay Area artist will have the airwaves at his feet in no time. Naturally, we can’t wait to hear the transcendence that follows.

Koosha Azim’s latest single, ALIEN is now available to stream on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Graffiti Welfare tells his anxious coming of age story in the trippy meditative alt-electro album, Revolving Shores

Posted on 23 June 2022

Revolving Shores is the gravity-defyingly meditative debut album from the up-and-coming artist and producer Graffiti Welfare. After appearing on the airwave in 2018 through his EP, Into the Soul of Space, which has been extensively playlisted & lauded by critics, the Austin-born, Denver-based artist let the world in on his coming of age anxiety.

Regardless of your age, there is ample resonance in the LP that explores the profoundness of loss in context to perceptions of reality. As someone who has only recently lost their mum after a long illness, I’m pretty reasonably qualified to attest to the efficaciously comforting gentle tenacity in the 10-track release.

Revolving Shores gently eases you in through the minimalist melodic opening score, To Be It, which almost rings with neo-classic cinematic atmosphere, then cruises right on into my personal favourite, Just Follow, which reflects the feeling of unravelling as you lose direction.

DejaBlue picks up a little more melancholy through its genius titular metaphor for carbon copy ennui before Good News flirts with elements of coldwave EDM. What is easily the biggest experimental triumph the album, Synesthesia, dips into far more indie territory, with nuances of post-punk in the chilling, stabbing and distorted angular notes. SeaShell as the closing single was an all too efficaciously entrancing way of ensuring that Revolving Shores doesn’t leave you without sticking to your synapses first.

Graffiti Welfare Said

“Revolving Shores evolved from watching my childhood fade into the unknown as grandparents and friends passed away while I was coping with coming-of-age anxiety. By day, I was trying to finish my thesis and escape the clutches of graduate school with my sanity intact.

By night, I wanted to make sense of everything by creating something sincere, unique and tangible. Each track represents a lucid perspective that builds from the last, guiding a quiet meditation towards the unknown and back into waking life. Rinse, float, repeat – cause who knows where you will wake up next?”

Revolving Shores was officially released on June 17th. You can check it out for yourselves by heading over to Spotify and SoundCloud.

To keep up to date with the latest releases from Graffiti Welfare, follow him on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Darcy Court has released their triumph of a 60s-psych-tinged alt-indie debut, Bar of Clay

Posted on 18 April 2022

The instantly trailblazing 60s psych pop-inspired indie rock act, Darcy Court, brought plenty of the Cali heat into their euphonically blissful debut single, Bar of Clay, which unravels to the narration of the conflated emotions that transpire when locked in a too-good-to-be-true crash and burn relationship and all you can do is await the final collision.

The kaleidoscopic synaesthesia-inducing melodies feed into the rich timbre of the single that flirts with the alt-90s era just as much as the 60s psych-pop nuances to create an era-spanning indulgent tonal pool that you’ll find infinitely temperate.

Indie debuts don’t get much more promising than Bar of Clay. Darcy Court have got exactly what it takes to reach the same heights as their iconic 60s influences.

Bar of Clay was officially released on April 8th; it is now available to stream on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The Low Highs cut to the core of romantic scorn in their psychedelically dreamy alt-indie single, Don’t You Ever

Posted on 3 March 2022

The South Florida residing alt-indie duo, The Low Highs, have released their eagerly anticipated sophomore single, Don’t You Ever. The mellifluous earworm allows dream pop, indie psych and folk-rock textures to pull together in the atmospherically absorbing release that cuts to the core of romantic scorn.

Don’t You Ever captures the disjointing feeling of realising a relationship was filled with empty promises of perpetuity before exploring the confusion that leaves us questioning every exchange and retracted extension of affection as though our interpersonal history has been rewritten with the utterances of a few words.

The Kraftwerk-y style melodic synths and funky indie disco percussion paired with the hypnotically distorted vocals make exploring those torrid emotions infinitely easier. You’d be hard-pressed to find another up and coming outfit bringing a better aura to the airwaves. It’s almost ironic that a song on empty promises was so promising.

Don’t You Ever premiered on January 21st. You can check it out for yourselves by heading over to YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The LA alt-indie duo, Doxy, speak to the psychologically detached in their debut single, Autopilot

Posted on 19 February 2022
Doxy

“Autopilot” is the latest jazzy avant-garde feat of lo-fi surfy punk rock from the LA duo Doxy. It’s a refreshing reprieve from the earnest tracks that force your subconscious into a state of lament; Doxy’s playful yet pessimist flair mixed with their ability to offer something that is truly euphoric and endearing, make them utterly infectious. Autopilot should be on every Pavement fan’s playlist. The angularly off-kilter guitar notes are just absorbing – if not more.

They poured plenty of the LA sun into the synthy jangly bop-worthy track. The discernible sweet spot hits when they declare a “freak out” interlude and follow with an absorbingly obscure breakdown which allows you to truly appreciate the jazzy nuances in this hazily blissful defiance against depersonalisation and detachment.

Check out Doxy on SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Darkness & the Light traverses the cosmos in ‘Nice to be in orbit’

Posted on 31 December 2021
under a distant sun by Darkness & The Light

If any track can remind you of how lucky you are to be a blip in the cosmos, it can be found in Darkness & the Light’s latest album, under a distant sun. Nice to be in orbit is paradoxically grounding in its cinematic delivery; the Sydney-based artist gives you the sense that they have the rare ability to emanate the grandeur of the cosmos in all of its glory instead of choosing crevices to aurally explore.

The ambient synth lines work their way through ethereal layers of reverb while the percussion brings lucidity to the mix, and the guitars take the track to an Avant-Garde, almost post-punk realm. The vocals may never go beyond choral echoes above the psychedelic grooves, and Nice to be in orbit is all the more celestial for it.

Of all the ambient music we have heard this year, nothing comes close to the intricately explorative alchemy in Nice to be in orbit. We can’t wait to hear what follows.

Nice to be in orbit is now available to stream and download via Bandcamp.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Feliz told a fuzzed-up modern love story in a neo-western landscape with their garage rock hit “Pocket Cowgirl”

Posted on 22 December 2021
Pocket Cowgirl by FELIZ

With plenty of gorgeous wobbly tape echo delay around the Iggy Pop-level gruff vocals in the intro, slipping into the latest psychedelic feat of garage rock from Feliz is a blissful trip away from reality.

The fuzz-loving Californian outfit’s latest single, Pocket Cowgirl, is an analog modern love story gone wrong set in a neo-western landscape. It carries the same gritty gravitas as the likes of Alex Cameron and Jack Ladder in the low timbre vocals while Isela Humerez’ dreamy, distorted and poppy vocals add a stunning dynamic to the lo-fi yet succinctly arranged track.

Even after the eccentricity of Pocket Cowgirl has faded away after the first few plays, it still doesn’t disappoint. The ingenuity keeps on pouring like rabbits from a magician’s hat along with the affirmation that Feliz psychologically delved far deeper than most to deliver this sultry ground-breaking release. And the best part? The playful humility shines through just as much as the shimmering guitars.

Pocket Cowgirl is now available to stream, purchase and fall in love with via Bandcamp.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Liverpool’s latest luminary, Louie Miles, has released his latest single, Show the World

Posted on 10 December 2021

If Elliott Smith, Dinosaur Jr and the Beatles met in the middle, the sonic result would be starkly reminiscent of Louie Miles’ latest psychedelically warm and hazy single, Show the World. Instead of following the same old tropes with his tracks, he creates songs born entirely of his imagination. Based on Show the World, I would pay hand over fist to take a vacation in his mind. The sweetly psychotropic instrumentals paired with Miles’ magnetic melancholy-tinged vocals is practically an invitation to nirvana.

The Liverpool-based multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer made his solo debut in April this year; before that, he contributed to the Birmingham-based band, Sugarthief and Liverpool’s renowned outfit, Astles. At 21-years-old, Louie Miles already boasts the songwriting maturity that other artists have to wait decades for. We can’t wait to hear what follows.

Show the World is available to stream on all major platforms, including YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Scott Cook – No Bones: Heart-warmingly morose jazzy-indie-pop

Posted on 2 November 2021

Montreal-based guitarist and songwriter Scott Cook launched his jazzy, spacey debut EP, Topics, on October 22nd. Beyond the perceptible Bowie reminiscences, the flair in the guitar flourishes and the panoramic orchestration of the heart-warmingly morose singles bring Scott Cook into a league of his own.

In the standout single, No Bones, the magnetically deadpan vocals that will be a hit with fans of Pavement refuse to leave you anything but endeared by the delivery of the elegantly poetic lyrics. I think I officially fell in love at the line “There’s no bones in here, “I’m just a sad sack of skin”.

Scott Cook’s PhD in classical music theory and time spent performing in jazz and rock ensembles discernibly paid off when writing, performing, recording and producing his debut EP. We can’t wait to hear what comes next.

No Bones is available to stream on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Life gave James Sebastian lemons, and he made Lemon Sunshine.

Posted on 9 October 2021

60s psych-pop and 70s rock collide in the latest single to be released by the Exeter-based newcomer James Sebastian. ‘Lemon Sunshine’ is a stridently impassioned single that is viscerally flooded with raw vocal emotion but the dreamy vintage tones of the consistently ascending instrumentals take all of the sting out of the vocal defiance.

If you can imagine the point where the Beatles and the Stone Roses meet in the middle, you’ll get an idea of the kind of refreshing nostalgia James Sebastian is serving here. Lyrically, Sebastian delivered the ultimate post-breakup track that captures that bitter-sweet moment when you’re reminded of your own power and make no bones about taking it back.

Lemon Sunshine is now available to stream on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast