Browsing Tag

Psych

Sound Animal sang a liminal lullaby in her ethereal experimental piece, A Life

Posted on 30 October 2022

Taken from her upcoming experimental solo album, Sound Animal’s arcanely euphonic single, A Life, is an all too intriguing teaser for the psychedelically exploratory alchemy that is sure to follow.

With its hallowed structures, the Berkley, California artist pushed lush reverb into unchartered ethereal waters. Through synths and sermonic non-lexical vocals that combine to create an otherworldly listening experience, A Life will easily take you out of the physical realm into a space decorated with liminal sonic symbolism.

Stream A Life on SoundCloud and save the date for the album, which will release on Bandcamp on SoundCloud on December 7th, before being distributed on December 15th.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Happened Again: Denver’s Magnolia Grove feels that afternoon haze on Again

Posted on 25 September 2022

Sensing that strange emotion that seeps your attention into the past as you try to dust those fears away, Magnolia Grove shows us what we have been missing to fully heal from past misfortunes on Again.

Magnolia Grove is a Denver, Colorado-based indie psych band who groove up the cores of so many previously lost hearts with their cinematically nostalgic brilliance.

Embracing that moment that changed everything, the speaker huggers return. Magnolia Grove is their name and you better not forget it. If you have ever dazed your mind away at 2am with a tough decision to make, you will feel your heart shaking slightly.

Showing us their reinvigoration inside a soul-meltingly breathtaking solo dripped melody to cause a pulse to double, this is a sweet spot to truly get lost inside. Looking for warmer weather, this could be a soundtrack for any season where things need to change quickly for the better to resume.

Again from Denver, Colorado-based indie psych band Magnolia Grove is a definite playlist keeper if there ever was one. Drenched with that honest ambiance of a group who just seem to gel just right. There is so much to love about a song that changes your mood like you just forgot what you were formerly upset about.

Listen up on Spotify and view the social vibes on IG.

Reviewed by Llewelyn Screen

Aim High: HYG urges us to float into the sky on their elevated new track Memory of Flight

Posted on 19 August 2022

Advising us to let the feeling shine through no matter what challenges, HYG shall take you into a whole new world where no one will ever find you on Memory of Flight.

HYG is a Canberra, Australia-based indie experimental psych rock band who returns after their previous release in 2022 called Into the New World.

”I wrote the lyrics after getting stuck in lockdown and reminiscing about times I’d travelled, and it kind of went from there.
It was a really calm moment; it was a pretty empty flight and for a moment there I was all on my own, with a few other people, 30,000 feet above the ground and hundreds of kilometres from the next-closest people. Everything felt good, which was nice.” ~ HYG

Recorded with the help of Canberra-based producer Louis Montgomery (SAFIA, Peking Duk, Slow Turismo), HYG has made a real gem to hold on to tightly here. Packed with quality from one of the more exciting acts around, there is a disco-psych vibe to be enthused by in droves on this soul-healing track.

Memory of Flight from Canberra, Australia-based indie experimental psych rock band HYG is such a soothing song that will probably put you into a better frame of mind. With ear-catching vocals and a wonderful ambience that might have you tapping your feet and stretching your toes, this is a cloud-floating single to close your eyes with.

Listen up to this new single on Spotify and see more on the IG page.

Reviewed by Llewelyn Screen

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

The Drood protested the idiomatically sentimental in their post-industrial single, Psychic Institute

Posted on 22 April 2022

Denver Colorado’s most mindfully experimental duo, The Drood, have unleashed their latest single, Psychic Institute, which is a little dancier than the last time we heard the psychedelically inclined post-industrial mystics, but it more than hits the existential spot.

Lyrically, Psychic Institute derides the innate human tendency to sentimentalize everything while the vocals pay homage to one of The Drood’s main influences, Gary Numan and the glitchy, robotically hook-filled instrumentals ensure that your rhythmic pulses are well entwined with the cathartic furore.

Dark and dystopic music is one thing; bringing a sense of subversive spirituality to it that speaks to the soul is another thing entirely. I never thought that anyone would share the same visceral reaction to vapid sentimentality, but with the mindful scepticism and philosophised despair, the Drood is an intellectual cut above the rest.

We may not have seen Psychic Institute coming, but now that it is here, we’re endlessly gratified for the escapism it offers. If you aurally follow any artist through the impending apocalypse, make it the Drood.

Here’s what The Drood had to say on their latest release:

“We didn’t set out with the intention to write a dance song, but that’s what came out! Psychic Institute unintentionally evolved into an homage to the industrial music which shaped our musical proclivities. The lyrical message, if any, is a cautionary tale about the emptiness and transparency of foolish sentimentality.”

Check out the official music video for Psychic Institute via YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

 

Take a psychedelic desert rock trip with Shandri’s latest single, Desert Flower

Posted on 21 March 2022

From the ancient mountains of Central Mexico, the alt-indie psych artist, Shandri, is here with his latest progressively indulgent aural trip, Desert flower. It evades every revival cliché by complimenting the shimmering psych-rock transcendent tones with a touch of War on Drugs and Radiohead art-rock finesse.

For the instrumental interlude, the one-man project surpassed expectations with screaming saxophones and jazzy nuances that will leave any self-respecting desert-rock inclined muso weak at the knees. Yet, Shandri invertedly poured plenty of commercial potential in the single by wrapping it into an addictive 3-minute package that deserves to blow up as much as the Black Keys’ biggest hits. We can’t wait to hear what follows.

Desert Flower is now available to stream on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The Drood bring the ritualistic catharsis in ‘It Must Needs Wither’.

Posted on 30 January 2022
The Drood

The essence of The Drood’s latest single, It Must Needs Wither is a captured ritual. An invitation to cherish the memories of the many lives lost in the years leading up to this Shakespearean release that took inspiration from the tragic play Othello.

For their ritualistically cathartic release, the Denver, Colorado-based electronic duo, used post-rock, Eastern psych and industrial for their dreamy textures. For the vocals, they opted for an ethereal quiescent timbre to rival the harmonic ambience in the dreamiest Beach House and Slowdive releases.

The haunting explorative progressions carry cynical lament while light transcendent textures bring comfort to the affirmation that for all of our artifices, we’re still the same primal creatures. Primal creatures plagued by the vulnerability of mortality and the psychological afflictions that drive us to acts of madness that are all too easily romanticised in our minds.

It Must Needs Wither will officially release on January 25th, 2022. You can check it out for yourselves via Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The Arizonian psych-rock experimentalists, SPACEMOOSE, have released their cathartic triumph of a stoner doom debut

Posted on 26 January 2022
SPACEMOOSE by SPACEMOOSE

The experimental music project, SPACEMOOSE, from the Arizona based space rock alchemists Blake Waltein and Josh Merrick, has made its official debut with the self-titled, psychotropic stoner doom single.

The 9-minute long desert rock-inspired single uses the first two minutes to ease you into the opium-den-style opulence and ambience, before darker and more ominous electronic textures join the sitars and tribal vibes. With the addition of angular 60s psych-rock guitars at the 4-minute mark, the single starts to amass momentum steadily, leaving the quiescence from the prelude far behind in the overdriven garagey tones that deliver a sense of chaos to the mix.

Even though the vocals consist of little more than ethereal sermonic chants that bleed into the soundscape, it’s hard not to be beguiled by the mystique in them. It certainly isn’t every day that we hear a debut as authentic and arresting as this 9-minute cathartic triumph. Naturally, we can’t wait to hear what follows.

You can check out the debut single from SPACEMOOSE by heading over to Bandcamp.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Meet your new slide guitar hero in Forest Ray’s psych-folk single, Always

Posted on 22 January 2022
Forest Ray

The notion of forever may be farfetched, but Forest Ray’s title-single from their upcoming album, Always, melodiously exhibits the beauty in love persisting. The folky psych rock soundscape carries the finger-picking influence of the late and great John Prine as the psychedelic nuances freshen the familiarity under the honeyed timbre of Forest Ray’s vocals.

The soaring guitar slides bring an absorbing dynamic to the release, entrenching Always next to the roots of Americana while simultaneously bringing in the future of psych-rock. Forest Ray deserves to be equally as revered as Kurt Vile for their hazy and cathartic sense of soul that leaves you with no question over their sincerity. For your sanity’s sake, delve in.

The single, Always, will release on January 22nd with the official music video.

Check out Forest Ray on SoundCloud, Facebook and Instagram.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Spotlight Feature: When Mountains Speak embarks on an abstract journey in their live album, From Beyond Comes Within

Posted on 18 January 2022

Texas’ most spiritual solo artist, When Mountains Speak, has released their latest sonic exploration, From Beyond Comes Within. The live-recorded album was recorded through one microphone – not that the all-consumingly psychedelic and transcendent release will allow you to believe it.

The 12-track album pays an earnest homage to the deep spiritual roots that created the foundation for the tribal and rhythmic soundscapes. Yet with When Mountains Speak’s avant-garde flair slipping in through reverberating hums and electronic glitches, there’s a bold sense of creative playfulness. The kind of playfulness that is reflective of the wonder we found in the world before we grew weary of it.

The extended singles amount to a 1 hour and 52-minute experience. With the tribally magnetic rhythms that marry the East with the West, you couldn’t ask for a better sanctum from the chaos that exists beyond music that awakens spiritual intuition.

From Beyond Comes Within is now available to stream on all major platforms. Check out When Mountains Speak on Spotify or via their official website.

Review by Amelia Vandergast