psychedelic – Page 5 – 7th Level Music

Deap Vally – Femejism

Deap Vally’s (Julie Edwards – drums and vocals, Lindsey Troy – guitar and vocals) Sistrionix was my favorite album of 2013. I bought it for three different people and turned on at least one other to it. It shouldn’t surprise you, then, that Femejism, apart from having the greatest album title of the year, is one of my favorites of 2016.

With production help from Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Femejism is full of swagger, sweat, and shredding. The first single and track, “Royal Jelly,” demands you crank your stereo volume to 11. It’s a power anthem / warning to others who want to live the rock life. “If you wanna be queen bee, then you better make honey. If you want to be miss thing, then you better start hustling,” they sing. Don’t whine and bitch about it. Get out there and do it.

“Julian” is a send-off to an ex-boyfriend who missed his chance at something great, and it has some of the fastest guitar work from Troy. “Gonnawanna” has Troy planting a flag for riot grrls everywhere, declaring she’s going to do whatever she damn well pleases and no one’s going to stop her. It’s powerful, near-stadium filling rock (Favorite line: “I’m on a psychic safari, and I’m not sorry.”).

Speaking of powerful rock, wait until you hear “Little Baby Beauty Queen.” It’s frantic post-punk madness with John Bonham-style drumming from Edwards. “Smile More” brings back the distorted blues rock Deap Vally does so well and deserves to be on every woman’s mix tape from now until eternity.

Zinner’s touches can be heard on “Critic,” as it sounds like an early Yeah Yeah Yeahs track (and that’s not a bad thing) with Troy lambasting critics, Internet trolls, and haters. “Post Funk” is layered with reverbed vocals as the band sings about getting out of dodge (both in terms of places and relationships) before things get stale. It has some of Edwards’ best percussion on the whole album. She absolutely cooks, and I’m sure this song hits even harder live.

“Two Seat Bike” has Troy willing to get it on if her lover would just turn off the damn camera and quit insisting on shooting amateur porn. “Bubble Baby” has that crushing guitar sound I love so much from Lindsey Troy. It’s full of chugging riffs, alarm-like squeaks, and blues chords (and her vicious vocals) blasted to the back of the room. “Teenage Queen” has the band going after more haters who ask them if they plan to live their lives the way they do into their golden years.

“Grunge Bond” is as grungy and grimy as you’d hope, complete with call and response vocals, Edwards’ go-for-broke drumming, and Troy apparently playing a Hammond B3 organ by beating it with her guitar. That’s how it sounds to me at least, meaning it sounds great. Her guitar on “Turn It Off” is loud yet distant, much like her lyrics about not wanting to succumb to her attractions. On “Heart is an Animal,” it’s so heavy and fuzzy that it feels like Sasquatch breaking down your door.

Femejism is a strong record that buzzes with power. Listening to it is like meditating next to a power substation – dangerous, thrilling, and possibly illegal.

Keep your mind open.

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Earthless announce December U.S. tour.

Colossal rockers Earthless have released dates for a December tour throughout the U.S., and I plan to see them on opening night at Chicago’s Empty Bottle. Don’t miss your chance to have your face melted and consciousness expanded. Earthless always puts on a great show. They’ll be with Ruby the Hatchet as well, so it’s a fine double-bill of psych / stoner rock power.

Keep your mind open.

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Comacozer – Astra Planeta

One of the best parts of writing this blog is when a band asks me to give them a listen and they turn out to be as good as Australia’s Comacozer.

These three psych / doom / stoner rockers have crafted a fine piece of work with their album Astra Planeta. It’s five tracks (the shortest at 6:21) of instrumental spaced out riffs that range from solar wind trippy to asteroid impact heavy.

“Saurian Dream” starts off like a slippery salamander wriggling out of mud atop a fresh grave but then morphs into wavy heat mirages seen by a goanna sunning itself on a hot outback rock.

The guitar on “The Mind that Feeds the Eye” sounds almost like something from a spaghetti western score, even with the heavy delay pedals. The bass is as crisp as a bullfrog’s croak, and the drum beats snap by you like telephone poles as you cruise down a lonely road. The title reminds us that most of what we see is illusion, but what you see will be altered if your mind is altered. All great holy men and women have known and professed this. Comacozer add another page to the sermon.

I’m a sucker for ancient Egypt, so I’m not surprised that I love “Navigating the Mandjet.” The mandjet was one of the Egyptian sun god Ra’s solar boats (“The Boat of Millions of Years”), and the song would be perfect for the sound system on it. I dig the rock beat that runs through it, and the guitar and bass have a perfect Middle Eastern groove for the track.

The bass on “Illumination Cloud” sounds like something Les Claypool dreamed once. The song builds to a great cosmic rock track with some of the best guitar shredding on the record.

I don’t know if the Apophis named in “Hypnotized by Apophis” is the Egyptian snake demon of chaos with a magical gaze or the charted 325 meter-wide asteroid that might hit the Earth in 2068. The song’s perfect for either case, as it swirls with cosmic riffs ideal for flying through an asteroid belt and bass and drums ideal for battling a giant snake with a lance.

Astra Planeta is a solid record of excellent cosmic psych rock. These guys need to play at a Levitation festival, and you need to buy this album.

Keep your mind open.

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Go see Elephant Stone and learn to play sitar.

Psychedelic rock trio Elephant Stone have announced an impressive fall – early winter touring schedule, and lead singer / bassist / sitarist Rishi Dihr is offering a sitar lesson at each stop of the tour. You can contact him through the band’s website for details.

The band’s tour starts in their home province of Quebec and then into the Midwest, a brief stop in New York, out to the west coast, back up through Canada, and then into Europe by the time November gets here. By the way, their show on October 19th in Cincinnati is free.

Keep your mind open.

Elephant Stone – Ship of Fools

Canadian psych trio Elephant Stone’s (Rishi Dihr – lead vocals, bass, sitar, and keys, Miles Dupire – drums and vocals, Gabriel Lambert – guitar and vocals) newest record, Ship of Fools, brings a new element to their fine mix of psychedelia, power pop, and Eastern Indian music – electro.

“Manipulator” comes out with strong guitar, groovy bass, and both electronic and traditional percussion. The guitar squelches on the bridge as Dihr and his backing vocalists soar, and then it turns into a bit of an industrial electro song. “Where I’m Going” continues this light electro touch with deep bass and dance floor drums, but don’t worry, there’s plenty of reverbed guitar to keep us psychedelia fans happy (and how about that great synth solo?).

I love how Dihr’s bass turns up the fuzz on “The First Stone.” I don’t know if he did it to challenge Lambert in a fuzzy guitar contest, but Lambert gleefully accepted the challenge if he did because his guitar solo sounds like it was pulled out of a beehive. The second half of the song pops open your third eye with psychedelic madness.

“Photograph” isn’t a cover of the Def Leppard hit (although that would be an interesting choice), but it is a lovely song highlighting the band’s Beatles influence with its piano work, beats, and vocal styling. Dihr’s bass takes lead on “See the Light,” and the song encourages us to look past material wealth and pettiness so we can experience the divine. The ship mentioned in the album’s title is the planet Earth, and we are the fools who spend most of our time stumbling around it instead of enjoying all it has to offer.

“Run, Sister, Run” is dreamy psych, with Dihr’s sitar floating around it like autumn leaves before it blooms into body-moving bhangra beats. After that, I can’t help but think that the wheel mentioned in “Love Is Like a Spinning Wheel” is the wheel of reincarnation. “Andromeda” is appropriately spacey. The song cuts in samples of space launch commands and seems free from gravity. It’s a wonderful track.

“The Devil’s Shelter” brings back the electro bass (so Dihr can play more sitar) and has some of Dupire’s hottest chops on the record. Alex Maas of the Black Angels provides backup vocals and they bring a cool, slightly creepy vibe to the song. It’s only right for a song that mentions Old Scratch.

The title of “Silence Can Say So Much” is one of the truest statements I’ve heard on a record. It’s lush with sitar, tabla, and chant-like vocals. The vocals on the closer, “Au Gallis,” are heavily synthesized, to the point they sound robotic as the band builds a powerful electro track behind them.

I like this new addition of electro touches. The answer to Dihr’s question on “Where I’m Going” might be “to more fans who will groove to this record and spin it in dance clubs.”

Keep your mind open.

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The inaugural Middle Waves festival was an inside-the-park home run.

Fort Wayne’s first “destination” music festival, Middle Waves, was last weekend and a big hit with the crowd. Future festivals will only be better judging by how well the first one went.

I knew it was going to be at least an interesting festival when I walked into “The Village” area (where all the vendors were) looking for my press pass and saw this.

Deep fried chicken on a stick. I didn’t eat there. For my money, the best deal and food there was from the Vietnummy food truck. A bahn mi lemongrass chicken slider for only five bucks? I’m in. I’m in all day long.

Bahn mi slider in hand and press pass around my neck, I went to check out my first band of the festival – Nashville’s Bully. I’d only heard a couple tracks, and I liked their mix of heavy rock and post-punk.

They killed the Maumee Stage with a fierce performance that won over the crowd within minutes. Seeing them might be the closest I get to seeing X-Ray Spex in concert. It was full of wild guitar and drums, Cure-like bass, and frantic vocals. People were still talking about them the next day.

I finished Friday night like many others – by seeing Best Coast on the main (St. Mary’s) stage. I’ll admit that I hadn’t heard a lot of their material before this, but there were many in the crowd who sang to everything they played. I liked the blend of surf-psych with dream pop. The gay man going nuts next to me when they played “Boyfriend” was one of the highlights of the crowd for me.

Heavy rain hit the area overnight and through most of Saturday morning. I hoped it wouldn’t keep the crowds away, and I’m sure the Middle Waves staff was watching local weather radar like a hawk the entire day. One band was playing on a makeshift stage in the covered food vendor area when I got there due to the Maumee Stage being rained out that morning.

Luckily for all, however, the rain cleared around 3:00 and the sun came out bright and happy. The St. Mary’s stage field had straw scattered all over it to prevent massive mud pits from forming, so it soon smelled like a wet barn out there. You didn’t notice the smell once Jeff the Brotherhood began playing, because their sonic assault almost knocked us flat.

They played several tracks from their new album, Zone, which I need to get soon. A lot of it has a great stoner rock vibe that borders a bit on doom metal. It seems heavier than some of their previous stuff, which is fine by me.

I took a break after their set to drive down to Neat Neat Neat Records (profile coming soon), and they were playing Bully. The clerk and I raved about their set and I was soon walking out with three used CDs. I made it back in time to see Ft. Wayne’s hometown psychedelic heroes – Heaven’s Gateway Drugs. They put on a fine set of their sun-soaked psych on the bank of the Maumee River to a welcoming crowd. I hadn’t realized until this set how some of their stuff sounds like early New Pornographers (which is a good thing).

I took an extra long break to get in a full meal (Smoked pulled chicken, cole slaw, and potato chips for eight bucks? Sold!) before seeing The Flaming Lips. People had been camped out all day to claim spots for the show. My favorite ones were these two.

I thought, “That’s my wife and I in twenty years.”

The Flaming Lips didn’t disappoint. It was a party from the very first song.

The confetti came from cannons, but I still don’t know from where the giant balloons emerged.

The crowd was jumping, singing, smacking around balloons, and cheering for lizards in yellow suits and boat captain catfish.

That’s an inflatable Santa Claus in the background.

Their light / stage show is something you have to see to fully appreciate. Strings of lights, kaleidoscopic gongs, confetti cannons, and glitter are all thrown into the mix.

Everyone loved the rainbow. Who wouldn’t?

Lead singer Wayne Coyne kept the crowd cheering and moving, especially when he came out in a giant bubble during the band’s cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.”

It was a great performance under a full moon, and a good omen for future festivals. The early afternoon rain was the only thing keeping the first Middle Waves festival from being an out-of-the-park home run, but that’s nothing the promoters and staff could control.

I’m sure the number of national touring acts will grow in the future, as all of the ones there this year praised the festival and the crowds. A master stroke by the festival is having two free stages. The Maumee and St. Joseph stages were free for everyone. The St. Mary’s main stage was the only one with paid admission. Anyone could’ve come to the festival with no money and still have seen twenty bands (including that jaw-dropping set by Bully, mind you).

Here’s to the future, Middle Waves. It looks good for you.

Keep your mind open.

[Many thanks to the Middle Waves staff and crew, and especially to Emma and Maggie for setting up my press credentials for the festival.]

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Night Beats announce U.S. west coat tour.

Don’t miss your chance to see Night Beats if you’re on the west coast. They’re hitting it hard through November and touring with Mystery Lights – a band I’ve been meaning to check out for a couple weeks now.

The Night Beats are killing it right now, and I’ve yet to see them put on a bad show. They are well worth your time and money.

Keep your mind open.

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Led Zeppelin to release remastered BBC Sessions double album.

Guitar / rock legend Jimmy Page has remastered the excellent double album The Complete BBC Sessions. The album drops tomorrow (September 16th) and has eight new tracks previously unreleased. The original BBC sessions album was released in 1997 as a two-disc set, but this newest edition will be three discs and contain rare versions of “You Shook Me,” “I Can’t Quit You Baby,” “Sunshine Woman,” “Communication Breakdown,” and “Dazed and Confused.” There’s also a 48-page book in the deluxe edition.

In even better news, Page has announced that he has a new album in the works. Look for it next year.

Keep your mind open.

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Dizzybird Records Summer Sampler 2016

Dizzybird Records has put out a fine mix album of seven of their artists to get us through the last weeks of summer.

The Harlequins have three good, weird surf-psych tracks – “Fair Shake” opens the sampler on a good note with plenty of loud twisting sounds and trippy vocals, “Hear Me Out” is Mersey Beat garage rock with fuzzed-out vocals, and “Over a Hill” is a Kaiser Chiefs track if the Kaiser Chiefs decided to record a song after they’d just realized they’d accidentally eaten peyote jam on their morning toast.

Heaven’s Gateway Drugs, who seem to be playing everywhere all the time, also give us two tracks – the sharp “Copper Hill” with its angular guitars and echoed vocal harmonies, and “War with June” from their upcoming album Rubber Nun, which should be a fine record judging from this tune. It oozes from your sound system’s speakers. Ooooozes.

Coffin Problem reminds me of Bauhaus when they still had a punk edge to them. Their two contributions are the creepy “Child of the Sun” (dig those relentless guitars!) and the sampler’s closer – “Empty” – is so heavy that it almost becomes sludge / doom rock.

Cool Ghouls‘ offering is “Creature that I Am,” a fun classic-sounding psychedelic track with slight Americana and garage touches. They sound like a band that might’ve opened for Jefferson Airplane back in the day.

Gringo Star‘s “Long Time Gone” is full of peppy piano, what sounds like a mandolin, and reverbed, crunchy guitar. It’s an interesting mix that’s hard to describe, but please know I mean that in a good way.

Las Rosas give us an appropriately titled song as far as their name is concerned – “Sensitive Flower.” The song’s no shrinking violet, however. It’s a slightly dark track about a somewhat dysfunctional relationship.

Heaters‘ two tracks, “Lowlife” and “Solstice,” are lush and bold. “Lowlife” has room-filling guitars and a great entry by their drummer into the song. “Solstice” has great cosmic-psych guitar work throughout it that trips along a surf edge.

It’s a good compilation, and Dizzybird offers free listens on the Soundcloud page for it. Give it a spin.

Keep your mind open.

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Rewind Review: Baby Jesus – self-titled (2014)

Hailing from Sweden and claiming to have formed after “an intense trip to India,” Baby Jesus’ self-titled album is a wild mix of psych, garage, and surf.

“Nothing’s for Me” opens the record with a swirl of cymbals and blaring guitar before the horror movie organ kicks everything into high gear. The vocals are frantic, almost “Wooly Bully” ramblings. That means they’re a blast, by the way. “Trembling Away” continues the madness and the organ blares through everything, which is a feat considering how damn loud and bonkers the song is. “Havn’t Seen the Light” is, despite the typo in the title, sharp as a tack. The guitar is like a buzzsaw, the drums are punk, the bass is a jackhammer, and the organ is an alarm klaxon.

“Don’t Want You” could be a Stooges song if the Stooges had a keyboardist as crazy as Baby Jesus. Imagine Animal from The Muppets on a Hammond B-3 instead of a drum kit and you’ll get the idea. “Nice Walk” is a surf instrumental. Yes, after four songs of psychedelic madness, Baby Jesus drops a surf number on you that sounds like they reached through a wormhole in space-time and grabbed it from a record store in 1965.

“Cry, Cry, Cry” isn’t a cover of the Johnny Cash song (although that would be great), but it is a wild breakup song with enough cymbal crashes for an entire record. The title of “Deep Blue Delay” might refer to the delay effects pedals used on the guitars in the song, but it’s probably about something trippy that happened to the band in India. Regardless, the guitar work on it is crazy with plenty of distortion and reverb. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a Theremin mixed with it. “You Make Me Fry” is another lambasting of a bad relationship, and “Vansinne” is a swanky psychedelic lounge tune with fantastic saxophone work.

“Time’s All Gone” is a fitting title for the last song on any record, and Baby Jesus makes the most of their last track by, believe it or not, scaling back the cacophony. It’s the mellowest track on the album, with echoing vocals, groovy synths, and that surf sound they do so well.

I hope these guys are working on some new material, because this full-length debut is a good omen of what’s in store for them and us. I hope they tour with Goat. That would be a mind-melting double bill.

Keep your mind open.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-deEFVrMAFk