Psych Insight
Psych Insight: Album Review – A Psych Tribute to the Doors (Cleopatra Records)
When people ask me what sort of music I am into these days I am never quite sure how to respond because whatever I say be it just ‘psychedelic’, or something like new, neo, or contemporary psych does not really help. The most common response is something along the lines of “oh that druggy music them”, …
Say Psych: Album Review – Sky Is Hell Black by Has A Shadow (Captcha Records/ Fuzz Club Records)
In the past musical trends have tended to be broadly geographical: the Merseybeat scene, West Coast Flower Power, German Krautrock, NY Punk, Coventry’s Two Tone, Madchester – I could go on. One of the amazing things about the current psychedelic scene, however, is that it is truly global. Facilitated by social networking and the digital …
Psych Insight: Album Review – Hello Griefbirds! by The Shine Brothers (Cardinal Fuzz)
To say that Cardinal Fuzz are on a roll would be an understatement. The label has a series of vinyl releases under its belt which have, to my ears, all been winners; and my previous recommendations of albums by The Dead Sea Apes and Vision Fortune might lead you to believe that I have some …
Psych Insight: Album Review: Wooden Shjips – Back to Land
There have been few new albums out this year that I have been eagerly awaiting more than the latest Wooden Shjips album, Back to Land. The problem with this is that this can mean that I will almost certainly be disappointed with the outcome, so high are my expectations. When I was thinking about this …
Say Psych: Album Review – Stars Are Our Home by Black Hearted Brother (Sonic Cathedral)
Neil Halstead will be familiar to many as one of the main driving forces behind shoe gaze stalwarts Slowdive and country folk band Mojave 3, and is part of the trio, along with Mark van Hoen (Seefeel, Locust) and Nick Holton (who produced and appeared on Halstead’s recent solo albums), who go to make up …
Live Review: Pissed Jeans/ Hookworms, Brudenell Social Club, Leeds 04.07.2013
Punk, it appears, is not dead after all. This is the conclusion I came to while driving back home to Sheffield after this gig. Not the 1977 punk aesthetic, but that raw on the edge punk that thrills, revolts (in both meanings of the word), assaults, and, basically, does not give a shit. Last night’s …
Say Psych: Live – Besnard Lakes, Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, 25th May 2013
I have found that every so often in my life I have reached a musical turning point. A moment when I have heard something that has opened a completely new front in terms of what I listen to. I find this exciting because all of a sudden there are a whole raft of new bands …
Album Review: White People and the Damage Done by Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine
I first came across The Dead Kennedys when I was in my early teens, I was obsessed with the singles chart at the time and they were a band who, somehow, did not get their records played so much on the chart rundown on BBC Radio 1 on Sundays. I guess if Frankie’s Relax got …
Say Psych: Album Review – Pearl Mystic by The Hookworms
I find it hard to think of any band who I have seen live more often over recent years than The Hookworms. They have been on the live scene in Leeds, where I have lived for most of the previous twenty years before my move to Sheffield last year, for a few years now. Strangely …