Say Psych: Playlist 4/2016

This year already seems to be hotting up with new bands and new albums coming out of every cosmic orifice. Here’s another selection of Psych Insight tunes, mostly new but with a couple of older ones thrown in. As always, enjoy!

Pharmakon by Dead Sea Apes

I recently played the Dead Sea Apes ‘Lupus’ album for the first time in a while. I had forgotten just how good it is, not far short of being a masterpiece. ‘Pharmakon’, the opening track is atomspheric and hugely affective. On the clip below the track has been put to Maya Deren’s 1943 short film ‘Witches’ Cradle’ to great effect.

Samael by JuJu

“This is a quite astounding album of modern psychedelia. Psychedelic music that is immediate, relevant, spiritual, affective and effective. Music that demands to be listened to. However, while psychedelic music is often a means through which to escape the mundane world, here it is used to direct and amplify what is going on within our own reality and encourages us to contemplate upon that nature of that reality and questions what our response to it should be. This would be a great album without this element: with it it is absolutely bloody ESSENTIAL!”

For the full review of the JuJu album, click here.

Take Us To The Moon by The Oscillation
This month saw the release of the new Oscillation album, ‘Monographic’, which I reviewed back in January (see here). ‘Take Us To The Moon’ is the second release from the album on Hands in the Dark Records.

Om Vajra Sativa Hung (Live in Berlin) by Dead Skeletons

Live albums are always something of a compromise between presenting the band ‘warts and all’ and delivering something that is a little too lo-fi for its own good. This recording seems to have found a good balance in the sense that it is a well produced and mixed album which for me does just about enough to retain that live feel.”

For the full review of the Live in Berlin album on Fuzz Club Records, click here.

Saliva by Stupid Cosmonaut

Stupid Cosmonaut are a Manchester-based pseudonymous musical entity consisting of Sam Read, Steven McNamara and Mark Hawnt amongst others, experimenting with electronic, ambient and psychedelic soundscapes. Formed at the beginning of the year through a mutual love for Mogwai, they are already part way through recording their debut ep which will see a release before summer 2016. Space has no boundaries for the stupid cosmonaut.

Dark Kashmir by Telstar Sound Drone

“This Telstar Sound Drone album is not an easy listen. It is dark, it is claustrophobic, and it does reflect the surroundings in which it was recorded. Nevertheless, this is very much a psychedelic album and that suggests escape. This is an album that can accompany you on your own inner journey, and while you might not like all the places that it takes you you are, in the end, left with a feeling of have been challenged and unburdened.”

For the full review of the Telstar Sound Drone album, ‘Magical Solutions for Everyday Struggles’

Your Hallows by Heron Oblivion

“I like this Heron Oblivion album so much, because it has so many styles, some of which I listen to every day and others, and particularly the folk elements, which I often find grating. Here they are melded together seamlessly into songs which draw out the emotions and just make me want to put this album on again and again.”

For the full review of this album click here.

Somehow by Dusst

DUSST are currently a four-piece band who combine psychedelic ballads and progressive jams with crooning vocals to create a textured sound that encompass blues in a modern way. The first studio release , “Somehow”, recorded at Liverpool’s iconic Motor Museum studio, is an apocalyptic plea in C minor. The band takes inspiration from: Pink Floyd, Cream, Peter Green, King Gizzard, Tame Impala, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Nightbeats and many more!

Electric Illuminators by Rollfast

Rollfast could have easily produced an album of psych blues that would have been proficient and satisfactory. The fact that it is more than that is something that, for me, takes the band above and beyond many of its contemporaries in that genre to produce a set of tracks that keep me going for the hour plus of this album’s length, and will bring me back time and again.”

For the full review of Rollfast’s ‘Lanes Oil, Dream is Pry’ album click here.