psych-pop track
See: Harkness gestures to a prettier, baroque pop world beyond the virus with ‘Moon Spell’
HARKNESS is a beautiful musical enigma wrapped up inside a conundrum wrapped inside a rather fetching, actuellement, mask and gown; from within which couture he has a very personal line in sounds for the topsy-turvy world we’re somehow tasked with navigating right now. Having honed his craft quietly away from the spotlight for a decade …
Track: Harkness – ‘The Occasion’: a cloak, a mask and a grand line in orchestral baroque pop from the mysterious Canadian
THE MYSTERIOUS, cloaked and visored figure you see is Harkness; as with Bob Log III, we know not who sits behind the guise. Best then to turn to what we do know; that he comes from Canada (or indeed, beyond), bearing a very special brand of baroque psychedelia, shifting through the moods and time signatures …
Track: Vintage Fiction – ‘Alright, Okay’: a little nugget of sundazed LA psych-pop bliss
YOU CAN so hear it their sound, if you ask me: the sun. The West Coast gleams through those burnished guitars, those dusky vocals, fair glows from the song as a whole in the way the first Avi Buffalo album does; early House of Love does. Languor, sleepy eyes, coastal bliss. Formerly trading as DIAZ, …
Track: E.R. Jurken – ‘John Doe’: a single drop of melodic harrow ahead of Friday’s album
E.R. JURKEN is a singer-songwriter with a deeply moving, beautiful and fragile take on psych-pop with a 1968 Anglophile twist and a Neutral Milk Hotel twirl to his aesthetic, for whom Drag City have initiated a whole new boutique imprint, Country Thyme; you just know they know when they’re on to a good thing. E.R. …
TRACK: Hilma Nikolaisen -‘All In (Into The Outset)’: Sereena-Maneesh alumnus brings the psych sunshine
FORMERLY bassist with Oslo’s premiere psychedelic explorers Sereena-Maneesh, Hilma Nikolaisen has unveiled a carefree, summery tune, “All In (Into The Outset)”, as a teaser for her third solo album, Heritage, out February 12th on Fysisk Format. She’s certainly spreading her wings away from the cultish, shoegazey-psych roots of her former home with this one: it’s bright …