Posts Tagged ‘Psyche’

Downtime – Guts

Posted: 4 August 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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Cruel Nature Records – 26th July 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Who’s got guts nowadays? Who even talks about guts nowadays? When I was growing up, guts was a big deal. Succeeding or achieving against adversity took guts and the papers would applaud. Now, you’ll occasionally hear of artists giving gutsy performances, but it’s rare.

But Downtime – ‘the dynamic duo of Dave Sneddon and Mike Vest’ – yeah, they’ve got guts. But then, Mike Vest clearly has restless guts, his monumental and ever-evolving CV listing Guitar Oblivions, BONG, Drunk In Hell, Blown Out, Haikai No Ku, Modoki, Depth Charms, Brain Pills, Hollow Eyes, Lush Worker, and 11Paranoias. Collaborations include Mitsuru Tabata (Acid Mothers, Boredoms), Aoki Tomoyuki (UP-Tight), Fred Laird (Earthling Society, Artifacts & Uranium). When does this guy actually sleep?

Anyway: the naming of this project is likely ironic, and Vest’s concept of downtime differs from that of the rest of the world. He calls it downtime: we call it having a night off to sleep after finally taking a piss.

On Guts, Downtime immerse themselves in long, long, guitar and rum noise workouts, exploiting textures to the max.

The album contains but two tracks, each stretching out to the twenty minute mark.

‘Black Cherry Soda’ goes deep into a psychedelic groove, but it’s dominated by layers of feedback and blistering noise. I’m reminded of Head of David’s HODICA unofficial live album, which captured the band intentionally sabotaging a showcase gig that would have landed them a record contract by playing none of the songs and instead blasting out an ear-shredding wall of noise ;aced with a slew of uncleared samples. As middle fingers to the industry go, this stands, even now, as one of the best. The track drives forward and crashes through every fence and gate standing in its way, picking up pace and volume as it careers, out of control, onwards, ever onwards, on a heartstopping collision course towards its final resting place – smouldering in wreckage having slammed headlong against a wall, feedback and howling tones still spewing forth from the calamitous chaos. But we’re still only seven minutes in… and then shir really goes off the rails in a tempest of truly shattering noise. Every minute sounds and feels like the end, and every second is pulverising. The mess of noise, underpinned by a deep, strolling bass, is a chaos of discord, but also a spectacular document of collaborative musical capability. And this sounds like the work of more than two people.

Colossal noise is an understatement, and ‘Blue Dream’ fades in where ‘Black Cherry Soda’ tapers out, on a tidal wave of feedback before locking into a hefty psychedelic groove with thumping percussion, a foot-to-the-floor bass thunder and a blistering guitar racket that’s truly tranportative.

Downtime have no such specific agenda here, but the bottom line is that that they’ve no interest in the machinations of bigger labels and are quite content to have their staunchly uncommercial noise released to a small sliver of ‘the masses’ by a label who actually cares about what they do. If you dig noisy psychedelia, you need this.

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Watch: ‘Plastic Venus’ by Cosmic Room 99

Posted: 22 July 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Italian psych band Cosmic Room 99 have announced their debut album will be released on 11 October via Sister 9 Recordings" (UK)/ Little Cloud Records (US)/Shyrec (ITA).

They recently shared their debut single ‘Plastic Venus’. They explain: “Everything is fiction, everything is altered, everything is seen through filters, nowadays even Venus is made out of Plastic”.

Watch the video here:

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The band’s name was inspired by a documentary called ‘The Cosmic Room’, which tells the story of NATO employee Bob Cohen accidentally discovering a top-secret plan to eradicate part of the world’s population to maintain Earth’s sustainability. The number 99 in numerology represents someone who uses their gifts to make the world a better place, encapsulating the band’s ethos.

Musically, Cosmic Room 99 draw influences from a diverse range of sources, including the obsessive rhythms of The Velvet Underground, the dreamy psychedelia of Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd, the harmonies of The Beach Boys’ "Pet Sounds", the sharp feedback of The Jesus and Mary Chain, the austere wave of Joy Division, and the deep, abysmal worlds of Bauhaus, all linked by a punk attitude.

The album was recorded primarily in their home studio in Treviso, Italy, where band members played various instruments, creating a collaborative and cohesive work. To add warmth to their sound, they recorded vocals and analog drums and mixed the songs at Overdrive Studio in Treviso, with producer and sound engineer Edoardo "Dodi" Pellizzari. Final mastering was done by Collin Jordan at The Boiler Room in Chicago, USA, adding the finishing touch to their music.

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Photo credit: Francesca Janes

Listen: ‘Away We Go’ by Holy Coves

Posted: 5 October 2022 in Singles and EPs
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Ahead of the release of the debut album, Druids and Bards, out later this month on Yr Wyddfa Records, Welsh alt-rock/indie act have released a further single in the shape of ‘Away we Go’.

Hear it here:

Championed by Gary Crowley on BBC Radio London and Playlisted on Amazing Radio’s A List, with BBC Radio Wales support from Huw Stephens and Adam Walton, North Wales Indie-Psych Band Holy Coves have had quite a year so far. They share a brand new single called ‘Away We Go’ before their highly anticipated new Druids And Bards album is released via Yr Wyddfa Records on the 14th of October.

Through long time friend and Producer David Wrench, Holy Coves were put in touch with Texan Producer Erik Wofford (The Black Angels / Explosions In The Sky) and have built quite a magical working relationship, one where Wofford found himself on Mixing and Mastering duties for the material and certainly contributes to their new sound.

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Black Earth – In Her Eyes Lies the Golden Dawn

Posted: 7 May 2020 in Albums
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Christopher Nosnibor

Six whole years in the making In Her Eyes Lies the Golden Dawn is the third release from Austin TX’s Black Earth. Before we get to the album, take a moment to reflect on that. Six years. Can you even remember how the world was six years ago? It as another world. We were all different people. I’m going to assume the members of Black Earth have been busy wit life. Life has a habit of devouring time. Yu get sidetracked by dayjob and family, and suddenly, six years have passed. No sarcasm: this is how it happens. I expect some people will have been on tenterhooks for this.

‘She is the Void’ brings an ‘Unplugged in New York’ kind of vibe by ay of an opener, only without vocals, it’s lot less angsty, and it practically bleeds into the title track, which starts out Mark Lanegan before bursting into a chorus that’s more a grunged-up Zeppelin and wraps with a big rock climax around the mid-point. Being over eight-and-a-half minutes, it’s a bit of a beast. I may not be entirely sold on the ‘eyes / thighs’ rhyme but hey, when it comes to good old fashioned rock ‘n’ roll, there’s currency still to be found in booze and birds type relationship stuff.

‘I never meant to hurt you / but you gave me no choice’ goes the opening of ‘Pushing Back My Hand’, and I find myself wondering just how comfortable I am with it, before I remind myself that it’s a mistake to align artist with art, and there’s nothing here that in any way condones any kind of misogyny. In fact, what we have is a pretty straight-ahead blues-grunge album, and a solid one at that.

They pack the riffs, and that’s a fact. ‘Left Behind’ is particularly ball-busting, coming on with enough weight as to sound like Melvins covering some vintage cock rock. ‘She’s a Do or Die’ brings more dirty heft, the guitars thick and overdriven, and there comes a point where skirting sabbath touchstones becomes impossible, although the swaggering space-rock midsection is more Hawkwind and finds the band going all out on going all out, and it kicks ass. And as for the colossal closer, ‘She is the Universe’… woah. It brings the riffs, the repetition, and locks into a dense psychedelic groove, which breaks around the seven-minute mark to return to Mark Lanegan territory, before piling into a massive guitar finish.

It’s so easy to dismiss blues / rock albums – even those that incorporate grunge and psych – as being a bit standard, and being much of a muchness. But that’s a genre thing: let’s face it, within any genre there will always be tropes that form a level of format. This is where it comes down to quality of material and execution, and on In Her Eyes Lies the Golden Dawn, Black Earth have both.

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Blacl Earth

Mayflower Madame – Swallow

Posted: 27 February 2020 in Singles and EPs
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Only Lovers Records – 4th February 2020

James Wells

Mayflower Madame step up the promo for Prepared for a Nightmare, the follow-up to 2016’s Observed in a Dream with a second single in the shape of ‘Swallow’. It reveals a mellower side in relation to its predecessor, the bruising ‘Vultures’, and while it’s still very much an example of their trademark sultry psychedelic surf, ‘Swallow’ reveals a previously unheard melodic leaning.

Described as ‘a love song… about the dependence and fragility one might feel in a relationship – involving both a fear of and a desire for submission’, according to front man Trond Fagernes, it’s still not quite pop, and not exactly a ballad, either, and it’s draped in gothy shadows and doomed romanticism.

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Mayflower - Swallow

Man of Moon / Wuh Oh – Oporto, Leeds, 30 January 2020

Posted: 31 January 2020 in Albums
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Christopher Nosnibor

My appreciation of Man of Moon is well-documented: so well so, in fact, that a link to my review of their last show in Leeds, where they supported The Twilight Sad at The Brudenell; featured in their sponsored ad for tonight, which is bang in the middle of the UK leg of a significant European tour, that also coincides with independent venue week.

Oporto isn’t a venue I visit often, other than when it’s Live at Leeds, but I have fond memories of thrashing a few chords at the chaotic end of an Arrows of Love gig here some years ago, and the fact it’s still going and housing shows like this is cause for celebration.

Touring the UK not once, but twice with the Sad has served them well, in many ways: they’ve reached a bigger audience, their songwriting has evolved remarkably, and they’ve followed the lead in inviting artists they believe in to be their touring support.

And so it is that Wuh Oh – the musical project of fellow Scot Peter Ferguson – opens tonight’s show with some thumping electronica: he’s dressed in a superhero cloak and has a bionic arm, and it’s all delivered with high theatre and elements of interpretive dance.

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Wuh Oh

There’s a lot going on, with deep, quivering bass and monster percussion driving it all. Sampled vocals, heavily processed feature prominently in a set of all-out euphoric dance. It’s as commercial as it gets in a club context and this is never going to be to my taste musically. But the execution is outstanding, and besides, it takes some serious guts to pull this kind of DJ / mime karaoke shit off, and it’s a stunning performance with all the energy.

As they did at the Brudenell in October, Man of Moon om take the stage to Suicide’s ‘Ghostrider’, and they’re straight in with driving cyclical chords and propellant drumming on ‘Sign’, before debut single ‘The Road’ from back in 2015 goes full motorik psych.

Despite being only two in number, the sound is full and by no means lacking in depth, with the guitar signal split between a pair of two-by-twelve-inch amps, with the speakers placed facing back to the rear of the stage, resulting in the majority of the sound coming from the PA rather than a blast of backline.

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Man of Moon

The set isn’t much different from their last visit, and is primarily constructed with material from their forthcoming album, but they’re tighter and more solid than ever, and the new songs have had time to bed in and take some proper road-testing.

‘Ride the Wave’ brings some thunderous bass, hefty vocal reverb and an insistent rhythm, and elsewhere. samples drift in by way of an intro, and there’s sonorous sequenced bas that churns the guts and an abundance of spaciously atmospheric guitars. ‘Rust’ brings classic vintage 80s electro with heavy Cure filtered through Twilight Sad influence with smoggy guitars and all the emotion. Dynamic and layered, it reaches the parts other songs can’t reach. And it’s this emotional intensity and increasing maturity that’s one of the most striking things about Man of Moon now in contrast to Man of Moon just 18 months ago.

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Man of Moon

‘Skin’, the penultimate track and which featured on the Chemicals EP is a clear standout: while the studio version is smoothed out and leans toward Depeche Mode, live it’s a sharp, tense, uptempo groove and with a massive nagging bass line carry hints of Placebo, and the only criticism is that it could never be long enough. Throbbing dance grooves and cowbell drive closer ‘Stranger’, which threatens to veer off on an extended ace-rock workout, but instead, stops short leaving us wanting more. The album can’t land soon enough.

Mayflower Madame – Vultures

Posted: 23 January 2020 in Singles and EPs
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Only Lovers Records – 4th February 2020

Christopher Nosnibor

Sometimes, it doesn’t take much to change the mood of the day, and for me, it’s often the case that the ping of an email containing a release by an act I like that can be that mood-lifter on a barren or otherwise unremarkable day. The arrival of Mayflower Madame’s latest offering was today’s: having been snared by their debut album, 2016’s Observed in Dream, I’ve been on the edge of my seat for more, and while 2018’s Premonition EP was more than welcome, it felt like something of a placeholder ahead of the next event proper.

With album number two, Prepared for a Nightmare around the corner, they’re offering a taste of what’s to come with single ‘Vultures’, a song about ‘desire, gluttony and vanity – both on a personal level and as a general symptom of the excesses of modern society’ which is ‘partly inspired by the art of George Grosz and Hieronymus Bosch’.

‘Vultures’ very much cements the style and sound they’ve showcased previously, with reverby guitars dominating a psych/goth hybrid form that’s got tension and drama by the spade, but also a brooding, doom-laden atmosphere. The pessimism isn’t explicit, but hangs heavy in the air. But while retaining that psychy / dark surf twang, ‘Vultures’ is harder-edged than anything they’ve released to date, pinned down by an insistent beat with the vocals low in the mix and soaked in reverb and angst. The production more muscular, too, and it all stacks up for a belting blast of tense, dark contemporary post-punk that says the album is going to be a corker.

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Mayflower Madame - Vultures (cover)

Watch: ‘On My Tongue’ by The Altered Hours

Posted: 1 April 2018 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Irish band The Altered Hours have released their latest EP ‘On My Tongue’ on Art For Blind/Penske Recordings.

They have now shared the video for EP title track ‘On My Tongue’, which is a hypnotic slice of shimmering, motorik, psyche-hued shoegaze. You can watch it here: