“Drink the Juice” by Purple Pilgrims

Day 17 of our 31 Days of May New Zealand Music Month marathon comes from Coromandel dream-pop electronica cult Purple Pilgrims

“Come join my esoteric cult/ we don’t watch TV/ don’t eat meat/ but in our arms you’ll feel complete” entreat Purple Pilgrims with menacing hyper-perfect diction in this devotional recruitment song.

This is a new track, released earlier this year, following their glorious 2016 album “Eternal Delight”. It carries some familiar Purple Pilgrims hallmarks, from the minimal electronic music which builds to a siren-warning insistent synth melody towards the end, to the eery trance-like vocals with ethereal chorus harmonies.

The combination of the words and all these musical elements turn an invitation to reside with them into something quite terrifying.

<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/198890349″>Purple Pilgrims – Drink The Juice</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/notnotfun”>Not Not Fun</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

“Is You Real?” by Purple Pilgrims

“Is You Real?” arrives near the start of Purple Pilgrims‘ debut album “Eternal Delight” and transports you far away to another world.

It’s a perfect delight to introduce an album that lives up to its name. This track – and the whole album – carefully stirs together psychedelia, ritualistic mantra, hypnotic folk music and dreampop.

Despite the hazy charm on the surface, there is always a hint of something a little ominous or disturbing beneath the surface in their music, as with earlier offerings from Purple Pilgrims. In literature and fairy tales the concept of “Eternal Delight” always came with a catch…

“Eternal Delights” was conceived and recorded by Purple Pilgrims – sisters Clementine and Valentine Adams – in the forests of the Coromandel, east of Auckland, NZ.

The album is available on CD and LP on Not Not Fun Records.

“Kogarashi” by Kikagaku Moyo

Kikagaku Moyo are a psych-rock band from Japan and their new album – “House in the Long Grass”, which is out in a few weeks – is mind-expanding and wonderful.

This particular song “Kogarashi” has a spiritual and meditational feel. It’s almost like some devotional European folk but, as you’ll discover with each song, it manages to evoke a sense of familiarity without actually sounding ‘like’ anything in particular you know.

I was so impressed by just this one song I ordered the LP from Japan before I even listened to another track. It’s an affordable investment too, working out at about $30 NZD for the black vinyl edition plus $10 NZD postage.

Just one song is not enough to give you a sense of the wonder of this album though, as each song captures a distinctive mood. The opening track on the album – “Green Sugar” – is another different but also brilliant slice of dreamy delicious psych adventure, bursting with the spirit of Can circa their Ege Bamyasi album.

There’s a huge range of music on the album judging from the 4 tracks available to stream (or download upon your pre-order purchase). For example, the 10 minute epic “Silver Owl” is a monster of shifting psych morphing through several ‘movements’ from gentle opening to impressive heavy-psych-prog-metal guitar fury ending.

This is the third album from Kikagaku Moyo and they have also released a few EPs and singles, so there’s an exciting back catalogue awaiting discovery too.

 

 

 

 

“Apres le Temps” by Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus

Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus

Another selection from the wonderful new album “beauty will save the world” by reclusive music collective Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus. This one is my favourite from the album – “Apres le Temps” (which translates as “after time”):

“Apres le Temps” is just the strummed chords of an over-driven hollow-bodied electric guitar played through a reverb amp, sparse bass chords, some swirling melodica playing a ghostly melody and the enigmatic vocals of Jess Main. It’s a moment of simple, perfect beauty, mystery and wonder.

I’ve been playing their 1987 debut “Gift of Tears” recently as well. It was re-issued this year on US label Feral Sounds Recordings through Third Eye Records.

This extract from the sleeve notes with “Gift of Tears” by Jason Morehead is a good summary of the band and their music: “Taking their name from Luis Bunuels’s ‘That Obscure Object of Desire’ the Army formed in Liverpool in 1985 to integrate film, imagery,and performance elements to create environments and experiences that confounded expectations and interrupted the mere consumption of music… It challenges and overwhelms as much as inspires; it can be uplifting but also ominous and foreboding…”

If I had to describe “beauty will save the world” in a sentence it would be “the music in your head when you wander through a graveyard at night while whisps of mist swirl around and an aurora flashes across the sky above” but I imagine everyone will have their own strange reactions to its unusually intoxicating charms.