“Ain’t So Hard To Do” by Dungen

It’s still Psychedelic Sunday somewhere in the world so here’s a shredding Dungen track from their recently released “Dungen Live” album. As anyone familiar with the Swedish psych improvisors would expect, it’s a glorious album of free-ranging melodic psychedelic music. Can’t explain it any better than this from their Bandcamp: “Dungen Live is a document of a band playing with and beyond time, passionately reviving a slowly storied history of sound. A captivating ride captured and collaged from two shows in their native Sweden, Dungen Live covers all the peaks and valleys, the moments of intuition and inspiration, and the cosmic connectivity between a family of musicians that makes each Dungen show a spiritual shift.”

Most of the free-ranging improvisations form around familiar Dungen themes from the studio albums and are simply named A1, A2 etc. Here’s the only named track “Ain’t So Hard To Do”.

The song is by Doug Jerebine, giving the album an unexpected New Zealand connection. Jerebine was a guitarist in a NZ band called The Brew, renowned by his peers in the 1960’s as an exploratory player with the playing ability to rival Hendrix. He headed to the UK in the late 1960s, changed his name to Jesse Harper on the advice of his ambitious manager, recorded a demo album of heavy psychedelic rock, put together the World Band, and was on the verge of being signed to a major label. Instead he recoiled from the rock and roll excess and walked away from music, seeking spiritual enlightenment by joining the Hare Krishna religious movement. He moved to India and effectively vanished for 30 years, before re-surfacing in NZ and taking up where he left off…

The Jesse Harper album of demos that  has had been circulating for 30 years as various imprints of dubious legality, finally had an official re-release in 2012 on legendary US alternative label Drag City.

Doug Jerebine and The Legend of Jesse Harper was one of the first PopLib posts published, way back at the start of 2013.

“Dear Love” by Francie Moon

“Dear Love” is the powerhouse second track from a new cassette album/ mini-album release from New Jersey psych-rock trio Francie Moon.

Francie Moon is a trio but also the alter-ego of guitarist and vocalist Melissa Lucciola, with Adam Pumilia on bass, and Richie Samartin on drums. This new album “All The Same” – which includes the three songs from their 7″ EP released earlier this year –  mixes elements of psych, garage, and surf rock in an energetic collection.

“Dear Love” featured here shows off Lucciola’s distinctive reverb & delay washed guitar playing and equally distinctive vocal delivery. Musically the song is part Hendrix (in his dreamiest Axis: Bold as Love phase), and part Swedish psych-rockers Dungen, embellished with subtle keyboard washes and a recorder solo in place of Dungen’s occasional flute flourishes.

 

“I Can’t See Anything” by Koizilla

Here’s some magic flute-tootlin’ psychedelic-prog rock rifferama for your Psychedelic Sunday from Dunedin band Koizilla, with their new single “I Can’t See Anything”:

Koizilla – Zac Nicolls (guitar and vocals), Hilary Faul (flute, vocals, keyboards, percussion), Connor Blackie (bass, vocals) and Josh Nicolls (drums) – have always had a bit of that accidental early 1970s German psych-prog sound to me, which is why their skillfully executed blend of riff-rock and prog-rock precision time changes has been so easy to enjoy. Koizilla are all about the adventurous risk-taking glee of melodic multi-instrumental synchronicity rather than the joyless mechanical precision of musical theory mathematics exercises that prog-rock forms can sometimes amount to.

“I Can’t See Anything” is all over the place – in the best possible way. Nothing else does what a flute does in rock music. The magic flute melodies here bounce off the riff and rhythms and when the rhythmic pulse drops away for the more pastoral passages here Koizilla head deep into the territory of Swedish psychedelic rock ensemble Dungen, which is a wonderful place to be for all of us.

“New Morning Light” by Francie Moon

It’s not often that the spirit of Ronnie Dawson comes to mind when listening to a brand new 7″ single in 2019. Dawson’s 1958 version of “Action Packed!” was an all-time rockabilly classic, sung with terrifying eye-popping enthusiasm by the helium-voiced young star. But yet here we are in mid-February 2019 with a 3 song 7″ single on Keeper Records by Montague Township, New Jersey trio Francie Moon and Ronnie’s spirit seems present.

Francie Moon is a trio but also the alter-ego of guitarist and vocalist Melissa Lucciola. There’s just a hint of early Ronnie Dawson in Lucciola’s pitch and delivery on this song, and also in the reverb-heavy guitar. This is garage rock at it’s contemporary finest – a thrilling mix of semi-feral rock and roll, rockabilly, surf rock, garage-punk, and psych-rock, all delivered with wild enthusiasm and absolute commitment.

Also on the 7″ single is “Sittin’ in the Middle” – another classic two and a half minute rapid swirl of surf-a-billy garage rock built on reverb guitar and tight interplay between Lucciola’s guitar, Adam Pumilia’s bass, and Richie Samartin’s drumming.

The last track – the 5 minute “Present Tense” – is a different beast, coming over like some weird mutant fusion of Thee Oh Sees, surf rock, and the heavy stoner psych of the likes of Comets on Fire – check the guitar solo mid-way here – before a dreamy slow-psych interlude in the style of Swedish psych-rockers Dungen, complete with recorder solo. It’s an unexpected conclusion to an exhilarating collection of songs.

Here’s an action packed video for “New Morning Light” –

“Desert Horse” by Melody’s Echo Chamber

Time for another Psychedelic Sunday don’t you think? Can’t get much more psychedelic than “Desert Horse” from the just-released new album by extraordinary French musician Melody Prochet, as Melody’s Echo Chamber.

Back from a serious accident and full of an urgent desire to enjoy a new lease of life, “Desert Horse” indicates the new album “Bon Voyage” is a bold exploration of a futuristic  psychedelia by a free spirit of music-making.

The track is, quite frankly bonkers, and I mean that as the highest praise. It makes The Flaming Lips at their most luminescent seem almost pedestrian. There’s all manner of exotic sounds caught up in this phantasmagorical whirlpool of sound. Words are not enough though, so listen and watch too:

“Where I’m Going” by Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation

Psychedelic Sunday takes us to Sweden and the music of Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation

Sweden is well known for its production line of great bands covering all shades of music from pop to rock and beyond. In the ‘beyond’ category Sweden has blessed us with psych-proggers Dungen, the world+psch (con)fusion of Goat and the retro-psych soundtrack music of Death and Vanilla.

The music of Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation is more straightforward (sort of) heavy psych with a bit of motorik ‘Krautrock’ blended in (check out the epic 6 minute closing track “Imagine You”). The album “Mirage” covers a fair range of styles while remaining a satisfying mix of accessible melodicism and more experimental psych-rock.

“Where I’m Going” here is beautifully paisley-esque in its psych-pop goodness. The ending even mixes a bit of Syd era Pink Floyd’s “Interstellar Overdrive” with it’s Brian Jonestown Massacre-flavoured jangling psychedelia.

Josefin Öhrn’s vocals are a distinctive feature of the sound of the album. Her subdued, almost whispered vocal help draw the listener into this ‘head-music’. It’s a vocal style that reminds me of the haunting music of the fabulous Samara Lubelski.

Here’s another song from the album in video form – “Rushing Through My Mind”