“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:

“Fade” by Mermaidens

Day 5 of PopLib’s New Zealand Music Month 31 days of May madness marathon is “Fade” from Wellington’s Mermaidens.

“Fade” closes Mermaidens’ excellent 2017 album “Perfect Body”. It’s typical of the album’s sinewy mix of post-punk, ‘shoe-gaze’ and psychedelia, building through initially fairly minimal interweaving of guitars, drums and voices into a mesmerising maelstrom of sound in the finals few minutes.

“Perfect Body” is released on Flying Nun Records and is available on LP from Mermaidens via Bandcamp or from Flying Out

“Paradise” by Thought Creature

Day 27 of our 31 Days of May New Zealand Music Month marathon is a lost classic from 5 years ago by Wellington-via-Berlin band Thought Creature that not enough people have heard. Time to rectify that with a trip to their “Paradise” (play this L O U D)

“Paradise” is a guitar-heavy psychedelic dance groove celebration which would have sounded at home on a late 1980s Julian Cope album when the 1980s psychedelic pop revival was morphing into rave culture’s transcendental dance music.

Thought Creature’s Berlin sojourn in the early 2010s and their transformation into a noisy psychedelic electronica+guitar outfit led to the formation of two of Dunedin’s best genre melting electronica+ bands today – Death And The Maiden and Élan Vital. Both Dunedin bands trace their formation to Berlin around the time this song was released and the common denominator to all three bands is Danny Brady.

There’s another common denominator too: Erica Sklenars, who appears in this live video of “Paradise” from a Berlin house party and is a regular collaborator with Death And The Maiden and Élan Vital for music videos and live performance visuals.

“Rock Pool” by Cate Le Bon

I first heard this fabulously psychedelic Cate Le Bon song a few months ago but it’s taken until now to discover it is on Bandcamp, the title track of a 4 song EP released at the end of January this year.

There’s much about the music on this EP that reminds me of the weirdness of fellow Welsh psychedelic adventurers Gorkys Zygotic Mynci and also a kind of sparse and folkish take on the playful astral psych of Super Furry Animals.

But in “Rock Pool” in particular Cate Le Bon somehow manages to (accidentally?) evoke the kind of whimsical surrealist psychedelia of the likes of early 70s Robert Wyatt and Kevin Ayers. Turns out the tracks are all out-takes from her recent album “Crab Days”. Or as Cate explains them: “”Rock Pool” is the killed darlings from the Crab Day sessions brought back to life on a classic 2-2 formation. Written under the same banner of the impossibly absurd and emerging to unimaginable bedlam.” 

Now a bit of exploration of the entire Cate Le Bon back catalogue is required…

 

“Hello Learning :)” by Fluids

Day 8 of NZ Music Month is from Auckland bedroom recording artist/ band (?) Fluids and the dreamy swirling cloud of noise they have called “Hello Learning :)”

Don’t know anything about Fluids other than that they are from Auckland, but do know that this is cool and the meandering guitars over muted but urgent percussion bit at the end is dreamy psychedelia.

It reminds me a bit of the dislocated wooziness of those odd late 1980s AR Kane singles on 4AD from a life ago which is just fine, too.

 

‘Dandy’ by Timothy Berry

While we are on a roll of NZ bedroom pop genius posts, here’s another name to add to your Bandcamp wish list – Aucklander Timothy Berry and his deliriously melodic ‘shambling sixties twee’ as demonstrated by ‘Dandy’ here:

The whole of the 7 song ‘Dandy/ Spit It’ mini-album is pretty cool – familiar landscape to me from that bedroom Syd Barrett/ Eliott Smith lo-fi aesthetic I know and love so much.

But Berry adds some ambitious arrangements and flourishes on ‘Dandy’ that hint at both White Album Beatles and Sparklehorse and elevate this economy-setting Power Pop tune into a perfect psychedelic miniature.

‘Fossils’ by Zen Mantra

Day 28 of the 31 days of May New Zealand Music Month via Bandcamp challenge comes from a Christchurch bedroom, soon to find it’s way to the world.

The debut album ‘How Many Padmes Hum?’ by Zen Mantra (Christchurch teen guitar pop wunderkid Sam Perry) came out on CD last year on Auckland’s Muzai Records. It was one of my favourite albums of 2012 and no surprise to see it being picked up by UK label Stroll On Records for vinyl release shortly.

‘Fossils’ is the pre-release single and it sums up the appeal of the album for me.

As I noted in my 2012 album round up:
“Very melodic and jangling pop which is also a bit sonically messed up… These songs are great – instantly memorable, well-crafted, noisy pop fun. Those with a love of classic psychedelic pop, ‘shoe-gaze’ pop or guitar pop from any era should give it a listen.”

‘Freedom Town’ by Full Moon Fiasco

Day 25 of the 31 Days of May New Zealand Music Month via Bandcamp challenge is from an album I somehow missed a few years ago. Although I’d heard the name Full Moon Fiasco I’d never heard the music associated with the name. Inexplicable really…

Full Moon Fiasco is mostly from the imagination of Will Rattray of Thought Creature and is exactly like it is described on the wrapper: “Washed out Psychedelia From the Bottom of the Earth”

“Freedom Town” is from the album “Cosmic Palms” and the CD is on sale (at the bargain price of only $7.50) at Muzai Records right now.

[Postscript: Sources tell me this splendid album (it really is one of NZ’s lost/ forgotten psychedelic masterpieces) was recorded on Chris Knox’s old 4 track reel-to-reel recorder – the same one that many of the early Flying Nun Records recordings were made on.]