All posts tagged psychedelica

Sounds From The Other City Preview – Kult Country

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Yesterday I spoke about the importance of discovery at Sounds From The Other City but today I want to focus on how the festival helps to celebrate local success. It’s fair to say most of the music scene will be there in some capacity on Sunday, and its not often we all do that now, especially since the sad demise of In The City. Mancunians are competitive but always supportive, and Sounds is the perfect platform to showcase the artists we love…

Which brings me nicely to Kult Country, a band I have probably seen more times than any other in recent years. In Yousif Al-Karaghouli, they have a frontman and leader who is able to channel his emotions on stage, involving you… daring you to join him. If you want to find yourself being flung about in a sweaty mosh pit, arms and legs flailing in the air, this is the best band to do it with. You will be embraced with open arms, part of a growing Kult.

Kult Country perform at The Old Pint Pot for Wodgodforgot and Grey Lantern.

Tickets are selling fast: grab one from Piccadilly Records, Common and online through Skiddle: http://www.skiddle.com/news/all/Sounds-From-The-Other-City-2014/21202/

http://soundsfromtheothercity.com/home/

Phill Young

Lorelle meets The Obsolete – Music For Dozens

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If you like your music raw and energised then the wonderfully and obscurely named Mexican psych duo Lorelle meets The Obsolete are sure to make you fuzzy with delight. Their sound is highly infectious, a facsimile of an era when rock was fresh and exciting, edgy and dangerous – outsider music.

New album taster Music For Dozens sounds baked – like it’s peaking in the red. It oozes pure psychedelia. Electric guitars with their mid and treble frequencies dialled right up scratch at your ear drums, bleeding and crackling in waves of riff-rich sonic nostalgia. Lorelle’s heavily drenched vocal is hazy and pretty, swimming out of the speakers like a modern day Dorothy Moskowitz. It’s authentic sounding sixties style garage rock with all the trimmings – like the last few decades never happened. It’ll make you want to quit your job, grow your hair, take drugs and join a cult. Fabulous.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/121963237″ params=”color=ff6600&auto_play=false&show_artwork=true” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

https://www.facebook.com/obsoletelorellemusic

Paul Baird

Younghusband – Dromes

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From bands to festivals, psych is in vogue. So much so that the bandwagon’s already crammed tight with new artists seeking recognition and acceptance. But London based psych-pop quartet Younghusband are exciting and easy to embrace.

On the title track from their debut album Dromes, Euan Hinshelwood’s repetitive and infectious brand of songwriting hooks you in from the get go. Feverish guitars collide with a punchy bass line and some minimalist, tight and effective drumming. Produced by Nicolas Vernhes (Deerhunter/Silver Jews), Hinshelwood’s voice comes over distinctive and fuzzy-sweet – all dressed up in west coast style harmonies. Chords and melodies churn and crash together in kaleidoscopic waves, peaking like an acid trip – looping and swelling in pulsing repetition, heightening the sonic experience. It’s an addictive formula. All dynamic tension and eventually a sense of release by way of a quirky Syd Barrett-esque psych-noise freak out. When this musical genre is no longer flavour of the month, Dromes will still stand out for being really fucking good.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/75872033″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Paul Baird

SeaWitches – Space Gun

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Liverpool’s SeaWitches are spooky, exotic, raw – they make you want to dance like there’s no-one watching. Their spiky, hypnotic guitar music is a heady brew of post-punk and psychedelia.

Jo Herring and Laura Caldwell swap instruments and share vocal duties, from traditional singing to all out orgasmic moans. It’s seductive and sinister. Equal parts Kim Gordon and Nico. Backed by a rhythm section stirring up a dynamic dust cloud through some pretty off-kilter terrain. The epic, two-part title track from their excellent Space Gun EP, is a visceral and evolving, alive-below-the-hips, groin-grind, fully deserving of your attention.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/62082123″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

https://www.facebook.com/SeaWitches

Paul Baird

Kult Country – Amongst The Dead Forever

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I made a promise to myself when I started TRU LUV to avoid being one of those bloggers that only posts about a track if its a day or so old. Its a boring way to approach sharing new music as you get caught up in the race to be “first” on something instead of writing about what you love.

I mean take this video for Kult Country’s Amongst The Dead Forever, that emerged online without much fanfare back in May. A glorious collaboration with Egyptian Hip Hop’s Nick Delap, who is earning a reputation for his stunning visuals, I can’t help but feel like we’ve all missed out. The video intelligently captures through a series of eye shots, a sense of singer Yousif Al-Karaghouli’s fears, paranoia and anger.

The track itself was released on 7″ to great acclaim along with Slowburn on SWAYS. A darkly ambitious slice of psychedelica, featuring guest vocals from Ellery James Roberts.

http://www.swaysrecords.com/
https://www.facebook.com/KULTCOUNTRY
https://soundcloud.com/kult-country
https://vimeo.com/nickdelap

Photograph by Steve Garside
Words by Phill Young

Skeleton Suite – Tomorrow’s Horoscope

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With layered, fuzzy guitars, driving rhythms and chanted, delay soaked vocals, Manchester’s Skeleton Suite possess a distinctly hypnotic feel on their newest track, Tomorrow’s Horoscope

The guitar work possesses the pitch-shifting, melodic fuzz of shoegaze, grounding the noise-inspired elements of atonality. The repetitive lines from the drums and bass underpin the piece, allowing for further psychedelic guitar-based experimentation.

http://www.facebook.com/skeletonsuite

Alex McKenzie