Obscure Heavy Psychedelia Rescued From Vietnam War-Era Obscurity – For the Tenth Time

The great thing about the Brown Acid compilations is that there are a ton of unbelievable rare treasures amid the obscure singles by marginally talented bands who did their best to imitate Cream, Led Zep, the MC5 or Uriah Heep. Yet while pretty much all these bands rescured from obscurity over the course of the series’ ten volumes sound high on one thing or another, ultimately they have one thing in common: they embraced freedom.

All but one of the songs on the new anthology Brown Acid: The Tenth Trip – streaming at Riding Easy Records – were made in the US during the Vietnam War. The privileged kids whose parents could afford to put them through college to escape the draft weren’t making music that sounded much like this. Acid rock was a working-class subculture, created by musicians who were in danger of being drafted into a war that virtually all of them opposed. There’s only one overtly political song on this record, but let’s not forget that songs which openly endorsed drug use identifed their makers as subversive. This music was more radical than most people today realize.

The first track, Tensions, is by Flint, Michigan band Sounds Synonymous. With slinky organ and fuzztone guitar, it’s basically a one-chord jam  til the chorus. The haphazard doublespeed outro is a classic 1969 stoner touch.

Instead of accelerating, Louisville’s Conception follow a similar pattern with their 1969 single Babylon, with cheap amps, a phaser and a slow blues jam that appears out of nowhere. California band Ralph Williams and the Wright Brothers’ Never Again is a hard blues recorded in mono – three years later.

Atlanta band Bitter Creek’s 1970 recording Plastic Thunder has MC5 snarl and ominous lyrics that reflect the turbulence of the era: it’s one of the album’s best songs. New Orleans group Rubber Memory’s All Together – a ramshackle Vietnam War plea for solidarity – is one of the longscale gems these anthologies are best know for, slinking along with fuzztone bass, wah-wah scratch guitar, and a bridge from nowhere to basically nowhere as well.

First State Bank put out the impressively multitracked, scampering riff-rocker Mr. Sun in that same year. The album’s lone novelty song, Brothers and One’s Hard On Me is a pretty obvious dirty joke (say the title slowly and you’ll get it).

Tucson’s Frozen Sun contribute a Hendrix ripoff with super-spacy lyrics, followed by the album’s most hilarious song, The Roach, a 1969 stoner classic by Alabama band the Brood. “Leave him around for when you begin to come down,” their singer rasps over wahs and organ and a weird white noise loop: is that supposed to be somebody toking hard?.

The album’s final cut is Tabernash’s Head Collect, a surreal 1969 mashup of the Beatles and mid-60s Pretty Things.

It’s unthinkable that any of the bands in the ten-album series could have made this music while wearing masks and standing six feet from each other. Folks, this lockdown bullshit is never going to end unless we put an end to it. It’s time to mobilize.

Surreal, Entertaining, Strangely Cinematic Themes on Curtis Hasselbring’s New Album

Curtis Hasselbring may be best known as one of the mostly highly sought-after trombonists in the New York jazz scene, but he also plays a lot of other instruments. As a guitarist, he has a very distinctive, jagged style and impeccable taste in late 70s/early 80s postpunk and new wave. He’s been involved with innumerable projects over the years, but his most psychedelic one is Curha, his mostly one-man band. Hasselbring’s music has always been defined by his sense of humor, but this is where you’ll find some of his funniest songs. The brand-new Curha II album is streaming at Bandcamp.

The opening track, Casa Grande is a tongue-in-cheek surf tune with neatly intertwining guitars and keening funeral organ, Dan Reiser supplying a low-key beach-party beat. He sticks around for the second track, Togar, an outer-space Motown theme, guest guitarist Brandon Seabrook mimicking the squiggle of the keys.

Hasselbring keeps the sci-fi sonics going in Sick of Ants!: listen closely to the watery guitar and you’ll catch his appreciation for the late, great John McGeoch of Siouxsie & the Banshees and PiL. How airy is Blimp Enthusiast, a rare vocal number? Not particularly, but this quasi trip-hop song is very funny.

The blippy Blaster comes across as a motorik tv theme on whippits. With its loopy low-register piano and clip-clop beats, Soap makes even less sense until Peter Hess’ bass clarinet ushers in a somber mood for a second. Hasselbring’s trombone appears distinctly for the first time in Murgatroid, a clever mashup of 70s disco, outer-space theme and early new wave.

With its intricately dancing web of guitar multitracks, the rather disquieting MMS has echoes of early 80s Robert Fripp; then Hasselbring takes it further toward acid jazz. He goes back to lo-fi motorik minimalism with Totally Hired, then shifts toward spare, 90s electro-lounge with History of Vistas.

He closes the album with the coyly tiptoeing Her Pebble Fusion and then Blown Bubble Blues, which is kind of obvious but irresistibly fun. Hip-hop artists in need of far-out samples need look no further. You don’t have to be high to enjoy this, but it couldn’t hurt.

Lusciously Dark Heavy Psychedelia From Solace

For more than two decades, Solace have bridged the gap between doom metal, art-rock and stoner boogie as well as any other band on the planet. There’s an awful lot going on in their songs, way beyond any kind of simple verse/chorus pattern. Just when things start to look grimmest, they like to pick up the pace, with lots of false endings. Their latest album The Brink is streaming at Bandcamp.

They get off to an epic start with Breaker of the Way, the punchy riff-rock of the verse rising to a macabre peak infused with frontman Justin Goins’ smoky organ on the chorus. The doublespeed interlude midway through is a welcome jolt of extra fight-or-flight.

Desert Coffin is slow and loopy, until the chromatic crush of the chorus kicks in: there’s no predicting Tommy Southard and Justin Daniels’ funny cop/evil cop twin guitar solo midway through. Dead Sailor’s Dream comes across as a cruel riff-rock imitation of a sea chantey, with distant echoes of both Sabbath and Hendrix.

The anti-conformity anthem Waste People is so savagely catchy that you don’t realize that it’s mostly just one chord, until they finally reach a nebulous art-rock chorus. Are they going to to doublespeed for the guitar duel afterward? Not this time.

The whole band – guitars, organ, Rob Hultz’s bass and Tim Schoenleber’s drums – lock in on the big, menacing chromatic riff that anchors The Light Is a Lie, then the stampede finally begins. The twin-guitar attack and sheer catchiness of Crushing Black bring it closer to prime Iron Maiden than most anything else here.

Bird of Ill Omen, built around a chilling Balkan-tinged riff, is their Powerslave. It isn’t just the best song on the album, it’s one of the best songs of the year, capped off with a long, searing twin guitar solo. They go back to sea chantey territory, mashing it up with brooding 19th century gospel, for the mostly acoustic interlude Shadows Fade.

That sets up the album’s title track and its bludgeoning blues riffage: it could be a classic early 70s Blue Oyster Cult epic with crunchier guitars. Finally, five and a half minutes in, we get a scream from Goins! The band take a detour toward brisk vintage Judas Priest with Until the Last Dog Is Hung and reprise Dead Sailor’s Dream with a much more unhinged sway to close the record: the ending is too good to give away. Watch for this on the best albums of the year page if we make it that far.

Iron Rider Play Sludgy Sounds to Get Lost In

Stoner metal band Iron Rider’s album Wondering If You’re in Hell By Now is streaming at Bandcamp. It’s basically a heavy metal sonata, a simple, crushing theme and variations. It’s also especially sludgy: the bass will rattle your walls if you have something other than a phone to play this on and you turn it up loud enough.

Julian Agneta’s distorted, downtuned bass pushes the opening instrumental, I’ll Find You, from sludgy, hypnotic riff-rock to a hazy boogie. They don’t bother to budge out of that same key until the slowly swaying Drifter is more than half over: nice long scream from frontman/guitarist Mark Grillo after the first verse!

He takes the distortion off for the forlorn intro to An Old Low, then brings it back when the crackling bass enters the picture and completely dominates the lows: the momentary sheets of guitar distortion that rip the sound from an unexpectedly quiet, stygian interlude are a sweet touch.

They segue from there into the ominous instrumental Bonfire. Then they pick up the pace with drummer Michael Livathinopoulos’ surprisingly spring-loaded groove in Beg, its doomy interludes and Iommi-ish guitar multitracks. There’s another segue into the album’s final, best and most gloomily chromatic cut, Justice. In a style where players sometimes noodle aimlessly, this band’s incisive riffage and interesting textures – what the hell is that wah they’re running the guitar through, for example? – are a breath of fresh air.

A Surreal Psychedelic Rock Rediscovery From 1970

As the world first started to discover shortly after youtube went online, the big record labels’ history of music was a big lie. Here in the US, Kasey Kasem’s American Top 40 and the Billboard Magazine charts only told a small portion of the story. There were thousands and thousands of bands and artists who never had a hit record – or never even made a record – who still made a big impact on their home turf. One of those bands was Ice.

They came out of Indianapolis in the late 60s, sounding like no other group on the planet – except early Spinal Tap, if that band had been real. The lead instrumentalist on most of their songs was organist Barry Crawford. Their more riff-oriented songs bring to mind Spooky Tooth, but Ice were a lot more than your typical proto-metal band. Their vocal harmonies reveal an early BeeGees influence. One of their singers affects a raspy ersatz blues delivery. Their lyrics can be ludicrously funny. And the song titles pretty much speak for themselves: Running High; I Can See Her Flying; He Rides Among Clouds.

Ice released their lone full-length album, The Ice Age, in 1970. Riding Easy Records has just reissued it – on vinyl of course, and you can hear it on their album page. It’s easy to see why none of the major labels were interested in this band: their music is wildly original, veering from one style to another. Take the first track, Gypsy, with its simple wave-motion hook, jangly Byrds twelve-string guitars and smoky Procol Harum organ. It could be a sarcastic look at anomie in a dead-end town, or something less ambitious. It has absolutely nothing to do with Romany people.

Satisfy is a total Spinal Tap moment. Set to a chugging Spencer Davis Group vamp, it’s about a guy who lives for being onstage, bitching about all the time he has to spend away from it. 3 O’Clock in the Morning could be the Move taking a stab at Penny Lane Beatles, punctuated by lead guitarist John Schaffer’s keening slide riffs and haphazard blues over torrential organ.

Frontman/bassist Jim Lee’s slithery slides punctuate rhythm guitarist Richard Strange’s simmering, cheap tube amp chords in Copper Penny – the attempt at a jam midway through is hilarious. Drummer Mike Saligoe adds a light-fingered, marching touch to Catch You, a pop song with a couple of bluesy electric harpsichord solos.

Running High turns out to be the heaviest, most toothsomely spooky number here. I Can See Her Flying seems to be an attempt at Memphis soul. They follow that with the bizarrely rising and falling Run to Me: “Every day of my lonely life, I wish I had a wife,” is the lyrical highlight.

He Rides Among Clouds is religious: by the time the song is over, this messiah’s “heavy beard” has earned not one but three mentions! The album ends with the catchy organ-driven instrumental Song of the East – does this mean that the band met the guy with the heavy beard and found nirvana, or dharma, or whatever that is? No, just take another hit, you probably need one after all this.

Fun fact: during their brief lifespan, Ice managed to open “for national acts like Three Dog Night, [Detroit MC5 contemporaries] SRC, Kenny Rogers & the First Edition, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and others.”

Disquieting, Enveloping, Psychedelically Layered Sonics From Lord Buffalo

What was this haunting, savagely layered one-chord epic with a weird, possibly Pacific Island title doing on the hard drive here? Turns out that it’s Raziel, the seven-minute opening track on Austin band Lord Buffalo‘s latest album Tohu Wa Bohu, streaming at Bandcamp. They like slow, menacing themes; they don’t change chords much but they make them interesting.

That particular song is the missing link between the Friends of Dean Martinez’s southwesern gothic and Mogwai’s grim, cold concrete council estate tableaux. Through D.J. Pruitt and G.J. Heilman’s layers of guitars over the slow, steady beat, the heathaze is impenetrable, and frontman Pruitt makes that clear. But he holds out hope, dodging shards of reverb as they filter through the mix.

The band pick up the pace, building to a steady stroll with Wild Hunt, which has two chords, smoky sax, Brockett Hamilton’s piano and a Nick Cave influence along with the guitar torture. Troubled music for troubled times.

“This is the night, she don’t need nothing at all,” Pruitt intones, cold and deadpan, as the third track, Halle Berry gets underway, jagged quasi-funk guitars over a murky slink. Very early 90s New York gutter blues, a slower take on the Chrome Cranks maybe.

Dog Head comes across as a strung-out blues take on Joy Division’s The Eternal. “Be careful, you don’t know this song,” Pruitt warns as Patrick Patterson’s violin joins the guitars and the cloud congeals to toxic density. The title track is a slow, loopy mashup of jagged 70s no wave and early Dream Syndicate.

Cicadas cry, vehicles break down and night looms in all too soon in Kenosis, a mashup of understated Oxygen Ponies menace and sunbaked My Education atmospherics leavened with tinkly vibraphone and piano. The band open Heart of the Snake as a venomous take on an early 60s summer-house theme, then bring in creepy layers of organ and guitars: Alec K. Redfearn‘s work comes to mind. They segue from there into the loopy, careening Llano Estacado to wrap up the album in a ball of flame. You might ask why, in a time where we need to focus on shutting down the tech Nazis who keep flipping the script behind the lockdown, that it makes any sense at all to listen to something this amorphous and escapist. Hey, we all could use a break right about now.

Edgy, Upbeat, Relentlessly Uneasy Greek Psychedelia From Trio Tekke

Trio Tekke play Greek psychedelia that looks to the Middle East as much as it does to the first wave of Greek psych-rock bands from the 60s. Zola Jesus‘ most straight-up psychedelic adventures are a point of comparison, as are the first wave of 90s revivalists like Annabouboula, although Trio Tekke have a sparser, less dance-oriented sound. Their new album Strovilos – meaning “whirlwind” – is streaming at Bandcamp.

The first cut is Tempest of the Dawn, a spare, Middle Eastern-tinged melody emerging from Antonis Antoniou’s echoey, allusively Middle Eastern flavored tzouras lute, Lefteris Moumtzis’ guitar, Colin Somervell’s bass and Dave DeRose’s drums. The lyrics are in Greek, although the album comes with translations: this one is a trippy bacchanal narrative. That’s a common theme throughout the rest of the album.

Electric bouzouki clangs and Farfisa organ blips in and out in the similarly spare, more mysterious On the Street, pulsing along on a tricky 10/4 beat with fuzztone bass. Then the band work their way up out of a pensive lauto intro to a creepy, watery, hypnotic groove in Rotten Luck

Fueled by a piercingly gorgeous, chromatic electric bouzouki melody from Antoniou, the rembetiko art-rock drinking anthem I Erase the Day has a slow, syncopated pulse: imagine Greek Judas without the heavy metal thump. Moumtzis’ lingering guitar contrasts with the ring of the bouzouki over a muted, dancing beat in the album’s title cut: it’s anything but stormy.

The band go back to strangely altered, more optimistic rembetiko atmosphere with The First Day, echoing the days when prisoners of the brutal dictatorship of the 30s languished in jails, plotting their escapes. In Breathless Shriek, the band continue that theme more darkly, without the metaphors, over balletesque syncopation with starry, incisive guitars and keys.

The album’s poppiest and most playful number is the taverna dance tune Shooting Star. With its incisive riffs, Karmic is the closest thing here to classic 70s British psychedelia: think early Genesis with Greek fretted instruments instead. The trio close the record with Electric Sighs, a Romany-tinged waltz with dub echoes. Further proof that the best psychedelia these days comes from places far from where it was invented.

Trippy Tropical Sounds From Rising Stars of the Once and Hopefully Future Barbes Scene

When Chicha Libre, the band responsible for introducing so much of the world to psychedelic cumbia, went on ice, their legendary Monday night Barbes residency was turned over to a new generation of slinky, trippy tropical acts. Locobeach were the first of that wave of acts to put out an album; now it’s Los Cumpleaños’ turn. Their debut release, Agua – streaming at Bandcamp – officially comes out today: a year from now, we can say “¡Feliz!”

Let’s just hope the band – singer/percussionist Nestor Gomez, keyboardist Eric Lane, trombonist Alex Asher and drummer Lautaro Burgos – are still around so that can happen. Barbes is cold and dark right now, and who knows how much longer musicians in this city can hold out without running out of basic necessities. Of course, there are always underground shows…but that’s something we can’t discuss here.

For now, we have the album. The first track, Camarones has shapeshiftingly loopy beats, blips and swirls from the synth and echoey trombone that echoes another Brooklyn band, deep dub reggae crew Super Hi-Fi.

There’s also classic 70s dub inside the the techy swirl and warp of the epic, practically ten-minute title cut. “Ole drinking water, keep on running,” is the message. To bad they had to autotune the vocals: a version without them would be infinitely more fun.

With its Balkan bagpipe loops, cascades, swells and fuzzily pouncing video game textures, Sonrisa will defininitely make you smile. A long, drifting outer-space baroque theme introduces the last song, Baile la Cumbia. Finally, the band stop teasing you and bring in a groove out of all that sticky green dub.

A Mighty, Epic, Surreal Double Live Album From King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard

Australian rock can be very surreal, and there’s none more surreal than psychedelic road warriors King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard‘s vast catalog. They put out albums at a frenetic pace, have a passion for edgy Middle Eastern tonalities and don’t show any sign of slowing down. Their latest release, Chunky Shrapnel – streaming at Bandcamp – is a lavish double live lp recorded at several European festivals last year. It’s the band at their most squalling, three-guitar intense: the swoosh and swirl of many of their studio records gets switched out for a roaring attack and a deliciously Balkan-tinged triptych at the end.

After a murky, ambient soundscape, the band launch into the sarcastic faux-lounge of The Rover. About three minutes in, they take a pause and then shift into high gear for some Os Mutantes tropicalia, a haphazard guitar solo from frontman Stu Mackenzie kicking off a long quasi-funk jam.

The group take their time straightening out the rhythm as they segue into the wryly titled Wah Wah, Ambrose Kenny-Smith’s organ lingering behind the guitars of Joey Walker and Cook Craig, As drummers Michael Cavanagh and Eric Moore pound away, they shift right into the jubilantly galloping, metal-tinged Road Train.

Lucas Harwood’s tricky, loopy bass riffage propels the distantly Middle Eastern-flavored Murder of the Universe, ablaze in oscillating guitar distortion. They hit a hardcore drive with the furious eco-disaster parable Planet B, winding down to a boomy bass loop. A London crowd goes nuts for a silly drum solo; then the Lizards (Wizards?) pick up right where they left off with a pummeling, acidic take of Venusian 2, from a Milan gig.

Hell is pretty much straight-up thrashmetal, with more of a delicious Middle Eastern chromatic tinge: it’s one of the record’s high points. The White Denim-style pseudo-soul of Let Me Mend the Past makes a jarring segue, even with its tastily shrieky guitar break.

The Turkish-flavored Inner Cells, with its tricky tempos, suspenseful keys and icepick bass, is another killer cut. The synth cleverly picks up that same Balkan riff and runs with it in Loyalty, switching out eventually for brooding mellotron. They continue the magnificently dark, dancing interlude with Horology and cap off the record with practically twenty-minute take of A Brief History of Planet Earth, part Grateful Dead, part Doors LA Woman with a little Balkan punk and Jethro Tull mixed in. This is one of the best albums these guys have ever made – and they’ve made a bunch.

The Dream Syndicate’s Most Epic, Psychedelic Masterpiece: A New Double Vinyl Record

The Dream Syndicate distinguish themselves from the legions of jambands out there with the sheer intensity and focus of the guitar duels between bandleader Steve Wynn and lead player Jason Victor – and their songs’ carefully crafted narratives. One of the band’s signature moves is to take Wynn’s tightly wound three-and-a-half-minute riff-rock gems and thrash the hell out of them.

Their new double viinyl album, The Universe Inside – streaming at Bandcamp – takes a turn in a radically different direction. It’s a suite, by far the band’s most psychedelic record: history may judge this as the fullest realization of the vision Wynn introduced on the band’s influential debut, The Days of Wine and Roses. There are element of jazz, art-rock and latin music here, but ultimately this is its own animal.

Bassist Mark Walton more or less loops a catchy, dry, trebly riff as Wynn and Victor triangulate in a spare exchange with guest Stephen McCarthy’s lingering guitar-sitar to open the album’s twenty-minute first track, The Regulator. Shards of reverb and sputters of sparks from the amps punctuate those succinct phrases amid the swirl and pulse: Chris Cacavas’ echoey electric piano becomes the icing on this space cake. With drummer Dennis Duck and percussionist Johnny Hott’s supple shuffle groove, Carlos Santana’s late 60s jams come to mind, but also Isaac Hayes’ sprawling psychedelic soul vamps – and Meddle-era Pink Floyd, and Angelo Badalamenti’s David Lynch film themes.

There’s a spoken-word vocal that concerns soothing the soul and blown fuses, both things this band know something about. Marcus Tenney’s one-man horn section wafts through the mix – some sax, some trumpet, sometimes both, frequently evoking Sonny Rollins’ work on the Stones’ Waiting on a Friend. It ends as you would expect it

The groove expands, the spacerock becoming more drifty in the second track, The Longing. This tragedy occurred “Like it happened moments ago, distant across the chasm…the harder you try to fix it, eliminate, deep-six it, all that remains is the longing,” Wynn sings, pushing against the top of his register.

The three six-string guys – that’s McCarthy on six-string bass here – trade off warmly major-key Ticket to Ride phrases as Apropos Of Nothing gets underway. It’s a classic, cynical, allusively grim Wynn narrative

What were you expecting
What did you become
Apropos of nothing
Chain reaction before the fall

And just when the band have lulled you into an alterred state, they hit a crunchy, roaring What Goes On drive.

The sardonic jousting that introduces the instrumental Dusting Off the Rust – a line from The Regulator – is one of the album’s funniest moments. This one’s a gritty slinker, a trippy dichotomy of punchy riffs and swirling cascades in the same vein as the spidery Topanga Canyon Freaks, from Wynn’s iconic 2001 Here Come the Miracles album.

The record’s final cut, The Slowest Rendition rises from a web of aching bent-note cries, to a pummeling drive and then a brooding, summery haze. Elegantly animated interplay aside, it’s one of Wynn’s most haunting, death-fixated songs. “Chaos flickers in the night” on “this silent, darkening, empty beach,” his disembodied narrator bracing for what comes next as the sax winds down. It’s an apt ending from the guy who wrote John Coltrane Stereo Blues. If there’s still a reason, or a means, for music blogs to exist at the end of 2020 – let’s hope there are – you will see this high on the annual best album of the year list here