Aural Fixations

THE LAZILY SPUN
The Lazily Spun
(Camera Obscura)
OF ARROWE HILL
The Spring Heel Penny Dreadful…and other tales of morbid curiosity
(Must…Destroy!!)
ON TRIAL
Blinded By the Sun
(Tee Pee)
OUTRAGEOUS CHERRY
Supernatural Equinox
(Rainbow Quartz)
THE PETALS
Butterfly Mountain
(Camera Obscura)
PROJECT GRIMM
Huge Beings
(Camera Lucida)
THEBROTHEREGG/THE 1090 CLUB
Thebrotheregg/The 1090 Club
(Bingo Lady/Rubric)
If you laid the word "psychedelia" on some innocent bystander, the first things that would probably come to his mind would be "drugs" and "the Grateful Dead." While we can leave arguments of the basic unfairness of that generalization for another day, it's undeniably limiting to think of psychedelic music as the product of pharmaceuticals and that its end result is a bunch of failed blues musicians with little musical talent and even less cohesive faculties. There is no solid description of psychedelic rock—the 1989 edition of The Trouser Press Record Guide simply defines it as "music of an altered state," with no presupposition as to how that altered state might come to be—but hardcore music fans pretty much have an idea what to expect. Fuzzy guitars with plenty of effects like slide, wah-wah, tremolo and e-bow, a flowing rhythm section that usually keeps to itself, extra musical touches like sitar, Mellotron or strings, lyrics that, while not necessarily celebrating an altered state, at least use a more image-heavy approach, as if trying to paint pictures with words instead of making a concise statement. Even those elements add up to little more than a superficial generality—a psychedelic album may rely as much on lush, layered acoustic guitars or dense electronics as on, or instead of, distorted electric guitars. Arguably, psychedelia is like soul: hard to define, but you know it when you hear it.

But most folks don't hear it. For a great deal of people, psychedelia is confined to the 60s, the Beatles record Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and the Grateful Dead. Never mind that the genre, or style, or whatever it is, survived long past the flower power decade, the Beatles used it as just one of many colors they used to create and the Dead's only connection to psychedelic rock is that its members took a lot of acid. There was more to psychedelia in the 60s than the Beatles and the Dead; it would be a crime not to mention Jimi Hendrix (who, like the Beatles, didn't fit comfortably under a single genre banner), Spirit, Love, the Move, Pearls Before Swine, the United States of America, the Velvet Underground and dozens of others.

And there's quite a bit more to psychedelic rock than the 60s. There was a major acid rock revival in the 80s, with everyone from the Rain Parade, Plasticland and the Dream Syndicate in America to Loop, Julian Cope and Spacemen 3 in England finding themselves slapped with the tag. It's also a style that's still got much of the rock underground in its thrall today. The Flaming Lips are the most obvious and outreaching purveyors of the style, while the Bevis Frond is still king of the underground. (Though, again, it could be argued that both of these bands have pretty much transcended any easy stylistic designations.) The Elephant 6 bands (Olivia Tremor Control and its spinoffs, the Apples in stereo, Neutral Milk Hotel, etc.), the Green Pajamas, the Alchemysts, Nebula, Primordial Undermind, the Warlocks, the Mike Gunn…the list of current practitioners is huge. (For a fantastic overview of the psychedelic genre, read Kaleidoscope Eyes by Chicago critic Jim DeRogatis.)

Psychedelia is a style that's pretty much guaranteed to appeal mainly to like-minded fans, rather than to the masses, so its artists tend to make the records they want to make, the way they want to make them, without consideration of what others think. Creativity runs high, and sometimes self-indulgence is indistinguishable from pushing the boundaries. In other words, while the risk is great, the reward can be greater. There always seems to be a bumper crop of new psychedelic rock records in the figurative bins, even if you have to dig a little to find them. (more)

Album reviews of new music by:

Billy Joe Winghead

Loudly, proudly smartass, BJW sets fire to the testicles of classic rock, punk, metal and country. (more)

Chandeen

The music—mostly Harold Löwy's melodious keyboards and Antje Schulz's pretty coo—is almost painfully delicate, a fragile wisp of glass set carefully on an old wooden shelf. (more)

Dog Fashion Disco

The D.C. combo unselfconsciously tosses in bits of hardcore, New Wave, showtunes and even some jazz into its metal casserole, baking it to a slick dish that may peak the palette of those who remember Faith No More in its more extreme moments. (more)

Robin Guthrie

If you're familiar with Guthrie's prior work, this is pretty much what you'd expect: hazy, shimmering guitar and keyboard swells and languid melodies. (more)

Lazerwolfs

Lazerwolfs bring on La Rock on their third disk Get Mad, a red, white and blue collar celebration of six strings, tom toms and high volume. (more)

Andy Parsons/Gene Lewin/John Patitucci/Ben Monder

Throughout all the players just revel in the pleasure of playing straight-up, no-bullshit jazz. (more)

Joe Pisapia

Daydreams is a fairly contemporary update of the British folk-rock and American singer/songwriter sound of the late 60s and early 70s. (more)

And enjoy the in-concert sounds of the Pernice Brothers.