I have a real soft spot for The See See. Feed Your Head was my fave single of 2010 and last year's album Late Morning Light, had plenty of good tunes.
The band are back with a new single, album and a few dates too. And I love the Teenage Fanclub channeling The Byrds vibe of the single, Gold and Honey. It has a wonderfully messy guitar outro and is IMO the band's finest tune since Feed Your Head.
There's more here http://www.facebook.com/TheSeeSee
Nope I had never heard of him either (well until a month or two ago) but Anton Barbeau is a prolific artist with a small but influential coterie of admirers. From his CV (started in Soft Boys covers band, moved to Cambridge for the vibe, namechecks from Julian Cope and Stuart Lee) you'd expect him to be peddling straight out of Itchycoo Park English psych, but Barbeau never quite ditches his American (he's from Sacramento) roots. There's plenty of Beatley pop here, albeit with a Californian hue, but also a whiff of the odder wing of grunge (Blind Melon, Jellyfish etc) as well as recent bands like the Dilletantes and Morning After Girls.
This compilation rounds up the best of nearly twenty years of music from his garage days in California through to hanging out with eccentric English troubadours and most of it is really rather good.
The tracks that hit home fastest are Fuzzchild, a quality chunk of English psych with an unusual extended droney chorus and Losing You Makes Crucifixion Easy, a jaunty acoustic strum apparently inspired by The Pretenders.
Barbeau also seems to benefit from a good partner as other highlights include a gorgeous duet of sorts with Allyson Seconds on If I Could Bring You Trouble and a thrashy rocker Octagon from the rather good album King of Missouri which Anton made in the mid noughties with Bevis Frond.
Also on board is the brilliantly titled This Is Why They Call Me Guru 7 from what many of his devotees consider his best work 2006's In The Village Of The Sun.
Anyone who likes the quirkier side of psych will find plenty to revel in here. As an intro to a very under-rated musician this is bang on.
pilot plane passenger – anton barbeau from Karen Eng on Vimeo.
I fell in love with the Still Corners the moment I heard their glorious Endless Summer single last year. Think 60s psych and groovy film soundtracks with a side of shoegazing all topped off by some wonderfully whispery female vocals. They are for me a musical Instagram pic - glorious colours, blurred round the edges, vaguely nostalgic but utterly beautiful.
Anyhow they have a new album, Creatures of an hour, coming very shortly and if it keeps the standard up set by the singles Cuckoo and Into The Trees it will be superb.
The band's Tumblr site is also worth a visit as they have a really great playlist on there which mixes some of my old favourites' Del Shannon, Barry Gray and Sunforest with some brilliant European film music. Check it out here http://stillcorners.tumblr.com/
Here's Into The Trees
and Endless Summer
I have been meaning to blog about Beaulieu Porch for ages now as this is a real contender for my track of the year so far. It, The Colour 55, was released as a single in February and I have been playing it non-stop since then.
Like much of BP's stuff this is proper Strawberry Fields territory. Think floaty psychedelia, dreamy vocals, extended bizarre codas - the kitchen sink basically. And it is brilliant - no one has produced anything quite like this since The Dukes and Nick Nicely in the 80s(except maybe The Shadow Kabinet)
Yet, for all its 60s trappings, I think it sounds contemporary enough to appeal to fans of bands like Animal Collective, Beach House and my favourites, Treehouse for Sunlight.
There's no proper album as yet, but if you check out the band's site there's a host of videos, including the wonderful Hey Jude in minatuire Love 80, and a playlist album of sorts to stream.
Hopefully we'll get a full on proper album soon.
The Rock and Roll handbook clearly states that the longer the band goes on (and their hunger subsides) the less interesting the music they make. There are however a few exceptions to that rule namely Aussie Psych band The Church, The Super Furry Animals and the latest additon to this rather short list, Asteroid # 4. The American Psychedelicists have been at it for well over a decade and have eight albums to prove it. Bizarrely though they just keep getting better and the band's latest release Hail to the Clear Figurines is their most essential so far. Perhaps, like The Church and SFA, they have never really achieved huge commercial success and that injustice keeps them making astonishing albums.
Now signed to the Brian Jonestown Massacre's label they have delivered one hell of an album that mixes, 60s psych, shoe-gazing, kraut rock and a touch of sunshine pop and folk into a really intoxicating brew.
It is a slavishly old fashioned album too, best heard in one sitting letting the droney guitars and druggy beats pound you into submission. Highlights? Well practically every track has something special about it, whether it be the unexpected Church style guitar solo that breezes in half way through the Rickenbacker driven jangle of All False Reasons or the Tijuana undercurrent that makes The Unknown sound a little like Love jamming with SpaceMan 3. I should also mention the quirky Monochrome Set/XTC type instrumental, In the Interest of Captain Marbles, that pops up half way through and is completely at odds with every other track.
However I'd go for The Byrdsy jangle of Got Nowhere to Go which half way through ditches its sweet melody and explodes into a brilliant droney solo. And not forgetting Be Yourself By Yourself, a huge Psychedelic rocker that recalls both Neu and the second album from The Horrors.
If you ever loved early 00s Brian Jonestown Massacre, mid 80s Church or Paisley underground bands like Rain Parade and The Dream Syndicate then this is must. You can hear it for nowt here http://stream.apolloaudio.com/The-Asteroid-No4-Hail-To-The-Clear-Figurines/ and download it here http://www.asteroid4.com/merch-detail.asp?item=Hail-To-The-Clear-Figurines
Apparently the band are coming to Europe in 2011 - let's hope that a Uk dte or two is on the list. Btw Spotify also has several of the bands' earlier albums and all are well worth a listen - start with this though.
Gotta love The Chemistry Set. The band's first proper album in ages, This Day Will Never Happen Again, is a wonderful mash-up of Byrdsy guitar, Love-like instrumental flourishes and Interstellar Overdrive set to the max.
What I didn't know was that one of the stand out tracks, She's Taking Me Down, had been remixed a year or so ago by someone called The Gato Team. It is great too and a wonderful reminder of fantastic turn of the 90s baggy psych was. From The Roses' Resurrection through to Sproston Green by The Charlatans this was proper trippy pop music underscored by very groovy dance beats. Obviously it all went pear shaped when Candyflip murdered Strawberry Fields, but for a couple of years Baggy Psych was the best musical sub-genre since Shoegazing.
So on to the vids. Here's The Chemistry Set - all seven psychedelic minutes of it.
Then next up is Spirea X from Glasgow, who if you know your indie, you'll remember as the baggy psych vehicle of one Jim Beattie - a man who left Primal Scream cos they weren't psychedelic enough. Chlorine Dream is one of many great tracks on their album Fireblade Skies which (like The Chemistry Set) can be found on Spotify. Love those droning guitars.
Exhibit 3 is a little more poppy and it comes from the much lamented by me - but not any one else - Scousers Top. Signed by Island at the height of Baggy they made a couple of Farm-like tunes and even got round to recording an album the awfully titled Emotion Lotion (also on Spotify). However tacked on to the end of that album was this gorgeous slice of acoustic psych Life Is Only Dreaming. From a faltering Teenage Fanclub type start it blossoms (at around the two minute mark) into a perfect piece of gentle psych. I know nothing of these guys but whoever wrote and performed on this record really ought to be very very proud.
Finally here's the man who invented Baggy Psych, Aussie Russell Morris and the Real Thing, IMO one of the very best records of all time.
and here's the full on six minute version
I am ashamed to admit I am very late to the party with this lot. Asteroid #4 are from Philadelphia and are now apparently working on their sixth album. The two albums on Spotify are amazing - very BJM meets The Church meets Spiritualised space rock. They even cover The Church's classic To be in your eyes. you can stream their laast album (not on Spotify) here http://www.asteroid4.com/page/bio.aspx
Just asking because there seems to be an explosion of psych bands who mix quirky 60s pop tunes, Byrdsy guitar and harmonies and wigged out keyboards, and they all appear to be Welsh. In fact I'd say that of my favourite new bands of the last 24 or so months
more than half are from the country.
The Welsh weren't always this groovy. Back in the 60s there were only a handful of top pysch bands (only Apple whose Buffalo Billycan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaHsPPPQTt4 is an absolute classic, and Eyes of Blue, who morphed into prog rock droners Man spring to mind). Of course all that changed in the 90s with the Super Furries and Gorky's, but that was a mere trickle compared with the psych tidal wave we have now.
Primer movers in all this pop grooviness appears to be the See Monkey Do Monkey lable http://www.seemonkeydomonkey.com/ which is based in Cardiff. It wears its Welsh psychness very proudly on its sleeves (it was a big deal that it recently signed its first English band - The Moles) and boasts a very fine array of bands.
Top of my playlist is the SMDM album Box by the rather brilliant Colorama. It is a smorgasbord of 60s influenced pop tunes, but thanks to some ingenious arrangements and very clever touches is way more than just a retro fest. Lead track Candy Street recalls both The Kinks, and the type of bands who appear on the wonderful Rubble collections, and to these ears in spite of its genius its only the third or fourth best track on Box. It is one of those albums too that presents you with something new each time you listen to it.
I have been playing another SMDM album - Fire Inside by The Keys - for
most of the summer. It's a bit more upbeat than Colorama with tracks that remind me of mid 80s Mary Chain, The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Charlatans. What makes it so special is that the both the songs and the musicianship (the band have been around in other bands for well over a decade now) are inspired.
The title track is a corker - an organ powered groover that's quite the equal of the classic 60s garage punk that it is rooted in. Almost as good is Chemistry, which has a whiff of Gorkys in its gentle, yet rather complex, Beach Boys-esque melody. Both songs boast some superb harmonies too. The other track you must hear is Oh Lord which sounds like it could be an out take from the BJM's masterpiece Take it from the Man - that good.
See Monkey has several other great psych bands too including the garagey The Method and The Broken Vinyl Club whose debut album is something I can't wait to hear.
The Welsh Psych revival doesn't begin and end with See Monkey though. El Goodo's genius album Coyote was oneof the very best albums of last year with its Stone Roses meets The Byrds vibe. It has been a clear influence on both The Keys and London's best new band The See See. Feel So Fine is IMO a near perfect single.
Then there's the Race Horses whose debut album from earlier in the summer, Goodbye Falkenberg, includes one fantastic amphetamine powered punky classic in Cake and lots of other rattling good tunes too.
So are the Welsh the most psychedelic nation inthe world at the moment - appears they just might be.
Regular PopJunkie readers (both of you) will know that we (both myself and the legend that is Ian Greensmith) have a huge thing for The Soundcarriers. I saw them live pretty early on and was well impressed by their debut album Harmonium - here's Ian's review http://popjunkietv.posterous.com/21st-century-psychedelic-classic-released-thi
It was like all the cool bits of your record collection (West Coast Pop Art/John Barry/Stereolab) mixed into one. It was my second favourite album of 2009 pipped only by The Clientele http://ashleynorris.posterous.com/my-top-24-albums-of-2009
The problem with producing such an amazing debut is of course how you follow it up and with Celeste the band have proved that their debut was no fluke. With the exception of Last Broadcast (featured here) it is a quieter, more assured album that has a really jazzy undertow.
Last Broadcast, with its driving Kraut Rock style beat, is for me perhaps the best thing they have ever done, though the quieter dreamy Broken Sleep with its disjointed rythmns runs it close.
Other favourites include Morning Haze, which has a strong 60s soft rock influence not unlike the amazing The Groop, and There Only Once which shows that the band have a few Tropicalia albums. Hideaway reminds me a little of NY's much missed JoyZipper.
Overall this is an album by a band who have ingested some of the greatest most unsung pop music ever and come out with a sound that is unique to them. If you want to hear something vibrant, fresh and dreamy played by some very accomplished musicians (the rythmn section are phenomenal) this is for you.
If The Superimposers own the summer days with their splendid Sunshine Pops album http://www.myspace.com/superimposers then Celeste is the album that you spin on those late summer nights.
4.5/5
