Tag Archive for psych at Candied Pop

Tag Archive for 'psych'

The New Sound Of Numbers - Liberty Seeds

Published by Scott November 29th, 2006 in Album, Review and 2006. 0 Comments

Maybe it only seems this way, but I swear every member of every Elephant Six associated band has another band that he or she leads. Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you. Hannah Jones, percussionist for The Circulatory System, provides another piece of evidence for this half-baked theory with the debut release by her latest project, The New Sound of Numbers.

Liberty Seeds is rife with layers of unusual and seemingly contradictory singsong monotone girl-group vocals. The harmonies are lush and striking but icy cold in their detachedness. I always imagine a roomful of Nico clones droning out these songs to a backdrop of kaleidoscope swirls and strobe lights.

Balancing pop with experimentalism, Liberty Seeds manages to be cohesive in its ebb and flow. Score that to their unique and fascinating vocal style. So for every “Frequency Transmission System,” which sounds like Le Tigre set to the herky-jerky rhythms of Old Time Relijin, there’s a mildly grating, tuneless psychedelic counterpart like “La.” But even with the occasional patience testing track, The New Sound of Numbers have contributed a memorable work to the E6 canon.

Mixtape tracks- Frequency Transmission System, Minimal Animal, You’ll Soon Be Singing
Freebies- None to download, sadly, but you can stream four songs from the album at the band’s MySpace page.

The Asteroid No. 4 - An Amazing Dream

Published by Scott September 15th, 2006 in Album, Review and 2006. 0 Comments

These guys have been around for a while but I’d never listened to anything by them until grabbing An Amazing Dream from eMusic. Not only did the samples sound promising, but I found out they’ve worked with Kurt Heasley of Lilys fame in the past. I figured if he digs them, they were probably worth looking into.

I’m not exactly blown away and scrounging desperately for the rest of their oeuvre, but I’m not disappointed either. An Amazing Dream is a solid album of mellow psych rock. And sure, their roots can be traced back to the original psychedelic artists of the late sixties, but what I hear is more of a throwback to the nineties. With multi-tracked vocal harmonies and guitars filtered through a Batcave’s worth of reverb, their sound recalls the more spacey Brit-pop moments of that era. AMG compares Asteroid No. 4 to another band with some of the same influences, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, and I think there are definite similarities.

Despite the detached vocal delivery and friendly guitar pop sound, there are some dark overtones to the lyrics. Topics touch upon bitter breakups, regret for having wasted time with a no longer significant other, and that time honored tradition of shooting one’s old lady down for sleeping around. The misogynous leaning subject matter actually serves well to balance the overall ethereal tone. It adds depth and drama to an album that might otherwise come across as mildly trippy fluff.

Mixtape tracks- Take Me Down, Into the Meadow
Freebies- There’s a couple of crappy 96 kbs quality mp3 downloads available at the band’s MySpace page, but I wouldn’t bother with those. If you’re at all interested in checking out the album, you can stream the whole thing from the Asteroid #4 site.

Ambulance LTD - New English EP

Published by Scott March 14th, 2006 in Album, Review and 2006. 0 Comments

Ambulance LTD plan to release an album of all new material later this year. The New English EP serves as a tasty hors d’oeuvres to whet fans’ appetites for this main course. It features two new songs: the shuffling, vaguely country title track and “Arbuckle’s Swan Song,” a smooth pop number that the AMG reviewer justifiably compares to Spandau Ballet. I also thought of Steely Dan. Whomever you want to compare it to, it’s the weakest track of the bunch and hopefully not indicative of some new direction the band is taking. Much more exciting are the two demos of songs that ended up on LP. There’s a stripped down, acoustic version of “Heavy Lifting” plus a nifty take on “Sugar Pill” that has a fat distorted bass line pushed to the front of the mix. Also included are two unreleased tracks, “Country Gentlemen” and “Straight A’s,” both mellow Brit-pop flavored gems. Topping it all off is a faithful live cover of Pink Floyd’s “Fearless.” New English is definitely worth picking up if you liked the band’s other releases, the not so creatively titled LP and EP.

I couldn’t track down any freebies but you can stream the “Heavy Lifting” demo and Floyd cover at the band’s MySpace page as well as “New English” from the band’s official site. eMusic subscribers can also download the whole EP here.

Pink Mountaintops - Axis Of Evol

Published by Scott March 5th, 2006 in Free Tracks, Album, Review and 2006. 0 Comments

I received an advance copy of this quite a while ago. Initially I played it a bunch of times with the intention of writing a review and then realized just how far in advance it was. Since the release date was nearly two months away, I set it aside until this week. Turns out the layoff was probably a good thing. I was set to pan Axis of Evol but now feel a little more favorably about it. Despite glaring and unforgiveable shortcomings, it manages to be an okay album.

Most problematic, to the point of distraction, is Stephen McBean’s lyrics. Axis of Evol has a stoner rock vibe and McBean must have been in that state of mind when he wrote the verses. That is if he wrote them all beforehand to begin with. There are several instances when the use of “la la la” or some such syllable is used to complete a thought. Whether or not the words were improvised or carefully considered, they’re rife with cliched inanity involving Jesus, the devil, plastic men, drugs, and sticking it to The Man. Here’s a sample from the first track, “Comas”: “I know I’m not headed down the highway to hell / I’m through with you devils my spirits have sung / Take what you want, what you want is for free / Free to take you and for you to take me / La la la la, la la la.” Uh, okay.

The absolute worst song is the seven and a half minute closer, “How We Can Get Free.” With just a semi-conscious sounding McBean and his guitar, it’s painfully slow, spare and confused, sounding like drug-addled improv. “Come on, come on welcome home / Baby, baby, baby you die and give up the soul / Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba,” is actually one of the verses. Seeing as there are only seven songs on the album and the whole thing clocks in at only thirty-five minutes, to include this at all and especially as the final impression was a horrible misstep. Leave this one off and Pink Mountaintops have a vastly improved mini-album or EP.

Lyrics aside, there are a couple of great songs that rescue the album. The Velvety “Cold Criminals” is a head nodding jam with a busy, wailing bass line over a repetitive two chord clang and stomping propulsive drums. The other winner is “Slaves,” a nearly nine minute slab of droning psychedelia where the mind bends along with guitar strings and wanders through kaleidoscopic chiming while the body rocks to hypnotic tribal drums. Think of it as an aural hallucination.

Axis of Evol comes out Tuesday March 7 and should be available for download somewhere. The label it is being released on, Jagjaguwar Records, is on eMusic so it will probably be there. I recommend listening to the samples and cherry picking the better songs. You can also grab a free one at the band’s Jagjaguwar page.