Magic Shoppe’s four song EP Triangulum Australe was originally released “digital only” back in 2012. One of the group’s more obscure records, it has never been available on vinyl…. until now! Little Cloud Records is beyond stoked to finally get this dark, reverberated gem pressed on vinyl.
The EP’s opener, Trip Inside This House displays an overpowering psychedelic atmosphere – it’s heavy and swallows the song in one sweeping bite, but at the same time it offers an unsettling quality that drives the song into menacing oblivion. Josiah Webb weaves catchy vocal hooks through the mystifying haze, which eventually becomes the pattern of the EP.
Shangri-La in Reverse is another snapshot of this troubling psych sound, driven by a sweltering haze and a creepy, slithering beat that drags underneath. Webb’s fuzzed-out vocals are masked by a thick veil of quivering reverb, which already has to cut through that smokey guitar haze to make it to your ears. This track just goes to show the heavily characteristic nature this music has with its broad range of effects, which always makes for an immersing listening session. This is some hypnotizing psych rock.
As a kid I used to turn on the radio, lie down, close my eyes and lose myself to the sounds of music…
It happened again the other day when I started listening to the compilation “Goldfish: 10 years of Fruits de Mer Records”.
Fruits de Mer is an indie record label from Surrey, UK specializing on psychedelia, progressive rock, acid-folk, krautrock and spacerock riding on the back of the vinyl revival, even if there wasn’t one when they started out back in 2008…
In Keith’s own words:
“Established way back in 1715 (that’s a quarter past five in the evening) by Andy and Keith, we started out with the carefully laid-out plan to unearth and reissue long-lost, classic tracks from the sixties and early seventies – but the record companies with the rights to the back-catalogues simply didn’t want to know us. After several weeks of crying into our beer, we thought, “sod it, we’ll do it ourselves”…and we have. Andy decided it was time to do something different a few years ago, so FdM now consists of me (Keith) and whoever else I can rope in, usually my lovely missus, Liz. FdM releases are a right old mix of classic and obscure tracks, reinterpreted by artists who love them, respect them but want to breathe new life into them…and new songs by bands that have their roots in the 60s/70s. Go on, put on your diving gear, join the Fruits de Mer deep-sea fishing trip as we dredge up whoppers by the likes of The Small Faces, Nick Drake, Can, HP Lovecraft, The Moody Blues, Egg, Arthur Brown and Strawberry Alarm Clock…even little-known names such as The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Miles Davis get a look-in with us. Then we let new or cult artists such as The Bevis Frond, Soft Hearted Scientists, nick nicely, The Chemistry Set, Cranium Pie, Tir na nOg, Vibravoid and the mighty Pretty Things get to work in making the tracks their own. Running a vinyl record label is a sure-fire way of losing money but I’m in it for the love of it and, if you’ve read this far, you probably are too – you can find out more about FdM at www.fruitsdemerrecords.com call in for a cuppa, drop me a line any time. In the words of Schizo Fun Addict, who put together our first single, “Be brave…and keep faith”.”
Every Fruits De Mer Records release is limited and all on colour vinyl…
The catalogue numbers of this 3LP set and the bonus 7” single that comes with it (and they call “the little goldfish”) are crustacean 84 and 85 so as you realize these people managed to put a lot of releases out there…
“Goldfish: 10 years of Fruits de Mer Records” comes with tracks from The Pretty Things, nick nicely, Tir n nOg, The Chemistry Set, Stay , Beautify Junkyards, Cranium Pie, Astralasia, Sendelica, Vibravoid, Superfjord, Soft Hearted Scientists, The Honey Pot and a whole lot of other artists who really should have known better…
Goldfish focuses mainly on what Fruits de Mer originally set out to deliver – classic and willfully-obscure songs taken from, or heavily influenced by the 60s and early 70s…
Side one
Tor Peders – Theme One (Martin) from Tor Peders ‘Brev Fran Ederstorp‘ LP+7″ winkle 17
Sendelica – Venus In Furs (Reed) from Sendelica ‘A Nice Pear‘ 7″ crustacean 13
Us and Them – Willow’s Song (Giovanni) from Us and Them 7″ ‘Summerisle‘ 7″ crustacean 20
Stay – 2,000 Light Years From Home (Jagger/Richards) from the Stay 7″ crustacean 3
Tir na nOg – I Pick Up Birds At Funerals (O’Kelly) from Tir na nOg ‘I Have known Love‘ 7″ crustacean 49
Side two
The Chemistry Set – Come Kiss Me, Vibrate and Smile (McLean) from the Chemistry Set 7″ winkle 8
Hills Have Riffs – Down By The River (McCarthy) from the ‘Keep Off The Grass‘ double LP crustacean 21
White Sails – Fluff (Iommi) from the White Sails 7″ winkle 11
Soft Hearted Scientists – Caterpillar Song (Soft Hearted Scientists) from ‘Whatever Happened To The Soft Hearted Scientists‘ double LP+7″ crustacean 38
Side three
Vibravoid – Eye Shaking King (Karrer/Rogner) from Vibravoid ‘Krautrock Sensation‘ 7″ crustacean 7 (previously unreleased, extended mix)
Claudio Cataldi – Here She Comes Now (Reed/Cale/Morrison) from Claudio Cataldi ‘Here She Comes Now‘ 7″ winkle 22
King Penguin – She Don’t Care About Time (Clark) from the ‘7 and 7 is‘ box-set crustacean 51-57
Beautify Junkyards – From The Morning (Drake) from the Beautify Junkyards 7″ crustacean 30
nick nicely – Hilly Fields – The Mourning (nicely) from nick nicely ‘Hilly Fields‘ 7″ crustacean 27
Side four
Blue Zeta Giant Puppies – Journey Of The Sorcerer (Leadon) from ‘The Fruits de Mer Records Guide To The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy‘ 7″+CD crustacean 74
Cranium Pie – Baby You’re A Rich Man (Lennon/McCartney) from the Cranium Pie 7″ crustacean 8
Crystal Jacqueline – Cousin Jane (Page/Matthews) from the Crystal Jacqueline 7″ crustacean 39
Mark McDowell – Girls Of Belvoir (McDowell) from the Regal Crabomophone Annual 2014 7″ winkle 13
The Pretty Things – Helter Skelter (Lennon/McCartney) from ‘The White EP‘ (double 7″) crustacean 33
Side five
The Honey Pot – Dr. Crippen’s Waiting Room (Crowley/Greeley) from The Honey Pot ‘Ascending Scales‘ double LP winkle 25
Permanent Clear Light – Wherewithal (Ward) from the FdM 2011 Annual 7″ crustacean 16
Frobisher Neck – Isi (Dinger/Rother) from ‘Roqueting Through Space‘ (LP+7″) crustacean 13
Kris Gietkowski – I Will Be Absorbed (Brooks/Campbell/Stewart) from Kris Gietkowski ‘Music from Egg’s first LP‘ LP strange fish eight
Jack Ellister – The Man With The Biochopper (Ellister) from the Jack Ellister 7″ winkle 6
Side six
Sidewalk Society – Strange Roads (King/King) from Sidewalk Society ‘Strange Roads‘ LP crustacean 81
Astralasia – The Desert (Boulton/Swordfish) from Astralasia ‘Wind On Water‘ LP+7″ winkle 17
Superfjord – A Love Supreme (Coltrane) from the ‘Coltrane‘ 7″ crustacean 59
Schizo Fun Addict – Ogdens Nut Gone Flake (Marriott/Lane/McLagan/Jones) from the Schizo Fun Addict 7″ crustacean 1 (flake mix – previously unreleased)
…and all copies will include a bonus 7″ – the little goldfish (crustacean 85)
Saturn’s Ambush – White Horses (Carr/Nisbet) from the ‘Do Not Adjust Your Set‘ 7″ crustacean 22
Johnny Vines – Waterfall (Hess/Panka/Nadolny/Krantz) from the ‘Head Music‘ double LP crustacean 26
If you are into psychedelic rock/kraut/prog/spacerock/acid-folk this is a MUST for you…
By the end of 2017, Mark Stoermer released his album “Filthy Apes and Lions”.
From its very opening, “Filthy Apes and Lions” sounded interesting and I thought “nah… as it happens most of the time, it’s just the first song that sounds good…”
The video of the song is directed by Lee Hardcastle known for The ABCs of Death (2012), GUNSHIP: Tech Noir (2015) and An Alien Claymation (2013)
On the second track, “Beautiful Deformities”, things developed even more interesting and it became obvious that there was a kind of experimentation and psychedelia in the air…
Lyrically the songs were surreal but… still very interesting…
When “Racing In the Rain” started I said “ha! A Beatlesque track” but when the chorus came in things turned more Pink Floydish…
Ok, now Mr Stoermer got my attention, so, as mainstream bands are not my cup of tea, I had to look up to find who he is…
Bass player Mark Stoermer was on the original line-up of the American rock band The Killers but a couple of years ago he announced that he would stop touring with the band, which of course was news to me…
So now, this “Filthy Apes and Lions” album that came out through his own record label, was becoming an even more pleasant surprise.
The surreal lyrics continue on “Dwarfish Trumpet Blues” that follows and the song ends in a typical 60’s psychedelic spirit…
One more animated video was made for this song, directed this time by Rafael Bonilla. (If I got the right one, he directed the documentaries La Carta and La batalla de las cruces)
Classic music influences appear on “The Perennial Legend of Dr. Mabuse” about the fictional character created by Norbert Jacques in the novel Dr. Mabuse der Spieler.
As we all know Dr. Mabuse from the three movies that Fritz Lang did about this character, the music video directed by Yoshi Sodeoka and Mark Stoermer himself, is flirting with a 1920’s cinematographic spirit.
“Mica Rae” is a metaphor about modern life decay and a crazy rich woman.
Musically it returns to the Beatlesque feel and to the 60’s pop music forms…
The next one opens with a church organ bringing out to light another creature taken from the era of German expressionism: “Nosferatu Blues”.
The song takes an unexpected psychedelic turn with a Middle Eastern flavor while Stoermer sings “Look at me I’m a real vampire / I just wanted to live forever” and vanishes into thin air…
What follows is a 9 minute jazz-rock epic.
An instrumental piece titled “Muju’s Revenge” full of great piano, guitar and electric piano improvisation in a very 70’s sense…
The video is again directed by Rafael Bonilla
“People Take Pictures of Each Other” is the playful tune that closes the album…
As I said, “Filthy Apes and Lions” was a surprise for me.
It made me want to listen to the other two solo albums that Mark Stoermer put out…
It is a delightful album and in combination with his videos and the themes of his lyrics, it shows that he has an interest in art in general…
A job well done Mr. Stoermer…
HERE is the link if you want to place your order for the album…
A Devil’s Din is 3 musicians born across the ocean, who found each other in Montreal, drawn by a mutual love of melodic, innovative, inventive and progressive rock music. Fusing the colourful sounds of Syd Barrett‘s Pink Floyd & the psychedelic-era Beatles with the adventure of Yes, Gentle Giant and King Crimson, A Devil’s Din is a truly unique modern musical hybrid.
A Devil’s Din is the brainchild of UK born David Lines (Vocals, Guitar, Keyboards).
Based in Montreal he is joined by Tom G. Stout (Bass, Guitar, Backing Vocals) and Dominique Salameh (Drums, Backing Vocals).
By the end of September 2017 their third album titled “One Hallucination Under God” came out through their our own label, Island Dive Records.
Following “One Day All This Will Be Yours” (2011) and “Skylight” (2016) they create now a trans-dimensional triptych.
“One Hallucination Under God” is a great album that holds 9 tracks that cover a soundfield between 60’s garage and psychedelic rock.
My fave tracks are “Home”, “Where Do We Go?” and “One Hallucination Under God” but the A Devil’s Din catches your attention by the first note of the opener “Eternal Now”.
The Mysterons is a 5 piece band from Netherlands with a very unique sound.
Singer Josephine van Schaik, guitarist Jordy Sanger, keyboard player Pyke Pasman who along with bassist Peter Peskens and drummer Sonny Groeneveld are with Jungle by Night, a 9-piece collective based in Amsterdam, consisting of brothers, cousins and school friends aged between 15 and 22 years.
The Mysterons were named after the 60s series ‘Captain Scarlett And The Mysterons” and are producing high quality music which is difficult to pigeonhole.
After recent high profile performances at Lowlands, Into The Great Wide Open, Motel Mozaique, Paradiso and French showcase festival Transmusicales they put out their debut full length album ‘Meandering” in 2017.
The album has ten tracks and captures your attention by the first note.
Might be Josephine van Schaik’s high pitched voice.
She is very comfortable with middle eastern melodies on tracks such as “Turkish Delight” or Indian flavored ones, such as “Meandering”.
On the other hand, the rest of the band members are great musicians that can easily pass from groovy garage rock to psychedelia and from middle eastern music phrases to western pop.
New Double A-side Single from LA-based Space-Psych Outfit Tombstones In Their Eyes
Los Angeles’ rock outfit Tombstones in Their Eyes have announced they will be releasing a new double A-side single including tracks ‘Shutting Down’ and ‘Take Me Home’. Tombstones create walls of sound that are simultaneously sonorous and hazy. These are cavernous, stoner lullabies that descend into post-rock soundscapes and are wrapped in dark shoegazing dreamscapes.
With musical influences including The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Elliott Smith and The Melvins, the four-piece’s sound embraces a wide range of genres – from the stoner rock of Kyuss to the warped neo-psychedeia of Spacemen 3 to the cavernous and doom-laden sounds of Electric Wizard and beyond.
Recorded at L.A.’s Kitten Robot Studio with Paul Roessler (Nina Hagen, The Deadbeats, The Screamers, 45 Grave), this new release follows up the critically acclaimed ‘Fear’ EP and video for ‘Always There’ (2017), their huge sounding ‘Bad Clouds’ EP (2016), and debut album ‘Sleep Forever’ (2014).
Tombstones In Their Eyes’ current line-up is John Treanor (guitar, vocals, keyboards, songwriter), Josh Drew (guitar, backing vocals), Mike Mason (bass, guitar) and Stephen Striegel (drums).
“These songs are much more of a collaborative effort by the full band,” explains explains frontman John Treanor. “The old method was John would write the songs, James would lay down the beats from NY and the band would try to recreate the demos. Now, with the addition of Stephen Striegel as full time drummer, I wanted to make the songwriting more inclusive. This came out much better than expected – the songs are really something much different than I would have on my own. It was amazing, actually, hearing the stuff that they came up with. I was blown away.”
The band began life as a demo swapping exercise between John Treanor in L.A. and his childhood friend James Cooper, now in New York, but soon coalesced into a full fledged band. But collectives are always more than what you see on the surface. In John’s case, writing and performing songs is also a way of dealing with severe anxiety and depression, a way of talking about the subject without being the centre of the conversation, and a way of being subliminal rather than direct.”‘Take Me Home’ is about a place where you feel safe. Not the first song I’ve written about this concept. The original chorus was ‘Take Me Down’, but it was so echoed out on the demo that I misheard it when I was transcribing the lyrics, so the song became ‘Take Me Home’. That’s better anyways,” says John Treanor. “Paul Roessler, our producer, interpreted ‘Take Me Home’ as wanting to leave this earth, as in death or suicide, but that’s not the case. It’s about going home to that safe place.”
Tombstones in Their Eyes create music laced with celestial grandeur and a fuzzed out psychedelic majesty that looks out into the universe just as much as it looks inward toward the soul.
CREDITS
John Treanor – guitar/vocals
Josh Drew – guitar
Mike Mason – bass
Stephen Striegel – drums
James Cooper – synth, musical guidance
Paul Roessler – backing vocals
Produced by Paul Roessler and John Treanor
Recorded and Mixed by Paul Roessler at Kitten Robot Studios
Mastered by Alex DeYoung at DeYoung Masters
Cover Art by Trevor Tipton
Photos by Cathryn Farnsworth
Send Me Your Head Records – SND 006
The Telescopes to release ‘Stone Tape’ Album via Yard Press, Preview ‘The Desert In Your Heart’
The Telescopes have announced they will be releasing a new album, called ‘Stone Tape’, via Rome-based label Yard Press. Already they are previewing ‘The Desert In Your Heart’, the lead track from this long-play. This album follows their ninth album‘As Light Return’, released in July of this year.
The Telescopes’ new six-track offering inaugurates Yard Press’ new series of record productions. Curated by Giandomenico Carpentieri, this endeavor is rooted in the desire to create albums that are developed in close collaboration with the artists involved. The starting point is to create a concept album specially designed for Yard Press, within a free environment without creative limits, where artists can pursue the most experimental and conceptual projects.
‘Stone Tape’ is a concept album inspired by the “Stone Tape Theory”, theorized by Thomas Charles Lethbridge in 1961. The archaeologist, parapsychologist and explorer developed the idea that inanimate materials can absorb energy from living beings, and that this mental electrical energy, released during emotional or traumatic events, could somehow be “stored” in such materials and “reproduced” under certain conditions.
It has been 30 years since Stephen Lawrie founded The Telescopes. One of the more interesting bands to be on Creation Records, influencing The Brian Jonestown Massacre and the whole shoegaze, space rock and psych movements, The Telescopes are the creative vision of Stephen Lawrie with a revolving line up. Formed in 1987, they released their first record in 1988, a split flexi-disc with Loop. A string of releases followed for Cheree Records, What Goes On Records and Creation Records, each one hitting the higher reaches of the UK independent charts, some of them making it into the UK mainstream charts.
Not long after touring with Spacemen 3, Primal Scream and The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Telescopes were headlining tours themselves with support from the likes of Slowdive, Ride, The Cranes, Bleach, Bark Psychosis and Whipping Boy. The band eventually transitioned from their noise origins towards a more brooding psychedelic sound.Following the release of their second album in 1992, Lawrie put the group on hold, returning in 2002 with a renewed vigour. The late great John Peel, for whom they recorded two sessions, heralded their return and championed their ‘Third Wave’ album, exclaiming “The Telescopes have resurfaced and I am amazed and glad they are still practicing their mysterious art”.
A string of releases followed. The Wire magazine described them as having “a very real and crazy originality that carries fat tons of wallop”. The NME again found them ‘in another universe altogether, incredible”. Julian Cope championed two of their releases on his Head Heritage site, referring to their “suspended-in-space magnificence”.
In 2011, Portishead invited them to play the first ever ATP festival in London. The next year, The Black Angels / Reverberation Appreciation Society invited them to the Austin Psych Fest. 2014 brought their seventh release ‘HARM’ on Neon Sigh, involving members of LSD & The Search For God and BJM, which Drowned In Sound called “a visceral exercise in harshly constructed noise”.The Telescopes then released two critically acclaimed albums through Tapete Records – ‘Hidden Fields’ and ‘As Light Return’, offering some of the band’s most crucial listening so far. Following pulverising performances at both Manchester and Liverpool Psych festivals this year, The Telescopes are set to release their tenth album in November on Yard Press.
The band will tour in support of this album starting in January 2018. In the meantime, you can catch them live during their European tour in support of ‘As Light Return’.
TRACK LIST
01 Become The Sun
02 The Speaking Stones
03 The Desert In Your Heart
04 Everything Must Be
05 Silent Water
06 Dead Inside
CREDITS
Written, produced, arranged and played by Stephen Lawrie
Album photography by Achille Filipponi
Series curated by Giandomenico Carpentieri
Series executive production by Leonardo Mancini
Hoodoo Gurus (referred to as the Gurus by fans) are an Australian rock band, formed in Sydney in 1981, by the mainstay Dave Faulkner (songwriter, lead singer and guitarist) and later joined by Richard Grossman (bass), Mark Kingsmill (drums), and Brad Shepherd (guitar, vocals, harmonica). Their popularity peaked in the mid to late 1980s with albums Mars Needs […]
Οι VENUS VOLCANISM & IN ATLAS, σε συνεχή άνοδο, παρουσιάζουν ένα καινούριο τραγούδι σήμερα.Το ''Psychopath'' κινείται στο γνωστό σκοτεινό synth pop κλίμα του διδύμου αλλά με τονισμένο το pop στοιχείο, παρ' όλο τον τίτλο και τους στίχους. Είναι σύντομο περιεκτικό και αυτό που μπορεί να τους δώσει αρκετούς πόντους δημοσιότητας ακόμ […]
Η σημερινή ανάρτηση αφορά το LP "Makeshift Home Music", δεύτερο άλμπουμ των Poppi UK, που κυκλοφόρησε από την δισκογραφική Schemer το 1989 και απ' όσο γνωρίζουμε δεν έχει ανέβει σε blog ποτέ πριν. Προς υπενθύμισή σας, οι Poppi UK ήταν ένα συγκρότημα από την πόλη Nijmegen της Ολλανδίας και παλιότερα το 2010 είχαμε κάνει ανάρτηση για τον εξαιρετ […]
The interview below may be a case of confirmation bias on my part, but I will admit to considering that this guy makes a great deal of sense.As a parent I do ask myself if I raised my children to have unrealistic expectations of life.The answer to that is that I have.In saying that they can be anything, and they can do anything that they want, I was telling […]
