Recording review - Acid Baby Jesus, Selected Recordings (2014)

Psychoactive dandelion seeds propagated from the past
^3.5/5.0 

Imagine the scattered groups in the 1960s that invented the various flavors of psychedelia. Even in their wildest trips, they probably never dreamed their legacy would still be around some 50 years later, popping up all over the world. Driving that point home, Greek tripsters Acid Baby Jesus have taken up the retro freak flag, adding their own modern touches. Selected Recordings shows that they've studied the past for more than just the surrealistic band-naming conventions and that they can occasionally rise above their sundry influences. Fragmented reflections of The Animals, It's a Beautiful Day, and the Zombies flicker around the edges, but Acid Baby Jesus also tap into more modern garage psych sounds like Thee Oh Sees and Nobunny. While Selected Recordings is a pleasant retreat from reality, the first half of the album is strongest, with better production and arrangements.

The trip peaks early with "Diogenes", which is full of the jangled chimes of sunshine psychedelia. It offers a good mix of Beatlesque meditation, Northern California haze, and Pink Floyd disorientation. The initial guitar riff is reminiscent of The Velvet Underground, but the vocals quickly take us into the direction of "Within Without You" and the instrumental breaks slip into "Careful With That Axe, Eugene" angst. The band meanders around the droning Indian scales and windchime rhythm, but the song never loses its pop orientation. A purist might complain that it's all a bit derivative, but it's a pleasant introduction to the band.

The sound gets a bit heavier with "Row By Row", which is a bit more typical of the album, with bass driven grooves providing the foundation for the guitar to provide the sonic warpage. The real gem of the album comes a few songs later with "Ayahuasca Blues (Unmanned Drone)". The droning sitar buzz, detuned guitar, and pensive bass conjure up a dimly room, fogged with incense smoke. The vocal chants create a tribal tone, but the classic psychedelic elements are accompanied by a more modern industrial edge. There's a low hum of chaotic grey noise that builds throughout the all-too-brief four minutes. A paranoid ear might hear it shift from mere sitar feedback to shouting children, birds massing, or brakes squealing. While it's not a recommended soundtrack for bad trips, it is the most intense piece here.

The rest of the album is filled out with plenty of messy garage rock and the occasional change up, like the folk psych simplicity of "You & Me". While Acid Baby Jesus never quite break enough fresh ground to become my new favorite band, Selected Recordings stands up well to repeated listening and they've got a few more tricks than some of their peers in contemporary neo-psychedelia. The only change I'd make is to drop the closing instrumental, "All of Your Love". It opens with ambient reflections of detuned guitar that promise a dreamy surrealism, but it quickly resolves into a shuffle beat space-folk vamp with jaw harp boings and a quirky feel. The bait-and-switch colors my opinion, but the truth is that title never finds a home in this cartoony tune. That's a minor gripe, though.

Recording review - Woods, With Light and With Love (2014)

Little clarity, but plenty of relaxed acceptance

Woods’ 2011 album Sun and Shade offered truth in advertising, tempering their bright folk sound with hazy if not truly dark psychedelia. Their followup, Bend Beyond (2012), honed that edge with songs that balanced simple acoustic strums and delicately distorted fills. On With Light and With Love, the band continues along the same path. While each of these records makes its own statement, Woods hasn’t wavered or evolved their aesthetic approach along the way. Instead, they’ve polished their studio and songwriting skills to approach their ideal: the sunny side is distilled into crystalline clarity, and the shade offers hints of mystery and hidden connections.

The album opens with the lazy beat and light steel tones of “Shepherd”. The song evokes both Bob Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” and Graham Nash’s solo work. If every tune has a perfect home where it belongs – “We Will Rock You” in the stadium, “Us and Them” in headphones on a dorm room floor – then the beautiful simplicity of this tune calls for a starry mountain night with friends and a campfire. Jeremy Earl’s breathy falsetto is lightly flanged and distant, making him less a friend offering perspective than a niggling voice of conscience, “Look out, what’s upon you?/ It’s a shepherd for your sorrow/ And this one, it burns for me and for you.” Earl’s words are rarely self-consciously oblique, and they sound good in the ear, but, on closer inspection, real meaning is elusive. Maybe the vocal treatment muddies the lyrical water, but it’s hard to make sense of lines that sound like, “A skull for roses bleeds the past/ it’s the shape that never lasts/ And this one, it grows for you.” If the literal message is vague here, the ambiance of the tune is clearer. That pattern persists through With Light and With Love. The band’s musical prowess has improved, but their lyrical skills are still lagging.

The album’s climax comes relatively early, with the nine minute title track that showcases Woods’ love of heady noodling. The steady progression stalks forward, anchored by a rich melodic bass and attended by meandering electric fills. In this context, Earl’s high pitched singing sounds like John Gourley from Portugal. The Man, but the vocals are not really the point. The real focus is the mix of pensive tension and resolute action. There are long periods where the guitar lead chatters in the right channel, full of sound and fury, but when it desists, it reveals a keyboard riffing hypnotically, low in the mix. Near the five minute mark, after another chaotic splash of acidic guitar distortion, the instruments drop away and the song becomes a Pink Floyd tribute. With simple organ chords and a heartbeat bass, it’s a bit like “Careful With That Axe, Eugene” for a short respite before an earlier motif reasserts itself with ragged energy. Unlike Bend Beyond, which reined in the band’s excesses, Woods shows absolutely no restraint as they ride this epic piece through its changes.

The long-form jam of “With Light and With Love” seems to open the floodgates, allowing spacy details to permeate the following tracks more fully than the first songs. The bridge in “Moving To The Left” slips into surrealism, spaceship sound effects kick off the retro sunshine psych of “Twin Steps” and the end of “Feather Man” descends into an ambient meltdown. But none of these hallucinatory ripples overcome the band’s peaceful sense of acceptance. Woods maintains a dreamy Zen detachment that emphasizes the light and an abstract love.

(This review first appeared on Spectrum Culture)

CD review - Jonathan Segel, All Attractions (2012)

Genre bending sounds support well written songs

Multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Segel was an essential member of one of my favorite bands, Camper Van Beethoven. His violin and other string instrument contributions gave the band's psychedelic folk pop an exotic flavor. From song to song, the band would surprise me by jumping from Eastern European gypsy music to goofy ska to trippy acid-soaked jams. While David Lowery was the voice of Camper Van Beethoven, Segel often seemed to provide the musical will for the band.

Because of this history (or maybe in spite of the past), I tried to set aside my expectations when I first started listening to Segel's new solo album, All Attractions. I knew this wouldn't be CVB and I didn't want to be disappointed. Within a handful of seconds, though, I fell in love with this album.

The opening song, (Ever and) Always, starts with a lazy, fiddle infused jam that builds a pregnant sense of expectancy. Each time the lightly psychedelic vamp circles back, new musical elements ripple through. It has the same nascent possibility created by a good Grateful Dead jam.

About five minutes into the song, though, the open ended wave function collapses the music into a solid, rocking song. This transformation disperses any sense of self indulgent Dead-style meandering. The changes are tight, with a Dramarama power pop feel. If the beginning seemed to ask a question, the second section asserts a clear answer:

So now I'm wandering through this world of forms
To find a blanket, keep you safe and warm
I'm asking every line, every shape, every point
Until I find the right thing for you
Because always is now and will be always to come
For every moment, under the sun
The water, the air, and the earth and the clouds
Are always telling me so
Because I'll always be there
Because I'll always be right beside you

With that reassurance, I slid into the rest of the album.

The second track, Hey You (I Know You Know Me) summons a mournful folky CVB sound that begs for David Lowery's voice. Track by track, All Attractions reveals Segel's driving influence on Camper Van Beethoven or maybe CVB's lingering effect on him.

Psychedelia, indie rock, power pop, and folky sounds pervade the whole genre bending project. Another favorite track, What Goes Around builds a cryptic narrative on top of a Tom Waits style rhythm:

You are the detective searching for clues
Trying to find out who killed you.
But you are the killer, leaving no clue
To evade the detective who is searching for you

Like a strange dream, the driving flow is inescapable. It's a twisted logic world as the song veers along some hidden track. "What goes around, comes around" is the circling mantra, as children's voices take on a disturbing flavor. The track comes to an end and the dream fades into the more resigned blues feel of The Dark Touch.

All Attractions evokes the magic of the early CVB albums with higher production values. Segel puts more of an emphasis on his guitar than his other instruments, but the album never sinks into predictability. Give a listen at Segel's Bandcamp page and also check out the companion instrumental album, Apricot Jam.

CD review - Cloud Control, Bliss Release (2010/2011)

Rich retro harmonies fill out psychedelic folk sound

Australia's Cloud Control have built a big reputation back home and started making waves in Europe. Now their debut, Bliss Release, is due for release here in the US.

Cloud Control cover some of the same terrain as other indie folkish artists like Fleet Foxes or Arcade Fire: guitar jangle, a mix of acoustic and electric instruments, and a retro haze permeating their music. Cloud Control stakes their own claim by leaning more towards a psych folk vibe and building rich harmony arrangements. These harmonies are where the band truly shines.

The opening track, Meditation Song #2 (Why, Oh Why) is the perfect representative for the band's sound. The simple folky start with sweet harmonies sounds like the Mamas and the Papas. The easy acoustic sway is pretty, but then a low level guitar distortion adds a fill of notes. A moment later, that distortion moves in with acid rock intensity and drives the rest of the song. The psychedelic feel reorients the harmonies to classic psych folkers, The Association.

But the full musical sound never buries the harmonies. The male and female vocals meld, then exchange lines. The voices maintain a kind of sunshine openness that contrasts with the intensity of the music.

On the other hand, songs like Death Cloud prove that Cloud Control can play solid indie rock, too. The driving beat and staccato bassline are more modern. But once again, the harmonies add complexity and depth to the song. Despite the threatening title and lyrics, the sound is open and joyous.

Cloud Control breaks up the love-fest with songs like Ghost Story or My Fear #1. The moody chanting and repetitive drone on Ghost Story build a delightful tension, even as the chorus offers a quirky diversion:

We are the sole protectors
We are the soul collectors
We follow solar vectors

The music is full of rhythmic details. Despite these darker moments, Bliss Release is ultimately an affirming listen. The retro sunshine resonance lingers like a sip of Barenjager honey liqueur.