Here’s a new video from Brooklyn psych voyagers Cut Keys. A little story behind the video:
We travelled down to Atlanta over the weekend for 3 sleepless nights of cigarettes, dead squirrels, and music video shooting. Everyone got a bit delirious in the wee hours, and the paint gently burned our faces (see above photo).
Sink into this soaring guitar jammer from these Bushwick friends.
New Electric Ride hail from Sunderland, a metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England, situated at the mouth of the River Wear. It was here that these lads came to form their shared love of “tampuras, leslie speakers and making sounds,” and, more recently, recorded their debut self-titled EP. Sounding more like early West Coast bands than the music of their fellow countrymen, New Electric Ride recall a more refined Jeffertitti’s Nile and would bed nicely with Dead Meadow and their contemporaries. Stream “Lovers” below or visit their Bandcamp page to hear all five songs.
The Entrance Band have unveiled their a new video for their new French tune “Le Manque,” featured on their forthcoming album album, Dans La Tempete, set for release in June. Film by Paz Lenchantin, collages by Guy Blakeslee.
Read our recent interview with The Entrance Band’s Guy Blakeslee here.
Popol Vuh seems to be like the Skull & Bones of the krautrock world—once you’ve succeeded in passing a series of entry level tests, you are suddenly granted access to this magical well of musical greatness. Their name, taken from the Popol Vuh (a manuscript containing the mythology of the Post-Classic Quiché Maya people of highland Guatemala and south east Mexico) coincidentially translates to “meeting place.” Understandably, as a measure of protecting this divine secret, Popol Vuh is one of those bands you really don’t hear much about. But bring up their name to an individual who is properly enlightened and it will elicit a response similar to a holy man hearing the lord’s true name. Formed in ’69, the group released albums up until the early aughts touching on all sorts of genres from space rock to world to electronic avant-garde. In 1976, they released their most rock-aligned album, Letzte Tage – Letzte Nächte, which presents a cosmic journey from start to finish highlighted by Daniel Fischlescher’s soaring lead guitar. Discovering this band and this album was like a lifelong search coming to an end. I hope to offer the same experience to some of you.
The following songs come from Popol Vuh’s 1976 album Letzte Tage – Letzte Nächte.
Popol Vuh - ”Oh Wie Nah Ist Der Weg Hinab”
Popol Vuh – “Letzte Tage – Letzte Nächte”
Poster by Curtis Godino
Each year there’s a handful of albums that provide a soundtrack to a specific time period. Perhaps its a relocation to a new city or a new relationship, a particularly joyful time or a time of hardship—whatever it is, in many of these cases we are often reminded that music will always be our friend, and that friendship becomes an ingrained part of our memories surrounding the time period. For this writer, Pure X‘s Pleasure played accompaniment to a specific and highly reflective time during my days in New York. Putting it on brings me right back to the summer months of 2011 when I was spending a great deal of time by myself, writing in my Lower East Side apartment, strolling aimlessly through the nearby East Village.
So with that said, we’re very psyched to be hosting Pure X at Mercury Lounge next Tuesday as they celebrate the release of their follow-up album, Crawling Up the Stairs (out May 14 via Merok/Acéphale). Former Titus Andronicus guitarist Andrew Cedermark, who has a new album coming out on Underwater Peoples, will be providing support. Follow us on twitter (@doggoneblog) and keep an eye out for a chance to win tickets to the show. Hear a track from Pure X’s new album below and be sure to grab a copy next week.
Purchase tickets to the show here.
Shaking Through is a documentary series about the Birth of a Song. Each year 10 independent musicians are presented with the challenge to record one song in two days (first take to final mix). This year, one of the musicians selected for the project is our dear friend Jared Samuel (Superhuman Happiness, Minerva Lions, Yoko Ono)—also known as Invisible Familiars—who brought along a band of his fellow Brooklyn session folk to record the song “Disturbing Wildlife.”
As Mr. Samuel tells us about Weathervane Music, the good people behind Shaking Through: “It’s a non-profit dedicated to helping the unknown, the known and the about-to-hopefully-be-more-well-known-than-they-sorta-are. They do great work, selflessly. They help develop an artist the way record labels used to, in fabled yesteryears.”
Watch the episode below and head over to Shaking Through‘s website for the full story on the recording process.
Tomorrow we embark on the great journey to Austin Psych Fest where we will be surrounded by many of our favorite bands, including upcoming Chilean psych rockers The Holydrug Couple. The band played our show at Mercury Lounge with Follakzoid last month and all reports, and some guy named Harold, heralded them as one of the best new acts on the scene. They’ve just put out a cover of the French pop classic “Je t’aime Non Plus,” which means “I Love You No More.” The cover comes off the Sacred Bones compilation Todo Muere Volume 3. See ya’ll in Texas.
One of the bands we’re most excited to check out at this year’s Austin Psych Fest is the ever mysterious Swedish group Goat, who perform as the final group in the Elevation Amphiteatre on Sunday night. The band exploded onto the scene last year with the release of their debut album, World Music, on Rocket Recordings and are known to adorn animal masks on stage. Does anyone remember “mystique?”
Listen to title track “Dreambuilding” off a new 7″ out June 4 via Sub Pop.
Goat – “Dreambuilding”
Watch Yellowbirds perform a few tracks at off their forthcoming album, Songs from the Vanished Frontier, out May 28 on Royal Potato Family. Thanks to the good folks at BreakThru Radio for the viddy.
The sound of the sitar is one of the defining sonic traits of the original psychedelic era. While some harder edged psych proponents like the 13th Floor Elevators, The Seeds, and others coming from the garage school of the early ’60s can’t be said to share this trait, it’s hard to argue with the fact that many elements of Indian and other Eastern cultures were benevolently co-opted by Western psychedelic culture, beginning in the Beat era.
The story of the sitar in Western pop/rock is one where the ending, or perhaps “climax”, is well known: George Harrison’s interest in Indian music and culture brought his teacher, Ravi Shankar, to the attention of the world, and these sounds and cultural elements became huge in 1960′s popular culture and beyond, especially in 1967 when a major sitar fad went down. The Coral “electric sitar” was even created around this time to help players add this flavour without learning a new instrument (yes, the one from that tune!). The most interesting, and possibly lesser known part of the story, is the beginning. The sitar had appeared on Western jazz recordings as early as the late ’50s, and an important working relationship between violinist Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar began as early as 1952, but the audience for these was decidedly ‘niche’.
The first Western pop tune to be heard featuring this instrument was The Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood”. Some pundits, however, will point you to The Kinks’ “See My Friends” as the first Western pop tune to have an Indian vibe, and they are absolutely correct. According to Jonathan Bellman’s book The Exotic In Western Music, Eastern experimentation was “in the air” in the London rock scene in 1965, including the Yardbirds doing a quickly abandoned sitar overdub on “Heartful Of Soul”, which, had it worked out and been released, would have beaten “Norwegian Wood” as the first. The Kinks’ Ray Davies had actually been to Bombay, on a stopover on the way to Australia on an early 1965 tour, and was melodically inspired by an approaching troupe of fishermen, who were singing what, judging from the end result, seems like something from the Khammaj family of ragas. Without a single “exotic” instrument on the recording, “See My Friends” is based around a drone, while not confined by it entirely, and succeeds in creating a vibe that may indeed have influenced Harrison’s (and pop/rock’s) first genuine attempt at full blown Indian fusion, “Love You To”.
Interestingly and ironically, a movie script written by Marc Behm (Charade, Lady Chatterley’s Lover) would be the catalyst for the sitar explosion of 1967, via, of course, Harrison. This xenophobic script cast an unfavourable light on Indian culture, albeit in a playful way that was a subtle satire of James Bond films, and within the tradition of British comedy. The script was for the 1965 film, Help, and the storyline found Ringo being chased by a crazed, sacrifice-performing Indian cult. To be fair, this Kali-worshipping “cult” did have some basis in reality, but having a sitar flourish sounding nearly every time these villains appear on screen is akin to a Bollywood soundtrack triggering a Mozart riff for a “Western” villain. The set of Help is where Harrison first encountered and tried out a sitar, played by some musicians in one of the film’s scenes. Forces beyond the Beatles (in the form of film composer Ken Thorne) provided several instances of Indian Classical instruments playing early Fab Four tunes on this film’s soundtrack, plus a sitar cameo in the James Bond quote at the top of the album’s title track. Although outside of the Beatles’ artistic control, this film is what began a long-standing association of The Beatles with Indian culture and sounds. Both Help (the film) and the Kinks’ “See My Friends” were released a day apart in July, 1965.
On a break from their 1965 North American tour in late August of that year, The Beatles had some down time in LA and rented a house in Benedict Canyon, where they held what quickly turned into an LSD party (it was still legal at the time) that was attended by Peter Fonda, who brought along the Byrds, including David Crosby. This evening is the one where Fonda’s conversation with Lennon became fodder for “She Said She Said”, but more significant was the after-party hang that went down with the two bands. Crosby had been introduced to the music of Ravi Shankar some time prior to this by producer Jim Dickson, who had Crosby sit in on the recording sessions for Shankar’s 1964 album “Portrait Of Genius”. This had made an Indian music ‘convert’ out of Crosby, who insisted that Harrison (who still hadn’t done much genuine exploring of Indian Classical music) check out Shankar’s work. The seed that had been planted in Harrison on the set of Help now found a focus – to seek out the great sitar player’s music. Within a month of this encounter, the Beatle purchased a sitar at Indiacraft on Oxford Street, London. Within another month, in October of 1965, he recorded with this new instrument on “Norwegian Wood”.
Sources:
The Exotic In Western Music – Jonathan Bellman
The Dawn of Indian Music in the West – Peter Lavezzoli
