New INTOTHESTRATOSPHERE
It’s time to lose your mind, baby! __________________________________________
ALEPPO PINE Holy Picnic Alone CD/vinyl
www.alonerecs.com
Citing early Pink Floyd, Fairport Convention, Soft Machine and Ash Ra Temple as sonic signposts and
boasting a cover that truly looks like it walked straight out of a “Portuguese ’70s Acid-Folk Mega-Rarity - £350” listing on eBay, comes the debut from Barcelona quartet Aleppo Pine. The song titles – ‘Black Wizard’, ‘Magic
Dolmen’, ‘Dead Garden’ – suggest “authentic” occult-leaning patchouli-scented free festival folk-rock, and, for much of this 15-tracker, that’s precisely what you get. Sitars weave in and out of earnestly strummed acoustic guitars; wah-wah pedals vie with flutes and bells; quavering vocals float atop mantra-like four-chord rounds and, just occasionally, the percussionist puts down his finger cymbals and takes to his drum kit for a bit of Hawkwind-style tomfoolery. A delicious prospect for Tyrannosaurs Rex
fans everywhere – particularly those eager to embrace new bands but unsure where to start – but the paucity of memorable hooks or melodic rushes may well reduce this to little more than an entertaining diversion for the rest of us. Andy Morten
BABY WOODROSE Mindblowing Seeds And Disconnected Flowers Bad Afro CD
www.badafro.dk
Lorenzo – drummer of Danish psychedelic rock band On Trial, who contributed some of their best songs –
was having a pretty rough time in 1999. Fearing the demise of his band, with no girlfriend and no place to go, he ended up crashing on the couch at the house of his friend and fellow On Trial member Hobbit. Experimenting with some Hawaiian Baby Woodrose seeds (a natural psychedelic), he had a vision that inspired a new project. Baby Woodrose the band was the result, and they havesince recorded some of the best neo-garage/psych of the last 20 years. This album compiles their first demos,
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recorded solo on a small multi-track tape recorder by Lorenzo in the autumn of ’99. It’s some of the most soulful and passionate garage-rock you are ever likely to hear, filled with dramatic power and a singular fuzz-rock vision, born from a moment of pure inspiration. Richard Allen
MAMUTHONES Mamuthones Boring Machines CD
www.boringmachines.it
To give birth to a psych obsessed newborn with a bloodline directly back to the womb is something of a rarity
all things considered. Wherein the old and new borrow, as the blue eyed boys of today learn from the grey haired men of yester- year, in cross generational collaborations that at best, make for a sour mash of mixed results. Odd then that the mechanics behind Mamuthones runs contrary to such (mis)conceptions. Two parts Jennifer Gentle – Sub Pop’s avant-Italo beat boys; one part drummer – Maurizio Boldrin, 62, whose session CV includes stints with Pino Donaggio and score work for Nicholas Roeg and Dario Argento. Harnessing the percussive power of
archaic instruments such as the Tibetan bells, together they fuel unearthly experimentations reminiscent of Moondog and stylistic flirtations with ’70s legends Jacula, turning in some anguished guitar
Aleppo Pine. Stoned again
and drum progressivisms on ‘The Call’ and ‘First Born’. Making this a collaboration to finally write home about. Inked in blood. On lysergic parchment. Richard S Jones
THE PAPERHEAD The Paperhead Trouble In Mind CD
www.troubleinmindrecs.com Why am I surprised to discover that three 18 year olds from Nashville, Tennessee have made an album of uncompromisingly
authentic vintage Anglophile psychedelia filtered through the narcoleptic drones of Spacemen 3? After all, we live in an age where all music is available to everyone and nostalgic revisionism reigns supreme. The Paperhead still beggar belief though – these guys weren’t even born when the Spacemen split in ’91, never mind first generation psych deities like The Pretty Things and July, from whose ‘My Clown’ they take their name. While slightly more sanitised and not as satisfyingly “out there” as their previous long-player – the tape-only Focus In On, recorded as The Looking Glass – this digital debut is a 33-minute joyride of swirling sitar, analog synths, echoing vocals and suitably hallucinogenic sound effects over Can-like grooves, acoustic pastoralism and reversed backing tracks that well and truly stopped this old psych hound in his tracks. Andy Morten
VARIOUS ARTISTS Midlake: Late Night Tales Late Night Tales
www.latenighttales.co.uk
Midlake have never shirked in their public championing of Jethro Tull, Fairport Convention, The Band and their kin and
their appropriation of folk-rock’s warm, pastoral imagery is more than evident on last year’s critically acclaimed The Courage Of
Others.This set – assembled by the increasingly popular Texan quintet – is the latest in a series of artist-curated compilations (previous incumbents including the likes of Belle & Sebastian and Air) and features the aforementioned Fairport’s ‘Genesis Hall’ and The Band’s‘Whispering Pines’ alongside cuts from Sandy Denny,The Flying Burrito Brothers, Nico, Scott Walker, Rodriguez, US soft-rockers Lazarus and obscure UK folkies Bread, Love & Dreams. So far, so good. Sadly, dropping in comparatively up to
date cuts by The Espers, Bjork and Beach House and their own, albeit rather lovely, deconstruction of Black Sabbath’s‘Am I Going Insane’, is tantamount to stemming this otherwise free-flowing river with a pile of traffic cones. Andy Morten
THE WITCHES A Haunted Person’s Guide To The Witches Alive CD
www.aliveenergy.com
Boasting a pedigree that includes The Dirtbombs, Electric Six and LCD Soundsystem, this Detroit band helmed
by Troy Gregory and John Nash also figured erstwhile White Stripes and Von Bondies producer Jim Diamond amongst its ranks. You might expect nothing less than special then, and these 12 songs culled from their five albums tick most of the right boxes. At times, the production undoubtedly
gives the collection extra sheen: ‘Down On Ugly Street’ and ‘Attack Ov Thee Misfit Toyz’ are enhanced by expansive, fat, splashy bass and drums, trebly guitars and sibilant percussion. ‘Lost With The Real Gone’ is given a shimmering Spector-esque wall of sound style makeover,whilst ‘People What’s Wrong With You’ is a fantastic psychedelic garage foot-stomper, replete with swirling keyboards and fuzz wah. A Haunted Persons Guide To... is a useful introduction to The Witches. Rich Deakin
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