Psychelic From Japan

In three weeks I will join my youngest brother again for the annual open-air festival in Mannheim. Bands and timetable are out now and I have to deal with the bands because a lot of them are new to me. They announced a band from Tokyo, Japan called Kikagaku Moyo. Wiki describes them as a Japanese psychedelic band. Their name means translated 'geometric patterns' - whatever they will tell us with this name. And indeed it is psychedelic music that was made in the late 60's. I ever called this music drug music because if you were on an other level you might not understand what it means. Anyway, not only a retro band, actually a band that lives this sound.

Shades

Thank god it is weekend and a few days off. I think I am going to have another relaxed weekend visiting my mom for a few hours to talk to with my brother and going later for a few pints at our pub next door. Maybe I will watch my team playing the first round in German football cup on TV later this day but I don't wanna plan this day like I used to do during the business week. Seems to be a peaceful quiet weekend with no dates. So let's start with a new song from Leicester's probably best new psychedelic, drone and experimental band now Children Of Leir. This song  is from their upcoming new album and it is another piece of nowadays psychedelic movement. Seems like more and more bands turn into this kind of genre - and it is good in this way.

The Ice Saints are gone and the summer is still not in sight. In Germany and other parts of continental Europe it is a popular belief that in a period of May the last days of night frost is falling on the feast days of certain saints and after these days summer will appear. Now it's Whitsuntide and looking out of the window I can only see rain and cold outside. Like many others I have enough of the cold and wet days and looking forward to brighter days. Otherwise you weren't led to outdoor activities and you have time to read a good book or listen to your music.

Cavern Of Anti-Matter are a Berlin based krautrock-inspired band featuring Tim Gane and Joe Dilworth both from Stereolab. A few months ago they released their latest record and now I got the time to listen to it closely. There sound is based on the synths of Holger Zapf. He prepared the ground for guitars and drums. It is psychedelic, krautrock and modern. Of course they learned by Can, Neu and Kraftwerk - but this weren't the worst teachers.

Drowning In Fear

I think the Swede posted this band a few weeks ago on his heavy rotation and I investigated for them. The result is absolutely brilliant. Children Of Leir are a new psychedelic band located in Leicester. Absolutely spacey and far out of time. But their rhythm and groove is one to listen to and takes me back to old Krautrock days. Crazy guitars over a permanent groove. Worth to listen to.

HOLY

The last days I was working on my 2015 list of albums that are worth to be named in my annual list. I thought by myself it would be nice to feature 15 albums until the end of the year. I couldn't finish the list yet because I investigated on new albums and found some artists that impressed me much. One of those records that attract my attention was HOLY with their album Stabs. Flooded with lo-fi aesthetics, garage sensibilities and soaring psychedelia this Swedish quintet takes you back to the late 60s. It's like a journey into distortion and feedback, reverb-doused refrains, blazing riffs and distinctively obscured vocals. Not sure if this album will reach my list but I listen to it often the recent days.

Uncle Acid Is Back Again

Autumn and spring it the regular time for bands to promote their newest albums. So it was with Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats. I saw them a last week in a small club where the most artists have a background in the punk/new wave era. I knew their latest record and got into the gig for a very small money and didn't expected very much than a good evening. What I got was a concert that brought me back to the psychedelic and hard rock era when bands like Black Sabbath ruled the scene. Heavy guitars over a doom sound with a singer that is more to melodic rock than to this heavy sound. They built a wall of heavy sound in front of the audience to slip into slow, psychedelic improvisations. And the sound almost blew me away. Massive, direct very own they gave the audience a feeling being back in times. It is surely not the kind of music I listen often at home but it was the sound for a really good live concert. Even the slow song have a lot of psychedelic magic.

Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats - Slow Death
Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats - Yellow Moon
Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats - Waiting For Blood

The Foreign Corresondent Returns - Stories About German (Rock) Music # 48

Shiny Gnomes were a Psychedelic/garage band from Nuremberg. They were called earlier than German "The Jesus and The Mary Chain". Their music connects psychedelic rock, the 60s beat and folk keen to experiment with the floating, ethereally active voice of the singer Limo. In a criticism her style became as a "wild garage sound between pop and experimental noise". Rolling Stone once written about them: "... the beaming Gnomes may keep to have put down at that time the probably most pioneering garage punk and Psychedelia album maggot in Germany. If the Farfisa organs whine, the guitars the melodies shreddern and the drummers behind his Kit hyperventilates, then the lift-off factor, measured in US icons lies like the 13th Floor Elevators or The Electric Prunes at least on the same height... Shine On, you crazy Gnomes." And I can't describe it in better words. The Shiny Gnomes could have made it big! Their technical abilities on the instruments and the composition gift absolutely corresponded to an international level. I saw them a few times live and it was always a big pleasure.

Shiny Gnomes - Love Torture
Shiny Gnomes - Temple Balls
Shiny Gnomes - Lazing At Dessert Inn