Best psychedelic music of 2022

Hi all, it’s time to wrap up the year with some of our music picks of 2022. Thanks to all our readers and subscribers, have a great new year! //Mertsi & Leo
Article Photo Credit: Pooneh Ghana

Mertsi’s picks

The Black Angels – Wilderness of Mirrors

With yet another fantastic album, the legendary Texan group The Black Angels cement their place among the very best of neo-psychedelic bands. In Wilderness of Mirrors, their riffs are rough and lyrics sharp as ever. This is a well-balanced album with a number of powerful psych tracks.

Abraxas – Monte Carlo

Abraxas is a new project by former Los Bitchos member Carolina Faruolo and Danny Lee Blackwell of Night Beats. 
Monte Carlo is the duo’s enchanting debut, with influences of smoky latin rhytms, R&B, and dub. As Blackwell puts it: “Planet Abraxas is a world filled with jungles, mist-covered rivers, panthers lurking in the night, desolate shopping malls, Neolithic citadels and sand-worn walls.” I can’t wait to spin these songs on next year’s dj gigs.

[By the way, Blackwell was a gift that kept on giving this year; I could have easily added Night Beats’ wonderful Levitation Session to this list as well.]

La Femme: Levitation Sessions

In their Levitation live session, Parisian psych institution La Femme unleash a discography spanning set dripping in LSD and casual chic, transmitted from a smoky room in Normandy, France. The band chats a tad too much to my taste inbetween some tracks, but neverthless they absolutely nail the session with some mesmerising tunes and sparkling outfits. Try, for instance, the exotic-sounding ”Sphynx” or the wonderfully trippy ”Je Plane”.

Wild Rocket – Formless Abyss

Speaking of trippy, the Irish Wild Rocket takes you somewhere on the outskirts of cosmos. Formless Abyss, a swirling 41-minute repetitive groove consisting of three tracks, can be recommended for friends of Oranssi Pazuzu, Dark Buddha Rising, Circle, 10 000 Russos, or Lumerians.

And finally, some music video singles of the highest quality: improvised dance fiesta from King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, some seriously fuzzy stuff from Goat, and some oceanic, super-smooth scenery by Baby Cool.

Leo’s picks

Kikagaku Moyo – Kumoyo Island

The Japanese psych rock band decided that past year will be their last. It’s a shame, but it can also be a blessing if their creativity is waning. The last album contains one of the bangers of the year, Dancing Blue, but as a whole it has not reached its predecessors Masana Temples (2018) and House in the Tall Grass (2016). But definitely enjoyable LP and worth checking out. The album also surprised with the amount of ambient soundscapes. It will be interesting to see what the band members come up with next. One thing to follow is label Guru Guru Brain founded by members Go and Tomo. They have released interesting stuff from bands like Dhidalah, Minami Deutsch and Mong Tong.

A live performance from their last show.

Tombstoned – Dangers Of The Fading High

As much a pick-up from last year as an expectation for this year. Finnish doom/stoner band Tombstoned released a new song after a long time on Weedian’s Finland compilation. The riff from the beginning is just so damn quivering. Hopefully more stuff coming soon.

Mildlife Live from South Channel Island

The pandemic eased this year and the gigs started to roll again. One band that was familiar before, but took things to a new level live, was Australian Mildlife. They are a sovereign live performer of psychedelic, danceable jazz-funk without any major gimmicks. The band has also toured with King Gizzard. This year Mildlife released a live album recorded on fort island instead of new studio material.

Kari Kosmos – Mielen aika (kirja)

Kiinnostava suomenkielinen kirja, joka on saattanut mennä monilta ohi. Vuonna 2021 syöpään kuolleen Kari Kosmoksen postuumisti julkaistu Mielen aika: psykedeelisen kulttuurin historia ja visio kertoo tajunnan laajentamisesta ja ihmisistä sen takana. Huom: Emme ole itsekään vielä päässeet kirjaa lukemaan, joten tämä suositus perustuu siihen, miltä kirja vaikuttaa. Lisää kirjasta Ylen jutussa. (A book recommendation, only in Finnish!)

Angelo Badalamenti (1937—2022)

This year, at least Hawkwind legend Nic Turner and kraut pioneer Manuel Göttsching have moved on to other frequencies. One of those who also touched me was Angelo Badalamenti, composer of David Lynch’s dreamy soundtracks. Here’s a video in his memory that always cheers the mood.

To enjoy psychedelic treats as fresh as they come, do subscribe to our four Spotify Playlists.

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Psychedelic picks of 2021

Hi all,
this time we won’t list ”best” psychedelic albums or singles – instead, here’s a hand-picked collection of fine and interesting music recommendations without any grades or positions.
Hope you enjoy these mind-expanding beauties as we have done – and, let’s hope for a good and better year 2022.
//Mertsi & Leo

Great psychedelic music in 2021

Acid Dad – Take It From the Dead
There’s a feelgood factor to Acid Dad’s music. Their music videos are a shamelessly great burst of tongue-in-cheek psych clichés with your retro colors and over-the-top green screen effects, and their invigorating psychedelic rock sounds good and fresh.

Acid Rooster – Irrlichter
You simply can’t have too many bands named ”Acid [Something]”, can you? Irrlichter by the Leipzig trio Acid Rooster is an instrumental four-song psych platter full of cosmische delicacies.

Jane Weaver – Flock
It’s once again a groovy, stylish, energetic and glittery psychedelic pop album by the lovely Jane Weaver.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Butterfly 3000
What would my lists be without good old King Gizz? But seriously, they just keep finding new colors and new influences, to produce (quite literally) tons of exiting music. While I personally wasn’t the most fanatic fan of their K.G. (2020) and L.W (2021) duology, I found Butterfly 3000 very organic, adventurous and catchy. It’s filled with synth programming and MIDI sequences (just listen to 2.02 Killer Year and tell me those synths don’t give you goosebumps), differing from most of their previous work, and they have one again put effort and creativity in the album’s vinyl pressing and distribution.

Mt. Mountain – Centre
One more band that has featured in our lists more than once, the Australian group Mt. Mountain crafted yet another smoothly hypnotic, aesthetically powerful psychedelic album in Centre. I love Mt. Mountain’s style, listening to them is like lying on a velvet blanket under a tree and watching leaves dance in the sky.

Hilary Woods – Feral Hymns
Genre-wise, Feral Hymns by Hilary Woods probably slots more to an ambient/drone departement, but let’s not let dull genre limitations play any role here. Feral Hymns is a powerful album that builds an atmosphere of something dark and primal like nothing I’ve heard in a while. As the artist herself puts it: ”A collection of hymns set at dusk. Speckled memory, dust, earth, grit, ritual and chant – purged in the shadows.”

Mdou Moctar – Afrique Victime
If you’re into Tuaregi blues sounds like Tinariwen, you’ll surely enjoy this flowing, balanced and rich-in-sound new album by the Niger-based Mdou Moctar. It has a lovely beat to it and the Tuaregi instruments form a perfect alliance with psychedelic guitar sounds.

Naxatras – Journey to Narahmon
If you’re into space rock with trippy neo-psychedelic influences, Greece’s own Naxatras is worth checking out. Their new album ”IV” is out on February and the banger psych-prog-spacerock single Journey to Narahmon implies it’s going to be a powerful one.

OSees – Chem Farmer / Nite Expo (LEVITATION sessions)
I haven’t listened to that much of Oh Sees (or any of its aliases), but this piece from Levitation Live Sessions is just so packed with punk rock / psychedelic garage energy, so masterfully mixed that I can’t get enough of it. Those two drum sets, phew.

Bonus pick: Frekvenssi
Cross-country skiing under warm Spring sun with headphones playing well-hosted radio show about experimental music. What could be a better combination? Frekvenssi, launched in 2021 on Finnish National Broadcast Yle, explores ”experimental” in music from different genres. Frekvenssi also covers live music events, and one episode was dedicated to Le Guess Who? 2021 festival in the Netherlands. Listening to it raised a great deal of enthusiasm to be there and cycle back-and-forth different festival venues with endless amount of cool gigs.

Frekvenssi on Yle Areena (Hosted in Finnish, but playlist included in show description.)

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Main picture: Mdou Moctar

New psych albums you need to hear

Hi all. Sorry for not posting for a while. I would normally insert the usual ”been doing this, been doing that” babble here but even for once that would be an understatement as I now have a 6-month old baby girl. In any case, I thought I’d share some psychedelic picks from recent weeks and months. Enjoy!

//Mertsi

Garcia Peoples – Nightcap at Wits’ End

This is the finest album yet from the New Jersey group. It ventures from jamming rock’n’roll to progressive and even space rock – Altered Place reminds me of British folk rock of the 1970’s. Crown of Thought is a lovely track: it has that sort of jamming, changes of pace and bursting solo parts that make you nod without realizing it yourself.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – K.G.

The kings are back. They recently published a live LP and two digital albums, of which K.G. is my favourite. Some nice tunes here!

The Vacant Lots – Interzone

For me, Interzone by Vacant Lots must be one of the most coherent psych albums of the year. It’s a delicious mixture of synth pop, post-punk, disco and krautrock – it’s like getting hypnotized at a night club dance floor. No wonder Interzone was published by the all-mighty Fuzz Club.

Dark Buddha Rising – Mathreyata

I’m really glad to see Dark Buddha Rising is starting to get the praise it deserves from psych heads outside Finland as well. Finnish “Dark underlords of psychedelic drone” are here with their 7th album and it’s a powerful one. Take Uni (Finnish word for a dream) for example: it’s like a tentaculed monster drags you to black abyss of a freezing sea but when you catch your breath, you realize that you can breath underwater, and with guidance octopus-like abomination, you now effortlessly discover secrets and beasts of the depths, depths that you just moment ago thought were horrendous but now find their ancient beauty.

For all you garage freaks: Bones Shake

Now I know many of you are space heads and not really into garage / rock’n’roll sort of stuff, but I just love the fuzzy energy of this Manchester group. I hope my destiny is one day to hold an Unwell 7” in my grasp and play it from my DJ booth around 1AM.

Picture of Dark Buddha Rising: Maija Ajomo

Still thirsty for great new psychedelic rock music? Follow our FRESH PSYCHEDELIA Spotify Playlist to hear music that’s still hot from traveling the atmosphere!
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/32xazUuEUeD3Nsz0LfXNzo?si=SzUIUmh4QQmvqU9iPZFacQ

FRESH PSYCHEDELIA: Update #15

Spring has mostly been bright and beautiful in Finland, and inspiring neo-psychedelic rock is the way to celebrate it. So much new music!

Our latest picks to FRESH PSYCHEDELIA Spotify Playlist, the constantly updating list of 100 latest great psych songs, include bands like Garcia Peoples, Cosmonauts, The Murlocs, Domboshawa, Steeple Remove, Janne Westerlund, FEWS, HOTT MT, TAU, Vanishing Twin, Tähtiportti, Death Hawks, Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation, K-X-P & Pekko Käppi, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Dream Syndicate, Hurricane Heart Attacks, Paisiel, Gnoomes, Derya Yildirim + Grup Şimşek, Kap Kap, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Stonefield, Jacco Gardner, Centrum, Rudolf Abramov, Green Seagull and Death and Vanilla.

Pic: K-X-P

Subscribe to the playlist and enjoy psychedelic treasures while they are still hot from traveling through the atmosphere! 

FRESH PSYCHEDELIA: Update #7

First of all, warms thanks to all 30 subscribers of our FRESH PSCYHEDELIA playlist!
We’re excited with our recent additions to the list. There’s a bunch of new music:
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, 10 000 Russos, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Helicon, Sonic Jesus, Gypsy Sun Revival, Mt. Mountain, MGMT, Psychic Lemon and Wooden Shjips. Enjoy.

Subscribe to the playlist and enjoy psychedelic treasures while they are still hot from traveling through the atmosphere!