Kolmas Korva recommends: Albinö Rhino, Black Helium, GÅS

Hi all,
I collected some great psychedelic treasures I’ve enjoyed lately. Quite a lot, actually – I think this is a great bunch. Hope you do too.
Stay safe & healthy. //Mertsi

Article image: Black Helium

Black Helium – UM (Riot Season Records)

The London-based psychedelic power trio is back with a bang. Compared to their previous two records Primitive Fuck (2018) and The Wholly Other (2020), Black Helium has gone more outer-space, more motorik, and even more robust. UM is a great record, highlighted by tracks such as the hypnotic Another Heaven and delightfully trippy Summer of Hair. Black Helium’s music keeps on giving, and by all accounts the trio seems like nice people as well.

GÅS – Vol.1. (Rocket Recordings)

I’ve been following GÅS, a psychedelic rock band from Gothenburg that, just like their compatriots GOAT, operates under anonymity, since their impressive self titled single in 2020. Their debut LP Vol.1. follows the single’s recipe in fuzzy, Black Sabbath-influenced heavy psych, but spices is up with folk-like flutes, percussions and elements of blues rock.
With two over 13-minute tracks the band shows it masters longer kraut-influenced jams with confidence, further strengthening the trippy club of great Swedish outfits like Centrum, Lamagaia, Hills and Agusa.

My favorite song is the hypnotic finishing track 25öre, whose wonderfully menacing rhythm repeats over and over again until you realize there’s actually nothing menacing, it just gets a bit dark in space.

Albinö Rhino – Return to the Core (Space Rock Productions)

The heavy atmospheric downtuned psychedelia of Albinö Rhino has never sounded more intriguing than in their new opus, Return to the Core. The Helsinki-based trio’s previous EP nodded towards Black Sabbath, but this one pays the biggest respects to Pink Floyd. The album consists of one 35-minute song (on Spotify it’s also split to 9 tracks), and travels fluently from Kingston Wall influenced jams to heavier riffs. Good stuff.

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Cool music videos with a psych touch for relaxation

To keep some balance of all rattling garagepsychs, here’s collection of gentle psych videos that I have been enjoying lately. Styles differ from exotica and ambient to psych-pop and soft rock.

Main image is a frame from Reverse Death’s video.

Reverse Death – Teapot

Gentle electric piano and soft drums carry this nocturnal mist spiced with viola and properly echoed vocals. Seattle-based band published an album Stretching to Infinity in December that is definitely worth to listen. Teapot together with Sweet Flower Moon are the most accessible songs on the album among otherwise rather ambient material.

Bobbie Lovesong – Inner Sea

Written, performed and recorded solely by American Bobbie Lovesong aka Madelyn Strutz during covid lockdown in 2020. Very addictive melody and sounds right from the first hearing.

The Sweet Enoughs – Cerberus

The slowed-down beauty of crashing waves combined with synthetic, rhythmic, dreamy tropical music. In May 2020 released album Marshmallow is an interesting piece of lounge/exotica music.

Mac DeMarco – Five Easy Hot Dogs

Slacker star published his sixth album in January. The record was born in a trip (literally): songs are named by the places where they were created on the road. No vocals at all, which makes this good background soft rock.

Kolmas korva DJ’s at Helsinki Psych Fest 2022 (see setlist here)

We had the pleasure to play a back-to-back vinyl DJ set including 60s, kraut, prog and neo-psych, at Helsinki Psych Fest 2022. Here’s what we played (in alphabetical order):

Leo’s picks:

The Blues Project – Flute Thing
Circus – Monday Monday
Electric Wizard – Mountains of Mars
Föllakzoid – Rio
Goat – Let It Bleed
Jethro Tull – Cross-Eyed Mary
John Mayall – The Super-Natural
K-X-P – 18 Hours (Of Love)
The Keith Tippett Group – Black Horse
Kikagaku Mayo – Dancing Blue
Kikagaku Mayo – Gatherings
Lamagaia – Lamagaius
Neu – Neuschnee
Pekka Laine – The Silent Star
Percewood’s Onagram feat. Michels – I’ve Got Woman
Santana – Jungle Strut
The Soul Investigators – Baby! It’s Delicious
Spirit – Gramophone Man
Tasavallan Presidentti – Wutu-Banale
Ten Years After – She Lies in the Morning
Ten Years After – Two Time Mama
Tross – On Board
Uusi Fantasia – (Tosi) happamat kallot
The Yardbirds – Heart Full of Soul
The Yardbirds – Smokestack Lightning

Mertsi’s picks:
The Black Angels – History Of The Future
The Black Angels – Without A Trace
The Black Angels – La Pared (Govt. Wall Blues)
Black Lizard – Window In Time
Circle – Points
Fleetwood Mac – Black Magic Woman
Goat – Let It Burn
The Holydrug Couple – Concorde
Holy Wave – Schmetterling
Holy Wave – She Put A Seed In My Ear
Holy Wave – Star Stamp
Jefferson Airplane – White Rabbit
Jim Sullivan – U.F.O.
Lumerians – C-Rock
Mikronid – Sügis
Moon Duo – Circles
Moon Duo – Sleepwalker
Nazz – Open My Eyes
Nazz – Wildwood Blues
Night Beats featuring Robert Levon Been – That’s All You Got
Procol Harum – Cerdes (outside the gates of)
Pääkallo – Kuoleman taikaa
The Shadows – Scotch On The Socks
Soft Power – Sleeping City
Titanic – Sultana
The Vacant Lots – Departure



Many thanks to Daisy and other organisers of the fest, it was a blast!
If you want us to play at your event, please contact us via e-mail kolmaskorva @gmail.com.

Music video picks: Kikagaku Moyo, Crows, Ashinoa & Mildlife

Main image is a screenshot taken from Kikagaku Moyo’s Cardboard Pile video, directed by Katsushika Shusshin.

Kikagaku Moyo – Kumoyo Island

A Japanese group’s possibly the last album ever ”Kumoyo Island” will be released in May. Two songs with crazy illustrated music videos are out already. Especially the immediately catchy ”Cardboard Pile” raises expectations high for the upcoming LP.

Crows – Garden of England

London-based Crows published their second album and the single ”Garden of England” is a fiery piece of Brexit / Covid era psych-post-punk.

Ashinoa – Koalibi

The French Ashinoa, similarly signed and published by Fuzz Club, is one of Mertsi’s early year favourites. Do check out their album ”L’Orée”, it’s fruity.

Mildlife – Live from South Channel Island

A year ago, Australian Mildlife recorded session in a small artificial island South Channel Fort. Now this whole session, live versions of pre-released material, is on Youtube, as well as on vinyl. Mildlife sound is somewhat combination of jazz-funk, disco and psychedelia. A tip for the busy ones: in 15:45, a bit slower song ”Im Blau” with exciting rhythm and bass.

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