The world, or at least the US is opening up to psychedelics more and more. Psychedelic assisted therapy continues to gain acceptance and the legal market for psychedelics is growing quickly. MarketWatch called on Citigoup to cite innovative ideas that could transform society, and where to invest your money to take advantage of these changes. One of the “game changers” this group of anaylists listed was psychedelic drugs. The combination of psychedelics and psychotherapy is opening up new treatments, such as for patients with PTSD. One thing standing in the way at present is these drugs are still illegal in most places. An article in Nature, however, provides a “roadmap for wider acceptance and utilization,” and Scientific American offers a strategy to reschedule psilocybin. Right now the United States is far ahead in the psychedelic market as these drugs gain broader acceptance.

Not only are a growing number turning to psychedelic assisted therapy, particularly as the pandemic has exacerbated a mental health crisis, but studies are showing that psychedelics may have other benefits, as well. A study published in Nature finds that psychedelic use is associated with a lower risk of heart disease and diabetes. A study also found that magic mushrooms enhance our emotional reaction to music.

Seattle, as well as three cities in California, have recently decriminalized psychedelic drugs. The city council of Santa Cruz, however, voted to recriminalize peyote. They did this on behalf of Native Americans who use peyote in religious rituals. With use of peyote spreading, the move to recriminalize peyote is to protect “individuals who cultivate entheogens for use in religious, spiritual, healing, or personal growth practices.” Still, the psychedelic reform movement is expanding and Denver, a city that has already decriminalized magic mushrooms, is exploring further easing their restrictions in a couple of years.

And then there’s the music. Psychedelic music has never really gone away but the recent past has seen a steady stream of great psych, as this episode demonstrates.

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Back with another collection of recent psychedelia, ranging from stoner to psychedelic pop. There have been a couple of interesting items about psychedelic music in the past few days: In Dublin, the inaugural Stratospheres Psych night took place at The Grand Social on Sept. 25th, featuring some of Ireland’s best psych rock acts: Sun Mahshene, Tuath and Thee UFO. Stolen Body Records announced the dates for Astral Festival VII, April 30/May 1, 2022 at Strange Brew in Bristol. Australia has a thriving psychedelic scene, and Adelaide’s CityMag ran an article “Introducing Mystique Records: Founded by musician Harry Taylor, Mystique Records aims to bring Adelaide’s thriving psychedelic music scene out from the underground.”

Magic mushrooms now have their own holiday”: September 20th is Magic Mushroom Day, created by the 920 Coalition, and Entheofest, the first-ever psychedelic mushroom festival, was held in Ann Arbor on Sept. 19th. The popular press is starting to take notice of the use of psychedelics in treating mental illness. In the past week Newsweek ran an article on “The legality of magic mushrooms and potential use as treatment for depression”. Also, Forbes announced ‘The End In Mind’ Conference, in End-Of-Life Care Is The New Frontier In Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy. Decriminalization efforts have made progress recently: “Class A drug possession ‘effectively decriminalised’ in Scotland.”

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Time keeps marching on and it’s the end of the summer. The music of the summer will continue to reverberate, though. This episode features some pre-releases by The Venus Overload, the Kundalini Genie, Tibetan Miracle Seeds, and 10 000 Russos, and a host of tracks released throughout the summer.

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A look at current psychedelia and a look back at life during wartime. A few more releases from prominent labels this time around. This episode opens with The Mountain Movers on the Trouble In Mind label, with tracks from Axis: Sova and Birds of Maya on Drag City as well as The Holy Family on Rocket Recordings. The artists in this episode come from the UK (The Holy Family and Longheads), Canada (Dark Bird and Dr. Joy), Australia (The Dharma Chain) and the rest from the US.

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A few days ago the Pentagon released a report on UFOs to Congress called Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP). They went with UAP rather than UFO because of the stigma associated with UFOs. Maybe this newfound transparency will shut down conspiracy theories–or not. Anyway, this episode has 11 new psychedelic tracks, mostly by American artists and almost all released in the last couple of months.

Interesting reading:

How pop culture has shaped our understanding of aliens in The Guardian

The truth is still out there: why the current UFO craze may be a problem of intelligence failings in The Conversation UK

Pentagon UFO report: Government transparency and desire for better data might bring science to the UFO world in Phys.org

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All of the tracks in this episode are cover versions or tributes. The songs are from the sixties and seventies but all of these tracks have been released in the last year or so. I asked the artists featured in this episode what their desert island disk would be. The Dust Bunnies, who cover the Beatles song Long Long Long chose the White Album, which makes sense. Other picks weren’t so close to the cover you’ll hear in this episode. Tuluum Shimmering’s version of Eight Miles High closes this episode and they selected Cornell 1964 by the Charles Mingus Sextet. Dub Wreckage, who cover the Velvet Underground, said their desert island disk would be Y by the Pop Group. And Spacelab, who cover Hawkwind couldn’t decide on a single album. They split between John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme and DRI’s Dealing With It. The episode starts off with a Kiss cover from CIA Hippie Mind Control, who picked the Ramones It’s Alive as their desert island disk.

This episode was initially posted on June 17, 2021. All of the tracks in this episode have been released in the last three months. The one exception is The Spacebombz track, which was on their demo released in January. The tracks in this episode are from all over the world, with bands from the US, Australia, Europe, Argentina and Japan.

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