Podcast 2022.13 When Worlds Collide

I guess I’ve always thought of psychedelic rock as being a genre on its own but psychedelia crosses genre boundaries and in this episode I’ll be playing some jazz, ambient and even a country track that are psychedelic. It seems like these days a vinyl release carries with it prestige and seems to make it more of an event. The LP format emphasizes the cover art but the records themselves frequently have really stunning designs.

time artist title
00:35 Los Males Necesarios Repeticion
03:07 Black Lizard Killfire
07:20 Dead Waves Wake Up In The Night
09:15 Kikagaku Moyo Cardboard Pile
14:59 Medicine Singers A Cry/Daybreak
19:32 London Odense Ensemble Sojourner
25:11 Surreal Sun Ra en la quebrada de Macul con Don Cherry (fumándose unos cuetes y bañándose en la cascada)
29:17 Bad LSD Trips Consciousness Burnout
34:38 The Sensational Country Blues Wonders There's a Hole in the Fabric of My Reality
39:57 Psycada Abstract/Halal
45:10 Primordial Undermind Hermetic Armada
51:51 Science Killer Blue
56:16 Smoke The Light InHell
1:01:01 Fuzz Sagrado In Her Garden
1:05:15 The Wesleys Find a Way
1:10:12 The Cyanide Jug Band Girl In The Can-Can Hat
1:13:00 Atom Mother Searching/Finding
1:20:50 Quantum Pigeon The Pigeon
1:24:43 Ciencias Ocultas La ciencia oculta
1:35:36 Herbcraft California Poppy
1:38:23 The Qualitons Család
1:47:18 Psychlona Blast Off
1:54:35 Goat Goathead

Turn Me On, Dead Man 2022 Podcasts

#AcidFolk #Afrobeat #Alternative #Ambient #Avant-garde #BakersfieldSound #Cosmic #Country #Delay #DesertRock #Doom #Drone #Dub #Electronica #Experimental #FieldRecordings #Fusion #Fuzz #GaragePunk #GarageRock #Heavy #Improvisation #IndieRock #Indigenous #Instrumental #Krautrock #Lo-Fi #Lyre #Meditation #Mystic #NativeAmerican #Neopsychedelia #NoWave #Noise #Post-rock #Prog #Psych #PsychRock #Psychedelia #Psychedelic #PsychedelicFolk #PsychedelicPunk #PsychedelicRock #Shoegaze #Sludge #SpaceRock #SpiritualJazz #Stoner #StonerRock #Trance

One of the most notable tracks in this episode is by the Medicine Singers, a collaboration between Yonatan Gat and the Algonquin drum group the Eastern Medicine Singers, among other noteworthy people. The result combines indigenous music with spiritual jazz and psychedelic rock with an improvisational approach. It’s well produced and really compelling.

Following the Medicine Singers are a couple of tracks that draw more on jazz, one by the London Odense Ensemble and another by the Chilean cellist Surreal, then on to the ambient/dub of bad lsd trips. Rounding out this set is a psychedelic country track by the Sensational Country Blues Wonders. Gary Van Miert is the psychedelic cowboy behind the Sensational Country Blues Wonders, and I asked him (as I’ve been asking a lot of artists lately) what makes music psychedelic. As you can see in the short interview below, he talked about psychedelic music having a surreal and perhaps a whimsical quality. He also talked about exotic instrumentation like the sitar. Psychedelic music is also a spiritual experience to a lot of the artists. In fact, more artists have mentioned spirituality as the inspiration for their psychedelic music than have mentioned drugs.

In past episodes of Turn Me On, Dead Man I’ve stuck mainly with recent releases but in this episode I’m going to close out with a set of tracks from reissues. One of the tracks, “Blast Off” by Psyclona, fits in well with this episode’s theme of When Worlds Collide (drops are from the 1951 sci-fi film). This final set opens and closes with 10th anniversary reissues, Flowering by Herbcraft came out in 2012, as did World Music by Goat, which has been remastered at Abbey Road studios. The Herbcraft album is being reissued on cassette but the rest of the tracks in this set are being reissued on limited edition vinyl releases. I never would have predicted how vinyl has become a sought after format.


Los Males Necesarios – Repeticion (from Los Males Necesarios, release date: June 21, 2022)

Los Males Necesarios is Emanuel Bastos on drums; Nicolas Sicardi on guitars, voice, percussion and keyboards; Lucas S. Lapalma on bass and vocals. The music on this album was conceived in mid-2021 in Barrio Cofico in Córdoba, Argentina.
TMODM: What has had the biggest influence on your music?
LMN: We believe that the greatest references within the group are in the sounds of the bands and soloists of psychedelic rock and neo-psychedelia, in general. We are musicians with a career in other bands and in them there were elements that referred to psychedelic rock, that is to say that all of us in our musical careers had an affair with the most enigmatic sounds of psychedelic rock that we now promote, generating a communion with the style that we united as a group and as individuals, whether playing or listening to music.
TMODM: What record changed your life?
LMN: “Are you experienced” by Jimi Hendrix. It may not be THE ONLY album that has changed our lives, but it was and still is ONE of the albums we most enjoy listening to. We love Jimi.
TMODM: What’s next for you?
LMN: Make live presentations and continue creating new melodies… Although the group has been practicing for a year, we feel that it has already found its group essence, even without having played live. That’s why we decided to record our songs, release an album and as a consequence to do concerts as a plan in which to show in a visceral way the reason why we feel mobilized when creating and playing the songs of our band. This is just beginning, amigo.
TMODM: What makes music psychedelic? or maybe better, what about your music is psychedelic?
LMN: Every psychedelic band, for sure, must have an answer, from personal perceptions and probably different from each other, about what makes their music psychedelic. In our case, the first connection came from listening to the bands of the musical current created in the 60s, which made us absorb the spirit of the psychedelic scene, take it as a point of reference and from there approach the songs as an instrument of unconscious liberation, a kind of controlled hallucination in which we allow ourselves to be carried away by an esoteric psychedelia in which dreams, trips, mysticism, spirituality, and countercultural concepts coexist, making the music itself embrace the psychedelic rock genre.

Black Lizard – Killfire (from Heads, release date: June 3, 2022)

From Fuzz Club: “Staples of the Scandinavian psychedelic underground since they formed back in 2008, Helsinki’s Black Lizard are returning with their fourth album ‘Heads’. Due out June 3rd on Fuzz Club, the new album arrives following 2018’s ‘Celebration Of A New Dawn’, several tours around Europe, collaborations with Anton Newcombe and Sonic Boom, and shared stages with the likes of Brian Jonestown Massacre, DIIV, Allah-Las, The Horrors and many more. Talking about the record, their first piece of new music in four years, Black Lizard said: “We have been working on ‘Heads’ for the past few years, taking our time. The main theme on this record is going forward in life and getting better. From the more 60s psych of ‘Celebration Of A New Dawn’ we’ve gone for a more straight-up garage-rock sound on this one.” The resulting ‘Heads’ LP sees raw, fuzzy guitars combine with infectious echo-soaked vocals and driving rhythm sections to create a record that trades in a timeless rock’n’roll hedonism.”
TMODM: What had the biggest influence on Heads?
BL: We wanted to make more raw sounding garage rock record than our previous effort which was more old-school psychedelia. It just happened that everybody was listening to same kind of music and writing more rock n roll oriented songs than before. Early Stones, BRMC were big influences.
TMODM: What record changed your life?
BL: There’s so many influential albums to us all, you know the classic stuff like the Beatles, Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath. If I had to pick one personal favourite it would be Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, I’ll never forget the first time hearing that album.
TMODM: What’s next for you?
BL: Next we’re gonna do some gigs supporting the release of “Heads”, we also have a shit ton of new material we need to get working on.

Dead Waves – Wake Up In The Night (from Abandoned Children, release date: May 27, 2022)

Dead Waves are from Queens, NY.
TMODM: What had the biggest influence on Abandoned Children?
DW: Influences on our records were definitely more earlier on in our past releases, but for Abandoned Children it was really just us being us and being in tune with our own voice.
TMODM: What record changed your life?
DW: For the records that changed your life, there were so many that helped and changed my life, growing up it was like every couple of years, and so many different genres. Between me and Nick we couldn’t name just one, we loved music so much and there was so much good music coming out then from so many different genres and then going back and finding out bands that influenced them and producers too, the list would go on and on. I guess in a short answer I would have to say there are 20-30 that are tied. And we’re the same when it comes to film as well.
TMODM: What’s next for you?
DW: What’s next for us is really just taking it day by day as usual and creating new music and trying to get back out there and play shows and tour.

Kikagaku Moyo – Cardboard Pile (from Kumoyo Island, release date: May 6, 2022)

From the Kikagaku Moyo website: After much discussion between the five of us at the end of last year, we have decided to go on an indefinite hiatus after 2022. This means 2022 will be our last year as Kikagaku Moyo. We have come to the conclusion that because we have truly achieved our core mission as a band, we would love to end this project on the highest note possible. Since first starting as a music collective on the streets of Tokyo in 2012, we never, ever imagined being able to play all over the world for our amazing audiences. It is all because of you that this was ever possible…and to this we are eternally grateful. With this in mind, our very last album will be released by Guruguru Brain on May 2022.

Medicine Singers – A Cry/Daybreak (from Medicine Singers, release date: July 1, 2022)

The Medicine Singers is a collaboration between Yonatan Gat and the Eastern Medicine Singers, among other notable people. From the liner notes, “The Medicine Singers self titled debut album on Stone Tapes has its unexpected dual origins in both Native American pow wow music and musical improvisation.” They performed together for the first time at SXSW 2017, “a spontaneous collaboration between a group of musicians of wildly different traditions who only met moments before the show.” They’ve continued on to perform together and record a full album. I corresponded with Yonatan Gat and Daryl Black Eagle Jamieson, the drum director of the Eastern Medicine Singers.
TMODM: You’ve already answered a lot of my questions in your extensive liner notes. Still, I was wondering what’s next for you. What’s in the future for the Medicine Singers?
YG: med singers are working on some new stuff, and i’m working on other releases for stone tapes. thx for asking and supporting the sounds and the peeps making them.
DBEJ: This is only the start of our music more language more eastern culture and hard banging music is coming. You will see more culture in our video’s and live clips of shows coming. Medicine Singers is gonna bring more Native Artist’s together for a new show stay tuned brother. I am ready to rock the world with my group.

London Odense Ensemble – Sojourner (from Jaiyede Sessions Volume 1, release date: June 24, 2022)

From El Paraiso Records: In recent years London has become an epicenter for experimental, visionary jazz. On this unique session, two of the finest exponents of the London jazz scene, Tamar Osborn and Al MacSween, join forces with members of the celebrated Danish psychedelic underground – Jonas Munk, Jakob Skøtt and Martin Rude – to create a heady sonic brew. On this first volume of material there’s everything one could hope for in such a collaboration: sonically it summons the free flowing euphoria of Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders’ work in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But there’s also a focus on rhythmic energy and vitality that calls to mind the grooviest krautrock or electric period Miles Davis, as well as a healthy dose of electronic experiments. Throughout these five tracks the quintet paints with a colourful palette. Tamar Osborn shifts between baritone sax and flutes. Keyboardist Al MacSween doesn’t just stick with the tried and true electric piano – an instrument which he masters – but showers these tracks in analog synths and effects as well. Add to that the fact that Jonas Munk took a somewhat creative approach when editing and mixing these pieces – with effects boxes wired in, occasionally giving the mix a dubby, ambient atmosphere. Similar to Munk and Skøtt’s main project, Causa Sui, digging into the past becomes a vehicle to open up the future. What the quintet has created in these sessions is something quite unique. Bios: Tamar Osborn: Saxophonist, composer and multi-wind instrumentalist is the creative force behind modal jazz ensemble Collocutor (On The Corner Records). She is a member of the Dele Sosimi Afrobeat Orchestra, performs and collaborates regularly with Sarathy Korwar, Jessica Lauren, Emanative, Ill Considered and DJ Khalab. Al MacSween: Keyboard player & founding member of Kefaya. Collaborations include American jazz legend Gary Bartz, Syrian qanun master Maya Youseff, London Community Gospel Choir, Palestinian jazz singer Reem Kelani & kora player Kadialy Kouyate. Martin Rude: Multi-string instrumentalist & lead singer in Sun River. Doubles as stand-in bass player in Causa Sui. Jakob Skøtt: Drummer in Causa Sui with a slew of side projects on El Paraiso, including Chicago Odense Ensemble, as well as being responsible for the label’s visuals. Jonas Munk: Guitarist in Causa Sui & studio wizard on most releases on El Paraiso. Also works with a wide palette of electronic music.

Surreal – Sun Ra en la quebrada de Macul con Don Cherry (fumándose unos cuetes y bañándose en la cascada) (from Uno, release date: June 5, 2022)

Influenced by the psychedelia of the ’70s, from Sun Ra and the late John Coltrane to British rock bands like Soft Machine and Gong, Julián Romero Parada adopted the name Surreal for a creative project set in experimental music, through various territory such as avant-garde jazz and fusion.
TMODM: what had the biggest influence on UNO?
Surreal: Musically i think it’s Eric Dolphy and soft machine (i Made covers of both in the Ep), because i think they expanded the límits of músic, contributed a Lot creating the avant Garde sound and in My opinion, they deserve more credits
TMODM: What record changed your life?
Surreal: Definitely there are lots of albums that Made a very deep influence in My music and way to see life, but if i have to choose, i think the record that had the biggest impact on My was “Third”, by soft machine
TMODM: What’s next for you?
Surreal: First, the release in November of My new álbum Shilenito Medio, that i record in quintet format, and then the, the release of DOS (continuation of UNO), i’m already recording it.

Bad LSD Trips – Consciousness Burnout (from Bad LSD Trips, release date: March 29, 2022)

bad lsd trips is a collaboration between artists Domingo Castillo and doris dana. Working through the process of developing sounds during the pandemic, the duo amassed large swaths of recordings on a weekly basis from 2020 and 2021 in Miami, Florida. The debut recording of bad lsd trips for the ENXPL series is documentation of improvising and honing a sonic vocabulary that is rooted in the tradition of early industrial, dark ambient and tape music. The backdrop of the recorded effort is a geographical conundrum of a city worn threadbare by candied advertising, tourism, and aesthetics. bad lsd trips inverts the spectacle of their locale with psychedelic meditations searching for, and occasionally digging inside of, a place of ease.

The Sensational Country Blues Wonders – There’s a Hole in the Fabric of My Reality (from The Adventures of a Psychedelic Cowboy, release date: September 2, 2022)

Gary Van Miert is a singer, songwriter, musician and all-around entertainer who specializes in American roots music.
TMODM: I read the description of The Adventures of a Psychedelic Cowboy in your press release, but I was wondering what made you think of incorporating psychedelic elements into your music in the first place?
GVM: I wanted to incorporate psychedelic elements into my sound because I grew up with trippy music. It was played on AM Top Forty radio in the sixties, which I listened to as a child. Songs like The Electric Prunes – “I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night,” and The Strawberry Alarm Clock – “Incense and Peppermints” got a lot of airplay. I should also mention the influence the Beatles had on me. When I got into college, the 13th Floor Elevators albums were reissued and they had a big impact as well.
TMODM: What makes music psychedelic? or maybe better, what about your music is psychedelic?
GVM: I think many things, such as a surreal quality to the words and music, and exotic instrumentation. I think the music and lyrics should also possess a certain sense of whimsy.
TMODM: What record changed your life?
GVM: So many records have changed my life. Exile on Main St got me interested in performing Americana music – country, blues & gospel. Sgt. Peppers blew my young mind. When I finally got to hear the British version of Revolver, that became my favorite Beatles record. The Stooges – Fun House and Raw Power were also important.
TMODM: What’s next for you?
GVM: I hope to continue writing songs and making albums. Thanks for playing my music!

Psycada – Abstract/Halal (from Hiking Lung, release date: July 8, 2022)

Psycada is from Athens, Greece. Sokratis Anagnostopoulos (vocals/guitar/synth) Pavlos Patsonis (guitar) Loukas Pastras (bass) Dimitris Aronis (drums/perc)
TMODM: What had the biggest influence on Hiking Lung?
Psycada: The album is made up of ideas that came up during jamming sessions over the years. At some point we wanted to make something that sounds coherent as a whole so the result was more like writing a single piece that evolves rather than individual tracks. Switching over from the jamming phase to a more strict, problem-solving mode had definitely the biggest influence on the making of HL.
TMODM: What record changed your life?
Psycada: White Album – The Beatles
TMODM: What’s next for you?
Psycada: Who knows? Definitely not us. We’re not musicians by profession, we’ll just keep playing as much as we are allowed to and maybe something good comes out of it.

Primordial Undermind – Hermetic Armada (from An Imaginal Abydos, release date: July 15, 2022)

Primordial Undermind, based in Vienna, is Eric Arn (guitar, vocals), Antonio Rosa de Pauli (bass, xylophone), Xavier Scholz (drums), Christoph Johannes Weikinger (guitar, vocals). I corresponded with Eric Arn.
TMODM: What record changed your life?
EA: Quite a few really, but one does stand out: In my senior year of high school, I was approached at a party by a guy I had sung with in the school choir and madrigal singing group, Wayne Rogers, who was selling his own self-produced LP ( on purple vinyl, for three dollars). This was the first Crystalized Movements album ‘Mind Disaster’, which blew my own mind wide open later that night, and set me on the exciting musical path I’ve been following to this day. I naturally started bugging him to let me join the band (which turned out to be just him at the time), and he eventually gave in, leading to me playing in the group for four years, including my first public rock shows, and recording and releasing the first album I was involved in – ‘Dog, Tree, Satellite Seers!’
TMODM: What makes music psychedelic? or maybe better, what about your music is psychedelic?
EA: Well, words have their meanings, and checking the common sources regarding ‘psychedelic’, I find: a profound sense of intensified sensory perception, sometimes accompanied by severe perceptual distortion and hallucinations, and often a substantially altered state of consciousness. Highly variable and difficult to describe, typical features include an altered sense of space and time and a loss of the normal boundaries of personhood, often accompanied by euphoria. – Which seems about right to me. That’s not just a pop song plus some phasing and echo. We only find out as a band if our music is psychedelic when it gets reviewed. It’s not something that comes up while we’re making it. But if you feel it is, that’s all good.
TMODM: What’s next for you?
EA: Hopefully we can take advantage of whatever attention the new album attracts to get back into booking some nice gigs and tours on a regular basis. That’s rather the point of it all for us. Ideally, we’ll come play for you (all).

Science Killer – Blue (from Blackbirds, release date: July 1, 2022)

Science Killer, from Brno, Czech Republic, is Martin Belan (guitar, synth, vocal), Ivo Lorenc (bass, guitar), Marek Hampl (drums, vocal) and Šimon Podrazil (guitar). Drones, psychedelic, blues, noise not-so-big band.
TMODM: What had the strongest influence on Blackbirds?
SK: The strongest influence on Blackbirds had our daily lives, friends and relationships for sure. Musically then especially 90s indie music (neo-psychedelia, noise, shoegaze, avant-garde)
TMODM: What’s next for you?
SK: We will have just a couple of gigs during the summer and then if clubs are open we will have Blackbirds release parties at Kabinet Muz club (Brno, CZ) and Prague (CZ) in September. That should start a small tour around Czechia with few gigs in Germany/Slovakia/Austria included. Better follow-up on our fb pages where we announce all our shows (https://www.facebook.com/sciencekillerband).

Smoke The Light – InHell (from Ego Death, release date: June 13, 2022)

Smoke The Light is a psychedelic sludge band hailing from the grey skies of Long Island, New York.
TMODM: What had the biggest influence on Ego Death?
STL: So the biggest influence for ego death is probably life, stress, struggle, and finding a path for change. This record is sort of a concept record, it tells a story about meditation and psychedelics and how it changed my life and helped me get through some struggles with life and drinking.
TMODM: What record changed your life?
STL: Probably nirvana, bleach. It was the first record I heard at 13 that blew me away and made me realize I want to play music.
TMODM: What’s next for you?
STL: Just gonna keep moving forward. Playing shows, already writing and getting ready to record a full length in the fall.

Fuzz Sagrado – In Her Garden (from A New Dimension, release date: February 10, 2022)

Fuzz Sagrado is a new psychedelic hard rock project started in June, 2021, by Christian Peters a.k.a. Surya Kris Peters of ex-Samsara Blues Experiment, Terraplane etc.
TMODM: What record changed your life?
FS: The record that really changed my life in the first place was Metallica’s black album. I played classical guitar before, but didn’t really like it, my dad kinda forced me 😂 but listening to songs like “the unforgiven” or “wherever I may roam” made me really want to play. If you think about these songs have a even a bit if a “psychedelic touch” 😂 with the Sitar etc My favorite band of all time would be the doors, but not really because the guitar. Kriegers not really that guitar hero at all, it’s more the overall atmosphere of their music.
TMODM: What makes music psychedelic? or maybe better, what about your music is psychedelic?
FS: What makes music psychedelic, well there are a few common ingredients which you may find in my songs, a sort of experimentalism but not necessarily. Some people say psychedelic is only this 60s kinda vibe, or … even worse it has to be a kind of drug music. I find that rather ridiculous. If your minds eye is open you will be able to go any direction, travel in your head, … I guess that’s psychedelic for me. No limits, no strict rules, and a lot of fun.
TMODM: What’s next for you?
FS: Next up is the lp-release of “a new dimension” via kozmik artifactz in October 2022. Besides I’m always making new music and am preparing a second fuzz sagrado album for early 2023, as well as an album of my other project Surya Kris Peters – which is a bit more electronic, kinda modern Krautrock I guess.

The Wesleys – Find a Way (from Outside Voices, release date: May 19, 2022)

The Wesleys, from Montreal, are Henry G, Willy Luv, Big Texas Pablo, Quentin (Mosquito Valentino). I corresponded with Henry G.
TMODM: What had the biggest influence on Outside Voices?
HG: The biggest influence on Outside Voices are bands like Guided by Voices, The Velvet Underground and R. Stevie Moore. We were inspired a lot by DIY and Lo-fi artists when we made the EP, as everything is completely self-produced and self-recorded, right down to the mixing and mastering. Do it yourself! it’s much more rewarding.
TMODM: What record changed your life?
HG: Any number of records have changed my life. A record recently that has been profoundly inspiring for me is “Point of No Return” by Jim Ford. It’s a perfect balance of neo-soul, country and RnB rolled into one insatiable record. Also like I said earlier, Anything by The Velvet Underground for us is just endlessly inspiring.
TMODM: What’s next for you?
HG: Keep playing more shows around Montreal and in the fall venture out a bit more to play places like Toronto, Ottawa, Quebec City. Keep on recording, We’re currently in the planning stages for our next EP which has 4 brand new songs that are pretty much just waiting for us to start recording them. Maybe get a booking agent or a label, but that’s still a bit far off for now. Either way, the music will continue!

The Cyanide Jug Band – Girl In The Can-Can Hat (from Now Here’s This, release date: June 28, 2022)

The Cyanide Jug Band are from Turku, Finland. Matias Rahkola – Guitars Petteri Rahkola – Guitars, vocals, harmonica Kaapro Gröhn – Guitars, vocals, percussion Ville Rantanen – Bass guitar Eric Harrison – Synthesizers, vocals Anssi Österberg – Drums, synthesizers, percussion
TMODM: What had the biggest influence on Now Here’s This?
Kaapro: I’d think the biggest musical influence on “Now Here’s This” was The Brian Jonestown Massacre truth be told. I’d also like to think that the driving inspirational force was getting to know ourselves as an unit and finding the moments of psychedelic grandeur when composing and arranging the songs.
TMODM: What record changed your life?
Kaapro: Changing one’s life is a strong statement but one album that could have done that to the most of us is “Blood on the Tracks” by Bob Dylan.
TMODM: What’s next for you?
Kaapro: During this summer we are finishing up compositions and pre-production for our next full lenght album. We’re aiming to start recording it this fall.
TMODM: What makes music psychedelic? or maybe better, what about your music is psychedelic?
Matias: That’s a rather difficult question to answer but for me at least psychedelic music is somewhat context based. There are a lot of music I consider psychedelic that ranges from 60s inspired psych-ish garage to all out trippy jam stuff. In that sense I think context matters and you’ll know it to be “psychedelic” when you hear it. The Cyanide Jug Bands psychedelia (at least on “Now Here’s This”) comes from us drawing influence from vast sources of psychedelic music’s history. It is also the sound and the feel you get from the repetition of the song structures. For example on “Flying High”, the song has a simple repetition through out that becomes trippy. The song subtly grows and finally blows out in frenzy of fuzz.

Atom Mother – Searching/Finding (from Mandala, release date: May 15, 2022)

Atom Mother are based in Bellingham, Washington.
TMODM: What has been the biggest influence on your music?
AM: When it comes to Mandala the first thing that comes to mind would be a Tame Impala obsession which came over me after seeing the band live at the Gorge. Particularly with regards to drum approach, I wanted to make a record where you could listen to just the drums and still have a good time, which is how I listen to Tame Impala. Besides Kevin Parker’s influence on the drum sounds and the general do it yourself inspiration it’s hard for me to pin down any other specific influences because I made the record so fast, in about two weeks, and it’s hard to recall any of the feverish ideas I might have had at the time.
TMODM: What record changed your life?
AM: Definitely a difficult question. I don’t want to be that guy, but instead of just answering the question I am going to give my five most influential records because that’s the only way I can answer this without going into a mental recursive deadlock. First worth mentioning is the Zappa live record Token of His Extreme, particularly the Inca Roads off that record, it was the first music I listened to which ever really took me away. As well as showed me how powerful the guitar solo could be when implemented correctly and musically. I’m already getting too long winded so I’ll do some rapid fire. Madvillany, Innerspeaker, Drukqs, and Alive (2007). I am obsessed with drums and these records each had their own approach to drums which changed my perspective and approach to musical creation.
TMODM: What’s next for you?
AM: What’s next is difficult to say, I’m moving to a new apartment which is too small for me to bring my drums, so I don’t know if the atom mother project will be able to continue. I’m currently trying to get one final record together before it’s over but whether or not I have the motivation to is still uncertain. After I move I will probably be retiring atom mother until I can record my own live drums again, and likely begin pursuing a more electronic project which will better fit my new living arrangement. It’s interesting how much influence housing and economics has on every aspect of our lives, controlling our dreams and filtering our experiences.

Quantum Pigeon – The Pigeon (from QPEP, release date: May 13, 2022)

Quantum Pigeon are from Wales. Ethan Bridges (recording, production, performance, mixing, album art), Dylan Bond (recording, performance), Jordan Davies (production, performance, mixing). They describe QPEP as “Experimental psychedelic garage noise rock improv for weirdo’s that was recorded over a matter of a week with friends.” I corresponded with Ethan.
TMODM: What had the biggest influence on QPEP?
EB: That’s a bit tough haha, the EP was just a cluster of all these kinds of music I was exploring and already loved at that time (Spacemen 3, Ty Segall, Oura, SWANS) but I know for sure that John Dwyer’s improv stuff for sure, I’ve been big on Thee Oh Sees for a few years so I was taken aback when I listened to his improv jazz stuff (Witch Egg, Endless Garbage, etc). Almost the whole EP was improv as well too, we were mainly jamming out and banking on spur-of-the-moment ideas while going back for additional overdubs. My bandmates all had different things to add, Dylan (Drums, Percussion, etc) was influenced by metal and funk and is just a generally weird person, his general goal for this was to be as unorthodox as possible! Jordan (Production, additional instruments) was influenced by Black Sabbath, Queens of the Stone Age and Sleep which he channelled throughout the project. He did the guitar parts for “Stare into the Sun”, which melted everyone’s faces in the studio for that session. To be fair, they just let me go mad in the studio and helped contribute to a good bit of this project.
TMODM: What record changed your life?
EB: Ty Segall’s “Emotional Mugger”, The Beatles “Magical Mystery Tour”, Thee Oh Sees “Dog Poison”. All Brilliant records! I could go on forever about these records along with other records that changed my life in some form and way but I’ll to stick to these three for now! Jordan’s record would be The Ramones “debut record”, he told me ‘There was something about the chunky distorted guitars and melodic vocals that pulled me in and gave me a desire to pick up an instrument for the first time’. Can’t blame him! Dylan’s record would be Slipknot’s “debut record”, he says ‘As soon as I heard Joey Jordison’s drum parts, it changed my outlook on how to play drums’. Tight drummer to be fair.
TMODM: What’s next for you?
EB: Alot! I’ve got a lot of projects and ideas in the works, one of them is my first solo LP “Brain & Bone” that’ll be out in August which is just a back-to-back psych garage punk freak-out I made up in my shed. Thinking about the next QP project too, might make a return! Jordan (also working as a live sound engineer), Dylan and I are working on original stuff while in a cover band, hoping to play a few gigs that were we all play music we created!

Ciencias Ocultas – La ciencia oculta (from Ciencias Ocultas, release date: June 21, 2022)

Ciencias Oculas is Pablo Moraga (drums), Mauricio Castro (synths), Jaime Acuña (guitar and words), and Cristian Poblete (bass). They are from Viña Del Mar, Chile.
TMODM: What has had the biggest influence on your music?
PM: My biggest influence on my music: THE RECORD COLLECTION OF MY ELDER BROTHER….a range of multiple colors and styles, of which for Ciencias Ocultas I try to contribute with the darkest of that wide palette.
MC: One of the best Christmas presents of my life, a Philips Personal Stereo and the album on cassette, La Voz de los Ochenta from Los Prisioneros when i was 9 years old. Later, when I was 15 i traveled to Canada to visit family and i met Uncle German who had thousands of albums and VHS, and i spent a whole winter watching Woodstock and listening so many albums from the 50s, 60s and 70s.
JA: I would say that my main influences for this project come from ambient music, as well as drone and experimental rock. I can cite Montibus Communitas, Maine, Acid Mothers Temple, Sunn O))), Les Rallizes Dénudés, Throbbing Gristle, Sun Ra, MZ-412, Coil, Experimental Audio Research, Earth, Schloss Tegal, Éliane Radigue, etc. In some cases these influences may be more evident, in others not so much.
TMODM: What record changed your life?
PM: I would have to name The Head on the Door/Kiss Me by The Cure. Metallica’s Master of Puppets. Courtains by Tindersticks. Rain Dogs by Tom Waits….from then on, at different stages of my life, new and new ranges of musical discoveries were opened up.
MC: Animals, Pink Floyd
JA: Many, I am sensitive to that, but thinking specifically on Ciencias Ocultas, I would mention Luciana by Juno Reactor (1994), I by Föllakzoid (2019), La trilogíe de la mort by Éliane Radigue (1998), On the corner by Miles Davis (1972), Ummagumma by Pink Floyd (1969), and La Vorágine by Los Jaivas (2004).
TMODM: What’s next for you?
PM: To continue working on a methodology to create our music through improvisation, and to achieve recording in the best possible way and independently.
MC: Independent from “industry” and share what we love to do.
JA: Making a good quality live video session that allows us to show ourselves creating our music, and recording a new album, where the place and the mood are the channels of our soundscape.

Herbcraft – California Poppy (from Flowering, release date: July 10, 2022, original release: July 10, 2012)

Herbcraft originally released Flowering in July, 2012, on Julia Dream Recordings (UK) in a limited edition of 99. The 10th anniversary cassette reissue of Flowering came out on July 10th. The solo, bedroom-recorded companion tape to Ashram to the Stars and bridge to full-band barnstormer The Astral Body Electric features 10 tracks (plus never-before-released contemporaneous instrumental bonus track “Orange”) that draw inspiration from Japanese psych and the experimental US/UK underground from the 60s-80s and 20tweens. A longtime fan- (and personal) favorite in the Herbcraft discography, Flowering instantly sold out of its initial cassette edition on short-lived Julia Dream Recordings, and has never before been available digitally or streaming in full. I’ve been corresponding with Matt LaJoie (ML Wah/Thick Air/Herbcraft/Flower Room Records) for quite a while now.
TMODM: What makes music psychedelic? or maybe better, what about your music is psychedelic?
Matt: For me, music is psychedelic when it expands the listener’s awareness in a new and novel way. It communicates a pioneering perception of the world, human emotion, and/or spirituality in a form that has never before been expressed or shared with the listener who is receiving it. Through that reception, the listener’s own perception is expanded to include the artist’s unique vision, and whether this creates a higher harmony or a new kind of dissonance, it’s the active participation in the expansion of the universe that occurs between the two parties that is important.

The Qualitons – Család (from Kexek, release date: April 29, 2022)

More than two years after the first album launch concert, long planning and a pandemic, Budabeats Records is proud to present the first physical release of the Qualitons band’s album Kexek in the form of a limited vinyl LP. The album features the legendary band Kex, one of the most exciting, original and perhaps most undeserved formations of Hungarian popular music. Arrangements of his songs made between 1968 and 1971 are included. According to the concept, the five members of Qualitons each chose a Kex song, which they then developed and took through from the arrangement to the final mix.

Psychlona – Blast Off (from Venus Skytrip, release date: August 21, 2022)

Psychlona are from Bradford in the UK. They describe their music as kebab ‘n’ roll desert rock from Yorkshire
TMODM: What had the biggest influence on Venus Skytrip?
Psychlona: no real influence on vs – it just came along naturally.
TMODM: What record changed your life?
Psychlona: No record changed my life as such but the punk music scene in general helped to steer it.
TMODM: What’s next for you?
Psychlona: Next for us is the new album ‘palo verde’ released next month plus usa tour.

Goat – Goathead (from World Music, release date: August 26, 2022, original release: 2012)

From the liner notes for the 10th Anniversary Remaster of World Music: “When the mysterious masked collective calling themselves Goat first emerged in 2012, armed with an incendiary debut album ‘World Music’ and a backstory for the ages – the band’s anonymous members hailing from the remote village of Korpilombo in northern Sweden, where inhabitants had for centuries been devoted to a form of voodoo introduced by a travelling witch doctor – there was, and there still isn’t, anyone else on earth quite like them…. Now, exactly a decade later, Rocket Recordings and the band have decided to dust-off the original recordings of ‘World Music’ and pass them over to the capable hands of the team at the legendary Abbey Road Studios to remaster the tracks and make them shine like they have never before.”

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