In the last few episodes I’ve been exploring psychedelia from various parts of the world. The playlist in this episode is made up of new psychedelic music from Australia and New Zealand. I’ve noticed over the last couple of years that Australia, in particular, has a thriving psychedelic scene and this episode really bears that out. Not to take anything away from New Zealand or anywhere else for that matter, it’s just that so much good music is coming out of Australia and it’s really been enjoyable corresponding with the artists.

The drops in this episode come from the 1959 movie On The Beach. In that movie a nuclear war breaks out and the only life left in the world is in Australia, but even they’re not safe from the cloud of radiation that will eventually arrive. It’s a bleak movie, and with the end of the Cold War a lot of people (myself included) thought that we had left this behind and that the risk of nuclear war was remote. The situation has certainly changed with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Things don’t seem to be going well for Putin and he’s made noises about putting Russia’s nuclear arsenal on high alert. Even before that the doomsday clock was already set at 100 seconds to midnight–the closest that its ever been–and the UN secretary general recently said “The prospect of nuclear war is now back within the realm of possibility.”

So anyway, having said that, enjoy the great music in this hour of Turn Me On, Dead Man and just think of the message in the closing frame of On The Beach that said “There is still time, brother.”

00:34 Human Rites – The Serpent and the Rainbow
05:15 Flower Children of the Apocalypse – Return To The Sun
08:00 Golden Sunbird – Voyage, Pt. 2
16:20 Frozen Planet….1969 – Glassblaster (Alternate Take)
20:14 Black Sand – Salutations To The Sun
22:57 Trigona – Petra
30:35 Sons Of Zöku – Yang Yin (Radio Edit)
34:45 Fuzz Meadows – Orange Sunshine
39:13 The Dharma Chain – Shoot Up Love
42:42 Legal Noise – Flashback
45:35 Fortress Europe & Moonflower – Organ Grinder
48:54 Robot God – Valleys of Primordia

Trainspotting has taken on a narcotic connotation because of the 1996 film directed by Danny Boyle, based on the novel by Irvine Welsh. Although that story was not about psychedelics, the film has its share of hallucinatory moments, the sequel less so. About the music in this episode, the playlist features psychedelia that starts out more in the hallucinatory vein but then becomes more meditative. Check out the music map below. A good illustration of how psychedelia has become a worldwide phenomenon. This episode features artists from the US, Canada, the UK, Norway, Israel, Guatemala, and closes out with a soundscape from Peruvian artist Chino Burga.

The title of this episode is from something my two-year-old and I have been doing recently. We’ve been going to an overpass nearby and wait for trains to pass. I’d never thought of myself as a trainspotter but I guess I’ve had a fascination since my childhood days staying at my grandparents’ home. Their house was about 100 yards from train tracks and I vividly recall the booming sound of the freight trains on summer nights when all the windows were open. So anyway, where my son and I go there are two sets of tracks, one for the DC metro trains, which comes above ground where we are, and one for the intercity trains. It’s always a jolt when we get the metro drivers to honk the horn.

00:19 Self-Immolation Music – Anhedonia
03:30 Helicon – Freakquency
07:46 The Orange Dots – Lost A Dream
12:29 A Crone’s Orchard – Worms
19:23 Solipsisme – Chimiosynthèse
23:31 The Midnight Vein – The Link
29:05 Carlton Melton – Hazel Heat
34:29 Ouzo Bazooka – Monsters
40:25 The Soundcarriers – Falling Back
44:02 The Groovy Nobody – Elevated
47:39 Baghdad Battery – Days Gone By
53:11 Chino Burga – Quien Como Dios

The movie Soylent Green was released in 1973 and offers a dystopian view of the future, set in our current year, 2022. (Spoilers ahead) In Soylent Green’s vision of 2022, the world is overpopulated with a permanent heat wave from greenhouse gases. The Soylent company controls the food supply and they start producing a “miracle food” that they claim is made from plankton but as Charlton Heston discovers, it’s really made from human beings. In other words things get so bad by 2022 that cannibalism becomes the order of the day. As Tony Sokol points out in Den of Geek, Soylent Green did anticipate some of the darker features of our current world: face coverings, meat substitutes, climate change. Cannibalism, though? I don’t know, we’re not quite there yet but who knows? Anyway, in our timeline 2022 is already starting off with great psychedelia. All of the tracks in this episode have been released in the last month.

00:00 Turn Me On Dead Man – Intro
00:19 Solilians – Old Schmeckled Hen
06:13 Lamp of the Universe – Return as Light
10:49 Clyde Von Klaus – Concede
13:40 Turn Me On Dead Man – Break
15:12 Ogua – Waves
24:03 Waylon Thornton – Blown Princes
26:11 Barbican Estate – The Divine Image
31:01 Elephant Stone – La fusée du chagrin
34:40 Los Árboles – Bebe Jesús
38:55 Thee Tabs – Carrier Pigeons
41:27 Parker Sprout – Milk in the Sun
44:02 Monte Meteoro – Contra
50:41 Aeon – Five
53:23 io audio recordings – Awaiting The Elliptical Drift

It’s that time of year where we look back, take stock of everything that occurred during the year and try to make sense of it. I’m looking back on a year of loss–my mother died during the summer and my grandparents’ old house where I spent much of my childhood was destroyed in a fire. As if that weren’t enough, I lost two teeth (!) in 2021. Like 2020, though, music was a particularly bright spot in an otherwise challenging year.

As for my choices for the best of 2021, I made three lists. The first a Mixcloud compilation of some of the best tracks of 2021, followed by a list (in no particular order) of some of the best albums of 2021, and finally some singles and EPs that I managed to list in alphabetical order.

Last year I also posted a list of notable reissues but I didn’t try to keep up on all the reissues that were released in 2021. I was just happy to finally have The Beatles Let It Be box set, and to finally see the Peter Jackson documentary, Get Back. Really fun to watch.

 I’d just like to take this opportunity to say thank you to the artists for providing the world with such wonderful music. My picks for the best tracks of 2021:

00:00 Turn Me On Dead Man – Intro
00:29 The Dharma Chain – So You Wanna Be A Spaceman?
07:03 Mt. Mountain – Aplomb
11:31 Meatbodies – Reach For The Sun
16:22 The Mountain Movers – I Wanna See The Sun
19:21 Thee U.F.O. – Putrefied Block
22:28 Dope Smoker – NASDAQ
27:09 Grinding Eyes – When The Night Falls
31:01 The Holy Family – Inward Turning Suns
37:05 The Myrrs – Buggy Chawnker
39:11 The Slow Voyage – Expansion
43:14 Magic Castles – Sunburst
46:29 Chainsaw Rainbow – blonde with dark roots
50:05 Mantras – Sunlight Swell
53:54 Ogua – Iyan
59:17 Swan Faucet – Wandering
1:05:48 Raw Optics – Aqua Mundo
1:08:04 The Sonic Splits – Like the Steady Flowing of a Stream
1:12:42 Cheval Sombre – Althea
1:20:22 Hooveriii – Shooting Star
1:24:24 Firefriend – Poison Tree
1:29:41 Comet Control – Secret Life
1:36:37 Shirese – The Glue Murder
1:38:54 Broken Sky – California
1:41:41 Goat – Queen of the Underground
1:47:36 Chino Burga – Meditación

My picks for the best albums of 2021:

My picks for the best EPs and singles of 2021:

My picks for the best EPs/singles of 2021:

There’s been a lot of discussion recently about decriminalization or legalization of various kinds of drugs, including psychedelics. The podcast “The Argument” held a panel discussion on this topic in the episode “The World’s View on Drugs Is Changing. Which Side Are You On?” Oregon was among the first to experiment with decriminalization of drugs, but according to the website Governing, this has not resulted in connecting people with treatment. They point out, however, that COVID-19 may have impeded these efforts.

For the first time in the last 50 years, the federal government is funding a research study on the use of psychedelics to treat addiction. Three universities (Johns Hopkins, the University of Alabama at Birmingham and New York University) will be studying psilocybin to break addiction to tobacco. Psilocybin is also being studied as a treatment for chronic pain, and Psilocybin and MDMA are also being studied for treatment of mental illness. One study found that psilocybin improves major depressive disorder in cancer patients. Reality Sandwich warns, however, that psychedelics are being commodified in a way that diminishes their cultural value.

The biggest news in psychedelic music is that Earthless has announced that they will be touring this winter. Levitation (formerly Austin Psych Fest) will take place this week in Austin. And this episode of Turn Me On, Dead Man features several new psychedelic tracks, starting with the Altered Hours. The Irish Times praised their latest album, stating that they “inject doomed Irish romanticism into psychedelic rock.”

00:00 Turn Me On Dead Man – Intro
00:28 The Altered Hours – Radiant Wound
04:23 Strawberry Sleepover – For Tomorrow
08:05 Halo Noose – Journey to the Sun
12:15 Turn Me On Dead Man – Break
14:19 Chainsaw Rainbow – blonde with dark roots
17:57 Sly Fungi – Panspermia
23:12 The Squarevoyants – Motor Psychos (Ride)
25:02 The Wizard – The Wicked Messenger
27:52 American Cream Band – New Gods FM
31:47 Wah Wah Wah – Wormhole
36:10 Speck – The Metz Sessions