Baxters Psychedelia

Foreword

Baxters is a series of playlists in progress that aims to offer a look at the global psychedelic scene. Published annually, it follows a few simple rules:

– each playlist is made up of 20 tracks;

– no track can exceed 20 minutes in length;

– in order to keep the selection as varied as possible, an artist cannot be featured again within a period of less than 3 years;

– while not a hard rule, preference is given to artists who are just starting out and/or have never been featured before;

– tracks must be on Spotify.

Beyond these rules – which, like all rules drawn up at a desk, have both weaknesses and practical merits – there is of course the factor of subjectivity: Baxters makes no claim to capture the best of contemporary psychedelic rock, let alone to embrace it from a completist standpoint. The rules mentioned above go in quite the opposite direction, favoring a limited and partial selection, not only in quantitative terms but also in terms of identity. The playlists mirror the tastes of their author, who, like everyone, loves and listens to some subgenres more than others. That's why, for instance, there's very little presence of the branch of psychedelia that has been most in vogue in recent years, namely the one contaminated by metal and stoner. Just as there's little trace of indie-leaning psychedelic pop, psychedelic blues, and various other interpretations of this complex musical reality. It goes without saying that such substantial omissions are in no way an "objective" rejection, but simply a choice dictated by personal taste. Baxters was born as a pure memory-jogging exercise, a tool for grouping music to be revisited in a streamlined way. If it's now also becoming a vehicle for sharing with enthusiasts and the curious, critical ambitions still have no place in it.

The tracks

Track: 近江 (Nearside, Riverside)

Artist: 卧轨的火车 (Railway Suicide Train)

Album: 大陆 (Continent)

Label: Ruby Eyes Records

Country: China

Subgenre: acid folk, noise, ambient

In an era of landings on red planets, the cover art doesn't just evoke Anish Kapoor's My Red Homeland, it also perfectly sums up the alien psychedelia contained in the record. The music of China's Railway Suicide Train, on their second LP Continent, is indeed an abrasive, rhythmic and violent form of psychedelia, a departure from the more shoegaze-leaning sound of their debut (released in 2016). Highly varied and rich in ideas, at times even contradictory ones, the album opens in a way that lays these contrasts bare: "Nearside, Riverside" is a track that perhaps doesn't fully represent the record's overall sound, but it does bring together a wide range of disparate inspirations, highlighting the complexity of this work.

Brano: Trip Off The Map / Jangle

Autore: The Bonnie Nettles

Album: The Bonnie Nettles

Label: Blackspin Records

Country: Greece

Subgenre: neo-psychedelia, Madchester

Unlike their fellow countrymen Dury Dava, authors of one of the most intriguing debuts of 2019's psychedelic scene, Athens's Bonnie Nettles (whose name refers to the co-founder of the Heaven's Gate cult) look directly to the English-speaking world, both in the language of their lyrics and in their influences: by their own admission, the band's members look to Madchester, neo-psychedelia, Stone Roses and Brian Jonestown Massacre. "Trip Off The Map/Jangle" is "a track with no particular story behind it, it was born out of a jam, like several of our songs, and it's perhaps the track where everyone's influences come together more than in any other." Formed in 2016, they are releasing their debut. The cover art was conceived and hand-made by Bill Delis, who created several sections and then joined them together in a collage.

Brano: Of Medicine And Moonshine: A Mystic’s Interpretation

Artist: Frozen Planet 1969

Album: Cold Hand of a Gambling Man

Label: Pepper Shaker Records

Country: Australia

Subgenre: acid rock, jam band

Formed in 2012, this Sydney-based band, whose name references a fictional film, digs deep into the tradition of instrumental improvisation and has stood out over the years as one of the most interesting acts in Australia's rich contemporary scene. "Cold Hand Of A Gambling Man" doesn't stray from their space-acid explorations, and "Of Medicine And Moonshine: A Mystic's Interpretation" comes from a roughly two-hour jam session in 2017, which yielded material used not only on this album but also on "The Heavy Medicinal Grand Exposition", released in 2018.

Track: Willy's World

Artist: Kimono Drag Queens

Album: Willy’s World (singolo)/ Songs of Worship (album)

Label: Copper Feast Records

Country: Australia

Subgenre: neo-psychedelia

Also hailing from Sydney, Kimono Drag Queens are a band with ethnic influences (among their declared inspirations, alongside Goat, Kikagaku Moyo and Here Lies Man, is Tuareg music), and after a handful of singles starting in 2016, they made their full-length debut last November with "Songs Of Worship", of which "Willy's World" is a closing track that might come as a surprise given the names mentioned above: this is layered wall-of-sound territory that touches on raga rock, yet never loses a pop soul, to the point that some reviews have picked up on echoes of Verve in the track.

Track: Lucy Lane

Artist: Black Satori

Album: Lucy Lane

Label: Psych Manifesto Records

Country: United States

Subgenre: space rock, heavy psych

It's well known that San Francisco and psychedelia enjoy an eternal marriage, and although Black Satori actually hail from Minneapolis and only later relocated to the cradle of one of the most important sounds of 60s rock, they're fully intent on driving that point home.

The title track from their debut EP starts off like a garage single that could slot right into a repainted Nuggets for the great-great-grandchildren, but after a couple of minutes it morphs into space psychedelia with guitars that grow ever heavier and more distorted: the band's declared love is the sound of early Pink Floyd, and here they proudly shout it out.

Track: Mantra

Artist: Kundalini Genie

Album: 11:11

Label: Space Ranch Records (EU) / Little Cloud Records (US)

Country: Scotland

Subgenre: raga rock, alternative

Scotland's Robbie Wilson fell in love with psychedelia through the most common gateway, namely the instrument that in the West is inextricably tied to that musical world: the sitar. After a couple of solo releases that sealed this primer-level lysergic infatuation, full of tributes to Ravi Shankar and George Harrison, Wilson put together a band whose name is meaningless and was chosen simply because it sounded good. "11:11" is Kundalini Genie's fourth album, and "Mantra" once again underlines Wilson's interest in Indian influences. The track then evolves into an alternative rock sound that, with uneven results, defines the album, but the use of the sitar is honey to the ears of anyone who loves that kind of sonority. Rhetorical nostalgia, perhaps, but one that still shows no sign of expiring.

Track: İsyan Manifestosu

Artist: Gaye Su Akyol

Album: Yort Savul: İSYAN MANİFESTOSU!

Label: Glitterbeat Records

Country: Turkey

Subgenre: anatolian rock

The princess of Anatolian pop-rock is back two years after the international breakthrough of "Istikrarli Hayal Hakikattir" with a three-track EP (about fifteen minutes in all) that previews her new album, due out in spring, and marks her debut as a solo producer. While retaining the characteristic notes of Turkish tradition, İsyan Manifestosu also explores other territory, recalling for instance the pastiche pulled off by Pepe Deluxé on "Queen Of The Wave": could we call this a kinship with space age pop?

Track: Çöl Aslanlari (Desert Lions)

Artist: Baba Zula

Album: Hayvan Gibi

Label: Gulbaba Records

Country: Turkey

Subgenre: Anatolian rock, world

Legends of Turkish psychedelia since their formation in 1996, Baba Zula are famous above all for their live shows, a kind of multidisciplinary ritual made up of belly dancing, colourful costumes, poetry, theatre and visual art. “Hayvan Gibi” (which means “to move with the natural grace of an animal”) largely gathers together tracks the band had already recorded before, but in the studio and in much shorter versions, without the “liberation” of the live setting. “Çöl Aslanlari (Desert Lions)” actually dates back to a 1998 theatrical staging of “The Little Prince”, and has long been one of the band's live warhorses. The version on this record explains why, with bewitching force.

Track: Ahir Benem

Artist: Cem Yildiz

Album: KÜN

Label: Caz Plak

Country: Turkey

Subgenre: Anatolian rock, psychedelic folk, electronic

The fact that his solo debut arrived at the age of 50 shouldn't for a moment suggest that Cem Yildiz is behind schedule. A member of the group iNSANLAR, composer of several film scores, and collaborator with other acts such as Acid Arab, the musician is no stranger to either recognition or experience.

But even if that weren't the case, the ambition and beauty of “KÜN” would still leave their mark. Made up of two 17-minute tracks, the album looks to the grandeur of his homeland's cultural history: “Haydar Haydar” reworks a piece by Ali Ekber Çiçek, a legend of the country's folk tradition, while “Ahir Benem” reaches back even further, drawing on a composition by Yunus Emre, the 13th-century Sufi poet. What's striking is Yildiz's approach to tradition: alongside the bağlama, an instrument of Turkish tradition, he brings in electronics, creating a pulsing tension toward the divine, the unknown, the infinite.

Track: Sjenka u Mehani

Artist: Daliborovo Granje

Album: Hainin

Label: Dostava Zvuka

Country: Croatia

Subgenre: psychedelic folk, world

Formed in 2014 in the Međimurje region, Croatia's Daliboro Granje ("Daliboro's branches") are a four-piece band that approaches psychedelia and post-rock through a world-music lens, drawing particularly on Eastern and Balkan melodies. "Hainin" is their second album; the title means "traitor, renegade" and confirms their musical identity, though compared to their debut (aside from access to a better-equipped professional studio) there's been an instrumental swap: the flute has been replaced by trumpet. "Sjenka u Mehani" ("Shadow in the Bar") musically expresses the memories of the album's protagonist (Hainin, precisely) of his first stirrings of love and passion.

Track: Gydnia80

Artist: Lonker See

Album: Hamza

Label: Antena Krzyku

Country: Poland

Subgenre: alternative, free jazz, kraut-rock

Of the Polish scene, Lonker See are perhaps the act that has managed to gain the most recognition beyond national borders. If "One Eye Sees Red" put them on the radar that matters, "Hamza" cemented their status as one of the most compelling forces in European psychedelia. "Gydnia80" carries a sturdy alternative feel that veers into free jazz, while its psych identity stems from a peculiar take on kraut-rock: not a direct one, but an influence strongly reminiscent of Radiohead's "Kid A" and "Amnesiac". In particular, the echoes of "The National Anthem" are deafening here.

Brano: The Blue Magician’s Fantasy

Artist: Upupayāma

Album: Upupayāma

Label: self-released

Country: Italy

Subgenre: acid folk

Italy continues to prove itself a thriving scene, and in 2020 it did so above all with a debut of striking beauty. Alessio Ferrari is the musician hiding behind the enigmatic name Upupayāma, a riddle the artist himself has since solved. The word is in fact a fusion of "upupa" (hoopoe) and "yama", which means "mountain" in Japanese: "I like to think that in an imaginative world there could exist a mountain hoopoe, which is surreal, but that's exactly what I wanted to convey: the surreality of one's own imagination, which is infinite, so it could give life to a flying elephant, with wings, or to a talking dormouse, and so on."

Ferrari's imaginative power isn't limited to his stage name, nor to the magnificent cover artwork by illustrator Daniel Onufer, but naturally extends to the music itself too. The declared influence of Kikagaku Moyo comes through clearly, and the result is an acid folk steeped in Eastern hues, one that sets itself apart from the sounds favoured by the biggest names in contemporary Italian psychedelia. Making the whole thing even more lysergic is the extraordinarily original use of lyrics: while the tracks bear English titles, the songs (with the exception of "White Oak") are sung in an invented language: "I like creating images, landscapes onto which the listener can then project their own meaning, if they wish, or better still, where the listener can simply travel. Hence the choice to use an invented language, or rather a sort of grammelot in which the voice itself becomes an instrument." "The Blue Magician's Fantasy" best captures Ferrari's musical universe, and we hope he'll soon give us new territories to explore.

Track: 哈姒格岔 (Hamgling)

Artist: 宇宙企划 (UchoKika)

Album: 宇宙企划 (UchoKika)

Label: Ruby Eyes Records

Country: China

Subgenre: psytrance, psybient, world

Initially known as Cosmic Project, UchoKika are a Beijing duo who approach psychedelia through an electronic lens. The first Chinese band to be hosted by KEXP, Seattle's storied radio station, for a recording session, UchoKika blend the mysticism of the sitar with synthesizers and drum machines. "Hamgling" is a fine showcase of their sound, which could be labelled as psybient, and this self-titled album marks their debut full-length.

Track: Walc Orbitalnej Ośmiornicy

Artist: Astrokot

Album: Astrokot i Przyjaciele z Odległych Galaktyk

Label: Opus Elefantum

Country: Poland

Subgenre: space rock, jazz

Marian Mazurowski is the name behind the Astrokot project, which isn't actually a band in the traditional sense, but rather a musician working with various collaborators. Drawing inspiration from the sounds of bands such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Stara Rzeka, Alameda Organisation, ARRM and Thaw, Mazurowski (previously active in the post-rock band Dyson Sphere) crafts a space rock sound with strong forays into jazz. "Walc Orbitalnej Ośmiornicy" translates as "Orbital Octopus Waltz" and hints at some technical details, in particular the octatonic scale used.

The wonderfully original cover art was created by a tattoo artist friend of Mazurowski's: "I had a rough idea, something involving a cat and some planets, but it was really just a sketch. I told her about it, she made a draft and I fell in love with it at first sight. From there we discussed the details and colors together."

Track: Ain't Got Enough Mojo

Artist: Centre El Muusa

Album: Centre El Muusa

Label: Sulatron

Country: Estonia

Subgenre: kraut-rock

Why rack your brains over elaborately hallucinatory cover art, which often ends up merely looking dated, when you can look back at the past in a completely unique way? Take an old photo of your bassist as a kid in a domestic setting, and et voilà, job done: "We wanted to make something simple and cute, in the style of Blind Faith." Formed in 2015 as an experimental musique concrète duo called Centre Electronique Muusa, after three years and four albums the group expanded by adding a bassist and a drummer, also changing the band's name and musical identity. The idea behind this debut was to create minimalist music, free of structure, built on very few chords, with the playful element taking center stage (Misha Panfilov, the band's leader, has called it "trance rock and roll music"). "Ain't Got Enough Mojo" is the shortest track on the album, and in miniature it captures the record's essence: a hallucinatory, obsessive rhythm, space-y effects, and expressive freedom above all.

Track: Sterndüne (Kosmodrøm)

Artist: Takeshi's Cashew

Album: Sterndüne (Kosmodrøm)

Label: self-released

Country: Austria

Subgenre: world

Cosmic kraut-rock. Cumbia. Afrobeat. Disco. Desert rock. Club music. World music. Funk. 70s psychedelia. These are just some of the musical worlds that Vienna's Takeshi's Cashew claim to shape into their sound, which will make its LP debut next June with Humans in a Pool. Formed in 2019, Takeshi's Cashew started out as a simple jam band before shaping their sound into proper songs. On "Sterndüne (Kosmodrøm)", "we wanted to create a fusion of desert rock and electronic dance/club music. We really love bands like Tinariwen or musicians like Bombino, their unique style of playing guitar, so we started experimenting with those sounds and ended up going down a psychedelic rabbit hole in the middle of the song. And in case you're wondering: yes, what you're hearing are electronic bagpipes!"

Track: Espejo

Artist: Monstruos del Mañana

Album: Espejo

Label: self-released

Country: Mexico

Subgenre: Latin rock, boogaloo

Active since 2016, Mexico's Monstruos del Mañana explore, by their own admission, Latin identity through the fusion of various Latin and African rhythms with rock and other genres. After 2018's debut "Tenquén", their second album, "Espejos", is due out later this year.

The lyrics of 'Espejo' talk about how other people are the best mirrors for ourselves. And it's about breaking that mirror, in order to draw a line marking where one person's identity ends and another's begins. The album as a whole will deal with the different mirrors we constantly interact with in the modern age: lovers, friends, society, our own ideas about ourselves, and of course social media.

Musically, "Espejo" is a psychedelic boogaloo with Latin vibes, psychedelic guitars and robotic vocals.

Track: 治愈鲁绪 (7P47DZZ)

Artist: Run Run Run

Album: RUNRUNRUN

Label: Maybe Mars

Country: China

Subgenre: post-punk

A name that draws on the Velvet Underground both at their most famous and their most obscure, a track title that does indeed belong to one of the most celebrated albums in history, though certainly not one of its best-known cuts; a second album that, true to its name, feels like a frantic dash toward the new, the unexplored, a refusal to retrace its own footsteps. Because in the space of just one year, the sound of Beijing's Run Run Run has evolved considerably, so much so that the more pronounced melodic sensibility of their debut "Hoon" has turned into a fiercer, more direct strain of psychedelia, much as the Velvets did between the Banana album and "White Light/White Heat": the band themselves claim that "7P47DZZ" moves closer to the Fall's sonic aesthetic. It's an urban psychedelia whose central philosophical concern is the traps imposed by modern life, as sung by lyricist and co-vocalist Zhao Kai, and which finds in the synthesizers introduced on this record a relentless form of musical expression. A philosophy that looks back to the band members' own roots: all four belong to ethnic minorities, and frontman Xiao Dou, originally from Guiyang, only moved to Beijing in 2017.

Track: 昙古七 (Within An Endless Dream)

Artist: 解雾的真实 (Mirrors)

Album: 昝古七 (Within An Endless Dream)

Label: Ruby Eyes Records

Country: China

Subgenre: acid rock, kraut-rock

After Separate Reality, the debut EP released in 2017 and now absorbed here with new recordings of those four tracks, the Shanghai-based Mirrors have finally arrived at their debut album. It's a record that's hard to pin down within a psychedelic context, since it never settles into a clear, well-defined identity - and it's precisely for that reason that it deserves proper attention. The title track, accompanied by an absurd video that's sure to find devoted admirers, could be summed up as a cosmic mantra steeped in acid tones. Whatever that might mean - though then again, the album is, in their own words, "dedicated to those who have lost touch with the world, to those who are neither asleep nor awake."

Track: Let It All In

Artist: Arbouretum

Album: Let It All In

Label: Thrill Jockey Records

Country: United States

Subgenre: hard rock, jam

Active since 2002 and hailing from Baltimore, Arbouretum know how to craft a sound that feels both firmly rooted in its era and timeless at once, classic in the purest sense of the word. Then again, blending English folk, blues, Americana and 70s psychedelia leaves no room for any desire to sound modern. Yet looking to tradition doesn't mean giving in to stagnation, as proven by their latest, richly packed album, which finds its absolute high point in the title track, nearly twelve minutes of thundering riffs and improvisation in which Corey Allender's bass, Matthew Pierce's keyboards and Dave Heumann's guitar wrestle furiously with each other, while Heumann's own voice pulls us along on this breathless journey. Some might see plenty of mannerism in it, but keeping this fire alive after nearly twenty years of career is no small feat.

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