July 1, 2021

Summerlong


Hello summer! Wistful for the waves of long ago, longing for the desert sea of my future. This is me. Is it you too? Journeys are coming, journeys need soundtracks, and I've got a helluva great one for YOU (as always!). This month is a headtripper for sure, featuring some of the very best (mostly) recent psych and spacerock. The mind journeys being generated during worldwide lockdown emerged with a newfound intensity in spite of, or perhaps because of, our collective pandemic blues.

And where did they come from? Denmark (the blazing jazz-inflected motorik of Mythic Sunship); Los Angeles (the proggy murmurations of Hooveriii - pronounced "Hoover-three");  Hay On Wye, UK (the driving trance of Moon Goose); Montreal (the bombastic declarations of Yoo Doo Right); London (the hypnotic postpunk of Hey Colossus); Brazil (the psychedelic explorations of White Canyon And The 5th Dimension); Poland (the kraut-influenced experimentalism of Lastryko); Finland (the manic mantras of the mighty Circle, taking us back to 1998); Portland, OR (the exotic travelogues of the EPIC Grails, circa 2007); Liverpool (the Spacemen 3 worship of Mugstar); Sweden (the prolific improv of Kungens Man); unknown (the is-it-a-German-band-from-1973-or-a-modern-forgery-of-mysterious-origin? acid rock of Golem); Dublin, Ireland (the inexplicable what-the-heck-is-this-ness of Afterwardness); and finally, also from Montreal, The Dears offer up their trademark cinematic catharsis asking the universal human question: is there really no such thing as LOVE?

I don't know why I'm so obsessed with the geographical locations of all these artists I've been exploring and curating. I mean, it's all from SPACE, right? But I guess it helps define the journey, makes it more interesting by pointing out that space is where you find it, space is EVERYWHERE, and we are not alone on this journey. So take a trip with me, won't you?

The following tracks are included in the player below:

Spacerock Continuum Intro - bRambles
Maelstrom - Mythic Sunship Wildfire
Gone - Hooveriii Water For The Frogs
Second Life - Moon Goose Source Code
The Ocelot That Lost A Lot - Yoo Doo Right Nobody Panicked And Everybody Got On
The Eyeball Dance - Hey Colossus Dances / Curses
Ouroboros - White Canyon And The 5th Dimension Spectral Illusion
Dwa - Lastryko - Tetno Pulsu
Kartano - Circle Pori
Silk Rd - Grails - Burning Off Impurities
Zeta Potential - Mugstar Graft
Raketens Vandring Over Himlen - Kungens Man Stockholm Maraton
Stellar Launch - Golem Orion Awakes
Shellakapooky - Afterwardness - s/t
There Is No Such Thing As Love - The Dears End Of A Hollywood Bedtime Story