DAVID CW BRIGGS Guitar Ha Ha CDR/DL (Folk Archive)
Latest album from this creative home recording artist, limited to just 14 copies on CD which comes with a handpainted art insert with handwritten track list. There's the lo-fi psychedelic blues of A Thousand Ears Ago; The Brown Eyed Girl, an eerie swirl shrouded in a dense gothic fog; and the shimmering, meandering, near-nine-minute psych epic The Edge of a Person. I Want to Be With Them and Not You hints at 70s glam with its insistent chugging rhythm and aspects of the melody, though is much more psychedelic and off-kilter and all the better for it. The Deranged Collage is off-centre psych-pop with shades of Donovan's quirkier material within a lo-fi DIY setting. The album closes with my favourite track here, Rotting Words, an absolute corker of indie-psych-pop, uplifting and invigorating, arrayed with chiming jangle and bursts of fuzzy noise. Available at davidcwbriggs.bandcamp.com

VARIOUS The Recurring Dreams of Dr Sardonicus double CD (Fruits de Mer)
Extensive compilation of most of the bands who have played at the Dr Sardonicus festival in Cardigan over the last few years. Everything here is new to Fruits de Mer, with some tracks being exclusive to this compilation and others taken from albums on other labels. Alain Pire provides an 11-minute-plus psych-out, with melodic pop-rock songwriting propelled by a funky groove, taking in heady psych guitar work and a spacey electronic shimmer. Custard Flux's Oxygen/Gelatinous Mass is twisty-turny psych-pop morphing into an instrumental centred around skronking sax. Astralasia offshoot Mushroom contribute a gentle ethereal psych-folk instrumental based around the Japanese stringed instrument koto. Spygenius have their roots in the 80s indie pop band Murrumbidgee Whalers, whose Giving Way to Trains is revisited here by the current band. This ultramelodic, harmony- and jangle-laden track is a must for indie pop fans, and also highlights the genre's closeness to psychedelia. The Chemistry Set also straddle the indie pop/psychedelic boundary with their jangly, 60s-inspired If Rome Was Meant to Fall. The Telephones' Two Byrds sounds like an authentic artefact of the late 60s, bringing together classy pop, psychedelia and American folk-rock in a somewhat similar manner to Love. Other noteworthy tracks include Anton Barbeau's catchy, idiosyncratic psych-pop I Demand a Dream, Fuchsia's Mellotron-adorned demo version of The Waves, and The Luck of Eden Hall's She Falls Down, combining psych-pop jangle with a raw, driving, garage edge. I've homed in mainly on the psych-pop side as that's my favourite variety of psychedelia, but elsewhere the compilation shows what a broad church psych is, encompassing spacerock, kosmische, bands who combine psych with prog rock, and beyond. I think this compilation was only issued for promotional purposes, not to buy, but you can find out more about Fruits de Mer and the upcoming Dr Sardonicus festivals here and here.

THE ARMOIRES Octoberland CD/LP/DL (Big Stir)
Fourth album from Burbank, CA's The Armoires, the band led by Big Stir founders Christina Bulbenko and Rex Broome. This band have always had good stuff but I reckon this album must be their best yet. The feeling I get is this is an album made by and for grown-up indiepop kids who still love the genre but have matured enough to have grown out of musical tribalism and purism and know it's OK to be inspired by more than one kind of music. In addition, they embrace luxurious arrangements as opposed to the stark, lo-fi recording quality that's more the norm for underground music. The album comes across as an underground album with mainstream production values, which shouldn't work but in this case does. This lavish approach extends to the artwork by Ridley Broome, which brings together inspiration from Art Nouveau artist Alfons Mucha and Japanese anime across the four panels of the gatefold cover.
The album opens with The Armoires' anthemic musical manifesto, We Absolutely Mean It, an excellent slice of chamber-power-pop, effectively juxtaposing crunchy fuzz and sophisticated strings. They say 'tack' to their Swedish friends in This One's For the Swedes, in which an airy dreampop aesthetic is beefed up with pop-rock oomph. Ridley & Me After the Apocalypse starts off with a jangly riff that sounds straight out of the prime period of indiepop, before introducing multiple layers to the sound including powerpop chug, sumptious strings, 80s-ish keyboard, and a perky harmony-driven chorus.
While I'm not usually a fan of polished country-pop, The Armoires manage to pull it off in Ouroboros Blues (Crow Whisperer), the electric violin and chiming Byrds-like jangle adding an extra special something. Green Hellfire at the 7-11 is also country-influenced but darker and rawer, underscored by a rhythmic stab and stomp, bursts of fuzz guitar, and pealing 12-string, ornamented here and there with barn dance fiddle. You Oughta Be Cut In Half combines darkly quirky humour and 70s pop sophistication with added 60s girl group harmonies, while Music and Animals celebrates the things that bring joy amidst a musical setting that adapts the 1990s twee pop sound with dreamy, airy strings. An absolute triumph - get it at Bandcamp or the main Big Stir website.

THE FISHHEADS Lobster Basque Replica LP & CD (Fruits de Mer)
Psychedelic supergroup put together by Swordfish from Astralasia, also including Anton Barbeau, Icarus Peel, Jon Chinn of Trace Imprint, Simon House who has worked with the likes of David Bowie and Hawkwind, fantasy artist Peter Pracownik, and many more. The music is far less Captain Beefheart-ish than you may expect from the Trout Mask Replica homage of the title and artwork, drawing instead from Pink Floyd, Mighty Baby, and even the Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim musical West Side Story. The album begins with a set of Pink Floyd covers, including the gloriously swirling See Emily Play, and the flute-adorned, Middle Eastern-tinged Set the Controls, both featuring the unmistakeable vocals of Anton Barbeau. Egyptian Tomb, originally by Mighty Baby, begins as a heady blend of funk, blues, spacerock and intense psych guitar workouts, before morphing into an elongated psychedelic jam centred around fluttering, soaring flute. Sidelong track Oops! Something's Coming From Another Planet takes Something Coming from West Side Story as its starting point, melting into instrumental psychedelia with liquid guitar work, more of that flight-of-birds-evoking flute, and a diversion into chilled-out spacey ambience. The LP, on brown vinyl with black marbling, also comes with a bonus CD which includes longer versions and radio edits of LP tracks, two versions of the Pink Floyd cover Remember A Day, the Dave Smale vocal version from the LP and an alternate version with Anton Barbeau singing, both of which are excellent psychedelic pop-rock including piano and spacey synth, and Lola's Story which is exclusive to the CD, with filmic narration that tells the story of the half-human, half-lobster character on the front cover accompanied by hypnotically rhythmic psychedelia taking in wild guitar soloing and electronic bloops and bleeps. Get it at www.fruitsdemerrecords.com

OCTOPUS SYNG Insanity is the Song We Sing LP/CD/DL (Pigeon Cult)
The seventh album from Octopus Syng, returning the project to its solo roots with Jaire Pätäri playing all the instruments here and releasing the album through his own label Pigeon Cult. The colourful, bubbling and swirling cover art is also his work.
Agent Code 420 is catchy psych-pop laden with Syd Barrett eccentricity. Magic Box is another slice of off-kilter psych-pop, the lopsided waltz rhythm providing something of a circus atmosphere. My Weekend seems to look towards Captain Beefheart for inspiration, a skittering, jerking piece with a core of psychedelic blues underneath all the bizarreness, while the instrumental section at the end has more in common with 1990s post-rock. Distorted Light Strips is psychedelic noise-rock with a proggy angularity, having shades of The Monsoon Bassoon or maybe Cardiacs, getting odder still during the improvisational interlude.
Where Is All My Stuff is frenetic psych-punk with lurching instrumentation and manic vocals, taking in some more melodic moments akin to Syd Barrett. Factory pairs a brooding melody with bright jangle, the piece recalling The Velvet Underground at times, plus there's some use of twangy guitar that imparts a sense of spy movie suspense.
While I'm reminded of some familiar names from the past, Jaire brings these influences together creatively, bringing in much of his own originality so the songs always sound new and fresh. The music has an eccentric sense of fun and ventures into some pretty avant garde territory at times. Well worth investigating for fans of psychedelia that goes beyond a straightforward pop or rock format. Available at octopussyng.bandcamp.com

KITCHEN CYNICS & MARGERY DAW As Those Gone Before tape/download (Cruel Nature)
Alan Davidson's long-running project Kitchen Cynics collaborates again with Margery Daw on this latest collection of experimental folk. The music often comes across like a bizarre, psychedelic version of children's songs, poems and stories from the pre-television era, that would warn children about the darker side of reality through fairytale villains and cautionary tales in which those who did bad deeds would meet a sticky end. Christopher Tadpole exemplifies this approach, with its story of insects getting their revenge on a boy who tortured their kind, set to a singsongy tune with an oompah march rhythm and quirky use of kazoo.
Brimstone is a woozy, semi-abstract, filmic instrumental with fluttering woodwind and buzzing electronics. In Mole Man, Margery recites a poem about an eccentric duke over an eerie, surreal soundscape. Last of the Little Lost Lambs is traditional-inspired folk with lyrics both quaint and bleak, accompanied by a dreamlike sound sculpture that wavers, skitters and rattles. Toy Piano is warped spooky Victoriana, underlaid by whirring electronics that sound like a retro video game haunted by a gang of poltergeists. Breathing is darkly beautiful folk evoking a place outside of normal reality with its ghostly vocalisations and eerie sounds.
Despite drawing from seemingly 'light' musics such as folk, Victorian popular song, and children's music, this is not easy listening under any definition of the term. Kitchen Cynics and Margery Daw completely reinvent these historical genres, taking them far away from anything straightforward or obvious. The end result can be challenging and unsettling at times but ultimately rewarding.
The artwork shows the usual attention to detail you get with the Cruel Nature label, with on-body art print on the cassette, and a sleeve that follows a uniform pattern with the preceding Kitchen Cynics tapes on the label, treating them as a complete set. The album sold out immediately on cassette but is still available as a download from Bandcamp.

DAVID CW BRIGGS The Changes CDR/DL (Folk Archive)
GAVIN JOHN BAKER Mercy Lake CDR/DL (Folk Archive)
Two recent releases from David CW Briggs' Folk Archive label. The Changes is a collection of mostly very short pieces, the twelve tracks totalling less than half an hour. The songs, such as the sleepy, meandering, folk-tinged lo-fi psych-pop of the title track, the very lovely minimal psych-folk of Your Deer Face, and the pensive, bleak Marching Song, are punctuated with instrumental interludes, including Pretty Pollen which combines bendy psych-blues with hypnotic repetition, the quirky, lopsided medieval-esque Milkwood, and the mesmerising swirl of Changes Coda which brings together folk and vintage synth music that recalls 1970s TV themes.
Gavin John Baker's instrumental album Mercy Lake sees him going back to his post-rock roots in tracks like the mellow and tuneful Hung in the Cloud, while Wire Walk expands on the post-rock sound to encompass aspects of twisty-turny prog and vintage electronics, and Ill Tastes The Wine is like a quirky prog-meets-post-rock take on incidental music from vintage action movies. The album ends with my favourite track here, Red Moon, 1970s-style electric folk with shades of Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, and the Norwegian band Folque, although perhaps a touch more proggy and psychedelic than all of those.
Both albums are highly limited on CD - 17 copies of The Changes and 25 copies of Mercy Lake - though downloads are also available. Visit davidcwbriggs.bandcamp.com

SIDEWALK SOCIETY An Introduction to... double CD (Fruits de Mer)
Extensive double compilation from this Californian psych/garage/mod outfit, bringing together all their tracks recorded for Fruits de Mer Records, plus some bonus material. The covers-oriented nature of Fruits de Mer means that naturally the album is heavy on the cover versions, highlights of which include a couple of tracks from the psych-pop phases of bands not generally known for that genre: Red Chair Fade Away by the Bee Gees, the song that lent its name to one of Tim Vass' post-Razorcuts bands, in which whimsical and surreal lyrics are accompanied by lilting Mellotron, chiming guitar and swirling effects, and the Rolling Stones' Dandelion, arrayed with glorious vocal harmonies and celestial retro synth sounds, as well as rockier tracks like the Small Faces' Song of a Baker and The Action's A Saying for Today.
Also included on the first disc is a selection of bonus tracks taken from Sidewalk Society's non-Fruits de Mer album Venus, Saturn and the Crescent Moon, plus a few demos, all of which are originals written by Dan West and Dan Lawrence from the band. There are punchy garage numbers with an authentic 60s sound, such as Now and Forever and Tell Me Why, alongside songs such as Abbey Chatsworth, blisteringly intense rock softened with angelic vocal harmonies, and Silent Echo, bright sunny psych-pop beefed up with a powerpop punch. If you missed out on Strange Roads, Sidewalk Society's remake of The Action's Rolled Gold album from a few years back, here it is again in its entirety on the second disc; see my original review of this here in issue 30. It looks like the album has sold out at source, but may turn up from third party sellers. Find out more about Fruits de Mer Records' other releases at www.fruitsdemerrecords.com

GARFIELDS BIRTHDAY Next Stop Mars CD/DL (Pink Hedgehog)
Latest album from Simon and Shane Felton's long running and massively underrated project Garfields Birthday. Travel Song is fuzzed-up punky pop recalling the more melodic punk bands like The Undertones or Buzzcocks, as well as some of the noisier side of C86. The Beautiful Room is Empty is introspective indiepop bridging the gap between bedroom jangle and a more sophisticated sound taking in piano and evocative, cinematic guitar effects. Tofu Moon is jaunty and bouncy but not lacking in bite, perhaps best described as 'punk Britpop'. A few other great tracks here include the powerpop chug of The Other Side of the Wind, the gutsy, harmony-laden indiepop of Melissa, the massive earworm Jackie Boy Blue, and the American folk-rock tinged Library. An eclectic yet cohesive album which in many ways shares a like mind with various bands on Big Stir Records; I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this to followers of that label or indeed anyone who appreciates any kind of intelligent, melodic and powerful pop music. Available as a download or factory-pressed CDR in slim card wallet, available at garfieldsbirthday.bandcamp.com

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