Back catalogue: Psych/Garage Rock

Review: Guerssen Records specialise in reissuing obscure psychedelic music from the past, and here they home in on two early British psychedelic bands, Hopscotch and Andwella. 'Look At The Lights Go Up' is Hopscotch's contribution, with the band made up of former members of the Eyes and Tomorrow, and the track comes as a rare and unreleased demo of melodic trip-sat illumination and lyrical nonsensicality ("This lady from the forest of Manhattan...". Andwella's 'Felix' comes to the B-side, and is a formerly unreleased outtake from their second album World's End.

Review: Mick Harvey has collaborated with Mexican artist Amanda Acevedo on a series of duets that make up this new album, Phantasmagoria in Blue. The 14 tracks have been taken from a mix of already existing duets, songs that were not duets, as well as some translations from Spanish and one of two original new pieces. The themes running through out it are common to us all - mortality, love and our endless, hapless search for meaning. The resulting record plays out with lush melodies and lots of richly emotional sounds that provoke plenty of thought and reflection.

Review: A rock n' roll compilation with a twist, 28 Little Bangers From Richard Hawley's Jukebox is a brand new selector's V/A LP from the 1990s Britpop figurehead and former member of the band Longpigs and Pulp. Diving deep into his personal collection here, this album reflects Hawley's absolute dedication to a pastime few may already know him for: slowly amassing a mammoth selection of 7" records in the mode of garage rock and skiffle. Many are instrumentals, flaunting Hawley's ear for a sound that goes beyond just lyricism or theme. With star cuts from the likes of The Timekeepers and Bobby Gentry, certainly do not miss this is if you're the the right kind of British rock obsessive.

Review: Commonly regarded as the first official release from avant-garde prog/space rock outfit Heldon; Electronique Guerilla (also known as Heldon 1), served as a pioneering piece of studio experimentation and manipulation, utilising a myriad of guitar effects, tape delay and electronics, collated together by the genius of Richard Pinhas. Building the pieces from a Schizo (the earlier incarnation of Heldon) track together with solo guitar loops and electronic works, while warping elements from another collaborative cut with guitarist Alain Renaud, the fruitful, cosmic, proto-wave machinations are often credited as some of the earliest influences from King Crimson's Robert Fripp (who Pinhas cited as a major influence and master of the guitar) and Brian Eno, yet while in no way shying away from their inspirations, Pinhas has since specified that "Heldon 1 was released in '74 at the same time Muff Winwood released the first Fripp & Eno", so while similarities and comparisons are welcome, more attentive ears should be able to extract the nuanced differences with which Heldon crafted their hallucinatory, boundary-pushing early opus. Originally released on Pinhas' own Disjuncta Records and limited to 1000 copies, this long overdue reissue won't stick around anywhere near as long as these swelling brain-pieces.

Review: Helicon's third opus of cinematic psychedelia comes under the name of God Intentions. The Glaswegian cinematic psych sextet have enlisted a stellar cast of collaborators for this one - including Ride's Mark Gardener on mastering duties and Trembling Bells' Lavinia Blackwall on vocals - crafting a sprawling sonic journey through themes of regret, redemption and resurrection. From the cosmic sitar swirls of 'Flume' to the haunting strings of 'Last Tango In Glasgow', this is a statement of redemptive intent for the both the internal world of the listener and the external kingdom of god.

Review: Finnish occult folk band Hexvessel once again do well to evoke the richly atmospheric, sublime hinterscapes that are often heard emanating from the Fennoscandian Peninsula. As ever with this lot, doomy, hard-stereo-panned omen-dirges for guitar abound, as encroaching tides of apocalyptic black metallic rock march ever-onward, laying waste to an admittedly already-wasted landscape, one which is nonetheless sparsely populated. The abyssally cavernous vocal treatment of Mat Kvohst McNerney is enough to send chills down the spine, evoking wellsprung feelings of tragedy and catharsis.

Review: From the moment they emerged in the early days of the 80s Tokyo underground, High Rise set themselves apart as radical outliers, shattering the limits of rock and psychedelic music with a ferocity unmatched even in that heady era. Their third album, 1992's Dispersion, maintained the group's in-the-red intensity while also pushing into new directions. A rough-n'-ready, Ballardian nightmare, this new reissue repackages the album in all its huge-roomy, intense-soloing instrumental rabidity.

Review: Re:Warm struck gold when they invited Paul Hillery to compile the first volume of Folk Funk & Trippy Troubadours, so they did the right thing and invited him back for another round. Hillary started out documenting his arcane finds in this ill-defined thread of music via a blog, and now these shockingly rare gems from forgotten corners of 60s and 70s are given a proper airing for everyone to savour. This is a prime example of digging culture at its best, as a sharp curatorial ear cuts through the forgettable dross to find unbelievable tracks like effervescent jazz groover 'Weepin' by Cascada, a tune worth the price of entry alone.

Review: Once unsung but now enjoying a revitalised career as a compiler and curator, Paul Hillery began his musical journey as a tour DJ for The Polyphonic Spree. But even long before this, he'd a niche knack for tracking down obscure musical gems. The breadth of his curatorial talents are demonstrated once again on We Are The Children Of The Setting Sun, which has no explicit genre focus but sonically segues through folk, psychedelia, and new age obscurities - and only ones with the utmost pristine sound at that. From the beauteous harmonic dulcimers of Graeme Gash to the closing Chicago Soul paeans of Reggio McLaughlin, we're urged to "drop out to the musical pulse that unites us all."

Review: Austin-based psychedelic rockers Holy Wave are back with their sixth studio album following 2020's Interloper. If you're already hip to their sound you won't need any head re-adjustment to get into the opening title track on Five of Cups - it's a dreamy yet powerful suite of ascending riffs and hypnotic diversions shot through with wistful intrigue. The gauze maintains as the album unwinds, although there are hidden depths to be explored in the second half as Mexican psych duo Lorelle Meets The Obsolete lend their touch to 'The Darkest Timeline' and Estrella Del Sol feeds into soaring closer 'Happier'.