psychedelic

I've never tried to mask my unbridled desire for the Jewelled Antler Collective - these San Francisco-based forest dwellers have managed to do something quite magical in them there woods, and make psychedelic folk music (free folk, new weird America, whatever) sound simply irresistible. I don't know what it is really, maybe it's the guiding hand of Thuja-member and founder of the whole thing Loren Chasse, who appears here as the spiritual frontman of Softwar.

In an age where a wah pedal and a couple of beards are enough to get a band labelled 'psychedelic', it's great to see a band doing it properly. Sydney's Richard In Your Mind are just such an outfit. Full of inventiveness and spark, Richard In Your Mind make beguiling, genuinely odd, mind-bending music, the kind as likely to veer off into a hip hop verse as it is an extended sitar workout. Now, four years after starting out, the newly expanded five piece are about to gift us with My Volcano, their keenly awaited second lp.

Zola Jesus is the endeavor of a solitary girl named Nika Roza Danilova to simultaneously combat and invoke the approaching apocalypse using the only weapon/offering she has: her voice. After a decade of opera study and a musical awakening involving such varied inspiration as Billboard bubblegum, classical arias, no wave, avant industrial, she was able to thread her influences into a sound uniquely her own.

The core members of Shpongle are Simon Posford and Raja Ram from the United Kingdom, along with many collaborators and guest musicians. Ott is also credited on all albums. Their sound is a mix of mainly eastern ethnic samples and western contemporary psychedelic synth music. Posford is responsible for the synth and studio work while Raja Ram contributes with flute arrangements. They are both responsible for the visionary input. According to one interview, they commonly visualize the music together before and during the creation process.