From the desert guitar blues of Niger’s Group Inerane to the Scottish folk-rock of Trembling Bells, psychedelic music resonates with many cultures in many lands.
Two recent releases that have slipped onto shelves are prime examples of the ever-increasing influence psychedelia has on the musical world.
As far as indie-rock royalty goes, Dave Portner and Bradford Cox are two of the past decade’s stars.
Portner, aka Avey Tare, smashed a home run last year with his band Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion — a trippy psychedelic masterpiece that will be remembered as one of America’s finest records.
Cox was making waves in 2009 with his Atlas Sound project, releasing the well-received Logos album. The year before he released two albums with his band Deerhunter, the magnificent Microcastle and the experimental Weird Era Cont.
Now both men are back at it again — Avey Tare with his first official solo album, Down There, and Cox with a new Deerhunter album, Halcyon Digest. Both can be described as “cosmic American music”, a phrase coined by country singer Gram Parsons.
On Down There Portner uses many of the tricks he employs alongside his fellow Animals — Panda Bear, Deakin and Geologist. But in comparison with Merriweather Post Pavilion, it is a lot more sparse and haunting.
Portner has talked a lot during interviews about the feeling of a dark swamp when discussing this album, which draws inspiration from his separation from Kría Brekkan, the former frontperson of experimental Icelandic group múm, and his sister being diagnosed with cancer.
And swampy is exactly how you would describe the track 3 Umbrellas, an eerie psychedelic trip-out that is driven by a bashed-out guitar rhythm, which sounds like it was recorded underwater. The song brings to mind early Mercury Rev and the king of psych himself, Syd Barrett.
Oliver Twist is a damp, soggy R&B tune, which could, I imagine, be a club hit, if it finds itself in the hands of a clever remixer. It has the same anthemic rave-up feeling that so infused Animal Collective’s smash single, My Girls.
Portner has given props to electronic act Teengirl Fantasy, whose warped R&B jams are similar in nature.
Lucky 1 is the other uptempo number, with a dirty bass rhythm underlying Portner’s layered psychedelic Beach Boysesque harmonies.
The pastoral feel of Ghost of Books, driven by a lilting guitar and hand claps, the ambient choral feel of Cemeteries, which is reminiscent of the work of the Flaming Lips and the doom-laden Heather in the Hospital, which explodes into Technicolor glory three minutes in, all add up to make Down There one of 2010’s most compelling albums.
Deerhunter’s Halcyon Digest is also a landmark album, easily the best they have recorded in the band’s nine-year career.
It is not a great leap from the territory the band has covered before, except that Cox’s songs are just that little bit more classic this time round. It sounds like the defining pop album Cox has hinted at with his past work, but only in a flirtatious way.
This time round Cox has grabbed the bull by the horns and Halcyon Digest is a mesmerising sonic assault that will leave you reeling and dizzy.
Drawing on influences such as David Bowie’s glam-rock era, Barrett’s solo work, early post-Beatles John Lennon material, early 1970s Rolling Stones albums and Mercury Rev’s Deserter Songs era, Cox has sculpted 11 electrifying rock and pop songs.
The singles, Revival and Helicopter, are both gorgeous in their own way. Helicopter needs to be heard to be believed. The song, inspired by the author Dennis Cooper’s account of the shocking death of a teenage gay prostitute in Russia, is just too stunning for words.
Revival, on the other hand, is a Barrett psychedelic jam all dressed up in the plastic and make-up of Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust.
But Halcyon Digest is not about the singles — every track is its own slice of audio joy. From the skuzzy rock ‘n roll of Don’t Cry to the psychedelic waves of Earthquake, from the Byrds-esque jangle-pop of Memory Boy to the fragile and vulnerable crooning of Sailing, Halcyon Digest is both sugary sweet and bitterly sour, yet a delight the whole way through.
So, if you’re looking for a soundtrack to your summer, these two albums perform the ultimate double act, Halcyon Digest during the day and Down There at night.
Warning: hallucinogens are not included.