Man On The Moon

Psychedelic folk music. Let's just say I absolutely adore this style of music. When a new artist making music that can be tagged as 'psychedelic folk' comes into my life, I need to share it, shout about it, and praise its creator(s) for bringing it to me. In the near future, I will write more about UK artist Man On The Moon, but for right now, go check out his MySpace page and have a listen to some songs, then go to his Last.fm page and download his album Without Dreams We Have Nothing. Minimal and smooth, the songs go down so easy, you might find yourself repeating, repeating, repeating........A truly enjoyable experience in psychedelic folk, friends.

Chatham Rise

On the quiet side, introspective and lovely, Chatham Rise are working on music to make you love long winter nights. Based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where the winter nights are indeed cold and long, Chatham Rise are making songs with names like Here, Gone, and Air. Do you get a feeling instantly, just from hearing the song titles? The band's name, their song titles, and their artwork do convey a feeling before you even hear a note.
Chatham Rise's debut EP opens with Gone, a wistfully gorgeous piece of sound, which begins with strummed guitar and slightly sad vocals, then thunders into big guitar and drums. Autopilot uses tribal, pulsing beats to pull along the drone, and the chanting, ghostly vocals. Border Crossing is shoegaze at its finest: a calming, sweetly sad melody with barely-there vocals, just enough to warm you a bit. Fans of Chapterhouse and Slowdive will love Border Crossing. Here closes the EP with a sparse guitar, and almost no percussion, light vocals, and a feeling of hope and high, above the melancholy. This self-titled debut EP is self-produced by the band, and I am honored to have special copy of it in my collection. Sad yet uplifting, quiet yet inspirational, Chatham Rise indeed make you feel. Check them out on MySpace, friends.

Lucifer Sun

UK artist Lucifer Sun makes music that can be seen as a study of opposing forces: light and dark, high and low, invigorating and calming, truth and secrecy. I find all of these elements in the songs of Lucifer Sun, and how they have been woven into the fabric of the sounds is something to be amazed by and appreciated. Long songs, sometimes VERY long, meander through a druggy haze, like a moment in time that seemingly lasts for hours and hours, are what comprise Lucifer Sun's debut recordings. The songs appear minimalist upon first listen, but command more listens with deeper inspection. I asked Chris and Tom, the members of Lucifer Sun, some questions to find out what lies behind the compositions they create, and what drives them to make their art.

You have so many diverse things that you cite as influences for your music and art, from wood to entheogens to road trips to William Burroughs. Can you tell me a bit more about how you see the world and how this drives you to create art?
Tom - Without sounding too negative we’re not really impressed with the way the world is today, and has been for a long time. The topics and values the majority of people have, seem to be pretty worthless to me, for the most part. The world is full of distractions to keep people happy while the bullshit is allowed to go on all around them.
It’s not all bad but I do wish more of the world would be switched on to more important issues, and would generally relax. The world feels like a very uptight place. Our world and the art we creative is in some way a release for us. A way to vent frustrations and tensions but also to glorify everything good and free-thinking. We’re constantly told that we live in a free world, but if you don’t fit into the boxes that the masses and society would like, then you do tend to feel it’s not quite as free as we’re all led to believe.
Chris - We get angry at how things are shown to us, drug laws, our 'rights' as human beings, the supposed 'freedom' we have in the west. The whole issue on how the media feeds us a particular line on a story, the story we are 'sold' about global warming, economics, etc. I think it's easy to get totally down about it all, but hidden among all this, there are great, beautiful things. I'm a strong believer that the use of entheogens and other substances can make you a better person. You know they open your mind, to how things really are on a far greater level than we could ever understand. The idea that we are insignificant and part of an ever-powerful, continual cycle of life. I think that's important. There are ancient cave paintings of mushrooms, man has been ingesting this stuff for thousands of years; we worshiped the sun, the idea that religions are essentially stories passed down over generations. Man worshiped the sun for a reason: without it we will die, it brings food, warmth etc. So it's kind of from those ideas how we approach our music, trying to create something that has a positive impact in some way on people.

I love how you write your blog entries. You come across as many things: educated and erudite, edgy and energetic, open-minded and ambitious, and of course, talented. What have you been working on lately? What types of medium are you using?
Chris - The blog is just stuff that I come across, stuff we've done. It makes much more sense to get it out in a public domain than have it sitting around, even if someone reads it, listens to the music, and doesn't like it. The Poppy Tea Demos are all hand made, stenciled using guitar body paint, and we are working with friends who are photographers, our drummer's at Art College, etc...
Tom - At the moment we’re trying to not tie ourselves down to simply writing songs in a bog standard conventional way. Right now we’re working quite well without having too many premeditated thoughts about what we’re about to play/write. We’re using visuals and ideas provided from other people and friends to create a really different feel about our music. Definitely working with other people is something we’re really interested to explore a lot more seeing as it expands the spectrum of the final piece.

The music you are making is definitely NOT for the masses, and that is a huge compliment. Your songs are long, and best appreciated loud and through headphones. The type of music fan who is going to appreciate what you are making, we are definitely a niche. That must be a great feeling! What are your thoughts on whom you want to reach with your music?
Tom - Who ever gets it really. We’re fully aware it’s not for everyone. Not everyone gets the concept of a song that last more than 3 or 4 minutes and has one or two chords throughout the entire piece. The music we make sounds the way it sounds and lasts as long as it lasts depending on how we’re all feeling when we’re playing it or recording it. It feels and sounds good to us and knowing other people enjoy hearing it is great. Previous bands we’ve played in have had a very rigid, certain number of bars, segmented sections…etc. With this band we wanted to be far more open and relaxed about just letting the songs play themselves in a way.
Chris - Yeah, You know I don't think I've ever really thought who I want to reach. Anybody and everyone. I don't want our music to be restricted. I want it to be enjoyed or hated by everyone.

Are you jamming when you record, or is everything planned out & executed precisely?
Tom - Right now a lot of the recorded stuff is very spontaneous and on the spot kind of thing. We don’t tend to write a whole song and then bring it to the rest of the band and say here this is how it goes. It’s either a rough idea, chord sequence or whatever, or we’ll just have a drum beat going that we dig and pretty much make it up as we go along and if we like the sound of it then it’ll make it to a song we keep.
Having said that, we are still in the early stages of this band and recording ourselves with what equipment we either own, or can get our hands on, so it’s pretty stripped down in both the recording equipment and our actual sound.
Chris - Recording our jams etc...is great cause we can use them as a springboard to work off...you know: that section is great, that part needs work...what the hell was going on in the last bar, that's shit, How can we improve on this, etc.

Amplifier Mantra is 16 minutes long. I absolutely love this. It’s so long, yet never bores, actually quite the opposite. It constantly intrigues me, right up until the end. It’s not complicated and intricate, but it has a vibe that I ride the entire time it’s playing. And Dopamine Blues (So Low), the clue in the name: SO LOW. I also love this. The sound for the first 4 ½ minutes is so low, is it even a sound? Then when the almost-blues-y guitar kicks in…….another amazing ride. What went into composing these songs?
Tom - Amplifier Mantra was another song written in another improvised situation. We usually setup some microphones and record our entire practice sessions just in case we come across anything we really like but might forget by the next practice. We actually didn’t manage to record the first time we played it due to some technical hitch which we were a bit pissed about, but we did our best to do it justice with the second attempted recording we do have. Aside from Come On, a lot of the recordings and songs are still in their very early stages and we’ve since written more lyrics and have various other ideas, adding more layers to songs and focusing on certain parts of the recording. It’s quite an interesting way to work because even when we’re really happy with a recording and we hear good things from other people who have listened, we know there is still more we can do with those songs as they evolve over time.
Dopamine was a really relaxed recording. Earlier in the day we’d recorded a couple of nice takes of The Year Of Our Death and Amp Mantra, and felt pretty good playing Dopamine, which has been around a little longer so it was a fairly confident take.
Chris - I've always been interested in drones and repetition in music, and creating a vibe on record or at a gig, etc...taking the listener on a journey. It's meditation, self healing. The fact that a lot of what we do is all improvised and comes from an initial chord or riff, interests me. You know, it's like on a higher level of understanding. Your role as an instrument within a band...when to come in, when to let the song move on. We've still got a lot to learn. It's interesting what you mention about Dopamine blues and the 'SO LOW' cause I've never noticed that myself: if you turn the volume up during that part, you can hear us playing. (Ed. note: YES, at very high volume, you hear music playing within the first four minutes, and it is sublime).
I like how the dynamics on that track are so wide, because I'm so fucking fed up of the massively compressed shit that we are forced to hear. It's all record company/radio driven and it's got to do with the "loudness wars". You know when you open up a track in some audio software and it just looks like a brick, where are the dynamics in music? The reason everyone goes on about how older recordings sound so great, is because there is dynamics in there:there's a vibe, they experimented with sound, they were concentrating on the performance, they let quirky things in, they had to make final decisions about the recording throughout the process. Now it's left to be fixed in the mix. The Poppy Tea Demos were recorded with two dynamic microphones capturing our sound in the room. The reflections off the walls. It's documentarist, archival. Your capturing a moment in time. How many mistakes do you hear in released recordings anymore? None at at large commercial level, that's for sure. It's like everyone's forgotten that it's OK for recordings to have a quirk to them. That's what makes music and recording so beautiful.

Also, I was just listening to Come On! Extended Mix, and it's at once soothing, and exhilarating. Like a hot shower while on Ecstacy. This song provides a feeling to get hooked on. What are your thoughts on that song?
Tom - I find it hard to put into words my thoughts and feelings about some of our songs. I know for me personally it’s more of a vibe and feeling that I get when we’re in the studio playing around with the song. I guess the song sounds the way it does depending on our emotions and the general vibe at the time of writing and recording. One thing I would say is that the sound of our songs definitely reflects the way we feel as people these days.
Chris - Definitely, it's almost a stream of consciousness way of working. The extended mix works with the idea that within every song lies a thousand new songs. It's all about the vibe, Meditation music.

You're in your early 20s? I assume you have been into music and art for much of your life? What artists do you listen to, and what authors do you enjoy reading?
Chris - Yeah, me and Tom are both 22 and our drummers 16. When I was 12 I started to get into guitar and I'd record stuff I've done on this huge black tape player, using an old headphone set as a microphone that I would gaffer tape to my amp or to the wall. I remember when I first watched A Clockwork Orange, Blade Runner. Those days are great because for the first time you're shown this whole world outside of anyone's control. You're not getting any edited or moderated versions from parents etc: you're free to explore all these paths. Tom spent years playing guitar, listening to old records, staying up all night just improvising, it's things like that, which later pay off. At the moment I'm listening to the Dead Skeletons, lots of stuff off Type Recordings, Singapore Sling. Reading William Burroughs - Naked Gun, Hells Angels by Thompson. Tom's got Velvet Underground's early demos on vinyl, I think it's just Reed and Cale, it's great. You can hear the sound of the apartment loft they were recording in.

What are you currently working on? Are you collaborating with anyone?
Tom - Just trying to get our thing together. We’re quietly confident and pleased with the material we’re coming out with so far, but we know there’s a lot, lot more to come as we hopefully expand the number of people we work with and play with. Having more musicians to add to the core group of Lucifer Sun is something we’re looking at doing when ever we come across the right people.

What projects lay ahead for Lucifer Sun in 2010?
Tom - Something we’re very much looking forward to doing is writing the music for a short film one of our good friends is making. This kind of thing really interests us. There is a huge difference between writing music for the purpose of itself and writing music to accompany another form of art.
We also plan to release a lot more stuff this year. Rather than taking too much time writing and recording we want to get as much material out there and heard as possible. The concept of an almost continuous flow of projects, art and music is what we’re looking to do. We’re making up the artwork for the new demo ourselves which we hope people will enjoy having as much as the music itself.
Another thing we’re looking to do is move into a work space unit where we can live and work on Lucifer Sun from and we think a lot more stuff will start happening once we sort that.
Chris - We're playing the Buffalo Bar on January 27th for Goo Nite. Otherwise, booking more gigs throughout the year. Like Tom said, working with our friend Wade on his film, he's very much an extra member of the band. I'd also like to do a series of recordings working with another friend of ours Per, Spoken Croatian vocals, with drones by us. It's exciting.

Exciting? Yes, I would definitely say what Lucifer Sun is doing is quite exciting indeed. They are true artists, and they are everything this little blog stands for. They are what is important and meaningful in music today. When you step away from the big-corporate-run machines, you find treasures like Lucifer Sun. I hope you all enjoyed this profile on the band as much as I enjoyed presenting it to you. Go listen to and experience Lucifer Sun, they are giving you their music to check out, you can NOT miss this opportunity to experience them:

Nibbana
Raw Meat Demo
Poppy Tea Demo

Watch and Listen on Youtube

Strangers Family Band

The intriguingly dark & groovy sounds of Strangers Family Band have drawn me in. I have been playing their EP, Beware The Autumn People, a lot, found from reading the amazing all-psych-all-the-time blog Trip Inside This House. I mention these words 'dark & groovy', but there is soooo much more here, so much more. The seven songs that comprise this psychedelic gem of an EP have been crafted by five young men who have been musicians practically their entire lives, and came together two years ago as a complete band with the talent and desire to create songs that are as compelling as they are catchy.
The title track, Beware The Autumn People, kicks in with carnival-like keys, which slide into a stomp of drums and guitar reverb, and lazy vocals, slurred over the stomp. Strange Transmission, with its unmistakable Doors-vibe, is just brilliant: from the deep, slightly ominous, Morrison-style vocals, to the organ keys in the background, to the imagery of a spiral staircase leading you to a midnight splendor. This song meanders its way through image to image, hypnotically. Tangerine is two precious minutes of space cadets and sweet dreams, set to a lovely little organ melody. Wooden Hands is.....a mysteriously dark, unique, quite catchy....love song?? Not your ordinary love song, I assure you! Enochian is a spooky little minute of whispery effects over possibly a sermon. Girl I've Been Taken, with its sly-sounding vocals and little organ jam at the end is probably the grooviest slice of psychedelica I have ever heard. No One Sees Her comes on as a happy little jaunt, with horns over plucky guitars and light, bouncy drums, but still......something dark lurks in the background......
The members of Strangers Family Band seem to have been born to make music. Scott (bass) and Rick (guitar) are brothers who have been playing music as long as they can remember. Rick and Juan (who plays drums) played music together in high school, and Scott and Ates (vocals) became song-writing partners in college. Kevin, their bloody brilliant keyboardist, was the last addition to the Family, and completes it oh so well. The band name, well, that just seemed to fit perfectly as they are truly either blood or close enough to it, and strange indeed, intriguingly so.
Currently on heavy rotation in the Strangers' house is music that comes from some of the most creative minds of the 60s and 70s, albums that take you on theme-park rides through their concepts, albums by The Kinks, The Pretty Things, The Beatles, early Donovan, 13th Floor Elevators, and Syd-era-Floyd, to name just a few. Conceptually, Strangers Family Band is planning on taking us on their own musical-mind-trip beyond the Beware The Autumn People EP, with the full-length they are currently working on. Scott cites some interesting influences that go beyond even obscure psychedelica or concept albums: Balkan folk music and Carnatic music. This is one band who is so left-of-center, I have to admire and love it!
Somehow, Strangers Family Band take their talent and their love of so many different styles of creative, interesting music, and make their own quirky, hypnotic, darkly enthralling music. Besides the requisite drums, guitar, and bass, Strangers Family Band utilizes Hammond organ, sitar, electric sitar, ukulele, upright bass, quattro, and tablas. On the upcoming album, a multitude of local musician friends of the Family play guest. For now, go to their site and download Beware The Autumn People. What are you waiting for?! Go check out Strangers Family Band!
A big, warm thank you, to Scott from Strangers Family Band, for enlightening me about the band, and big thanks to the whole band for making this amazing psychedelic music and sharing it with us!

Pilot Cloud Plays Brooklyn

Much to this fan's delight, Pilot Cloud made their way from Philly to Brooklyn on Friday night, October 9, to play a set at Bar Matchless. The set was forty minutes of the most blissful, heartbreakingly gorgeous shoegaze that you could possibly ever hear. I have been playing their album In Transition at home on my stereo for weeks now, and it did not even prepare me for how these songs translate to the stage. Equal parts blooming, soaring soundscapes, and subtle, quiet flutters, Pilot Cloud's songs both explode with force, and then calm the storm. Songs played were Dead Satellite, Leaf, Map, Star Redoubt (complete with the bird songs at the end, like on the album!), In Transition, Diaspora (not on the album, but available to listen to on their MySpace player), and the closer of the album closes their set: Ex Astris Scientia. Pilot Cloud is most certainly a band who have the talent to take their stunning recorded arrangements to the stage and make them better. That is quite a feat, and if you have been lucky enough to acquire the album In Transition and then see them live, I am sure you would agree.

The Flower Machine

They dig balloons. And trampolines. And candy canes.
Take some time today and visit the musical world of The Flower Machine.
This is music for a sunny day. Or any day, for that matter.
I have been listening to their album pictured above, called Marmoset Meadow, and I keep thinking they are from England, but no, they hail from Los Angeles, possibly from another time, another dimension, here now to offer us some of the most acid-drenched psychedelic tunes I have heard thus far. Syd would be so proud.
Check out the tunes, and follow the links from their MySpace to further explore the psychedelic heaven that is Trip Inside This House's music blog. The Flower Machine have donated their sublimely sweet and infectious tune called Traveling By Trampoline to a not-to-be-missed compilation album you can download for free. The album's songs were compiled and made available to us by the creator of Trip Inside This House. I give him many thanks, as the songs from his Summer Solstice II compilation (there is also a Summer Solstice I, yes, from 2008) have been playing in my house and brightening up my days, for the better part of this week now. I hope you all find the time to grab your tambourine & enjoy the magical little cloud-world of The Flower Machine!

Pilot Cloud Takes Off

Pilot Cloud is a duo from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Forgoing the typical four-piece band set-up, Nick Biscardi and Justin Lerner are doing it all themselves. On top of that, they are giving away the songs of their first album, In Transition (the lovely cover art is seen above). This is one give-away you cannot miss. I am a little late in finding out about this, as In Transition was completed in 2008, but thanks to some snooping around MySpace and following leads, I did find it, and I am in love with In Transition's lush, sweeping soundscapes and airy, sparse vocals.
With their musical beginnings sown in the form of the band Hans The Double, Justin and Nick paired off after that band split up in early 2008. What is important here, is that they felt the need to create their own original and exciting music, and now they are sharing it with us.

I asked the band a few questions, to get to know them a bit better:

So you are doing it! Making and producing and distributing your own music. I read that you guys did not actually plan this out, but rather it just came together, song after song till you had enough for In Transition to be a full album. I have brought your music to quite a few peoples’ attention, people from all over the world, and they all absolutely love it. Do you feel now, like you are gaining a bit of a fan base, a year after In Transition’s release?

When we had the album finished and ready to distribute, our only real M.O. was to submit to as many blogs as possible and see if anyone would run something on us. Things started to pop up here and there after that. A bunch of places just listed us as a band to check out, didn’t really say anything about us. As more people listened, the features started getting bigger.
With the internet, we’ve been able to pop up anywhere and everywhere. An Italian blog wrote a real nice review of the record. People on Last.fm started tuning in from places like Norway, Estonia, and all over the world.
Regarding an actual fan base, it’s been easier to connect to people playing shows. When we play, we have everything in front of us to let people get to know us. However, it’s been great to use the internet as a way to get a foot in the door. We just played in Columbus, OH where we’d only talked to one of the accompanying acts via email before the show, but by the end of the night we’d made at least ten new friends.

Have you guys always lived in Philly? How is the music scene of your hometown? Would you say there is a ‘scene’ there that Pilot Cloud fits into?

We’ve been scattered throughout the tri-state area. I, Nick, have spent my whole life living in different suburbs of Philadelphia and now live in Bryn Mawr, PA. Justin grew up in New Brunswick, NJ, went to school in Delaware, and now lives in Philadelphia.
There’s not a tight-knit scene that Pilot Cloud is in with, but there’s definitely some interesting psychedelic, ambient, and shoegaze bands in and around the area like Arc in Round, Cloud Minder, Streaks of Light, and Ports of Call. If there’s any organization amongst bands, we certainly haven’t been privy to it. We spent most of 2008 immersed in basements writing “In Transition”, so we’ve adapted to the hermit lifestyle, but we would definitely love to be able to be a part of a handful of bands that have themselves together to essentially create a scene of our own
.
What kind of guitars/amps/other instruments do you guys use? What is the key to bringing an expansive sound such a Pilot Cloud’s to the stage with just 2 people?

We wouldn’t really say there’s much of a trick to us having such a big sound. Justin plays an Epiphone Les Paul guitar through a Vox AC15 amp. I play Gretsch drums and Zildjian cymbals. Nothing major there. The real key is that we play alongside the bass tracks and supplementary guitar layers onstage. We’re not playing more, it just sounds like we are. The guitar layers are likely what do the trick.

Have you always been involved in music? What are your inspirations?

We’ve each been playing our respective instruments since the late 90s. With the difference in age between us (Justin is 28, I am 21), it has taken up more of my life than Justin’s. I took up drums at age 9 after a failed stint at trumpet, while Justin took up guitar likely to impress girls when we went off to college.
Both of us stay motivated and inspired by the music we like. Pilot Cloud started out of wanting to make music we would want to hear. We knew why we liked the bands we did, and we thought we could put our own hat in the ring to stand alongside music we already listened to.

You are coming to New York City in October, where you most definitely fit into a scene! The shoegaze, psychedelic, and noise-rock scene is vibrant, and alive with young artists who are getting out there with their bands and making amazing music. Is this your first time in New York and are you excited? Do you follow any New York City bands, or are you friendly with anyone here?

We’ve played New York before in previous bands, and it’s definitely still exciting to come up to Brooklyn. We’re friends with Brooklyn-band The Party Faithful (Justin went to college with their bassist), and they actually helped us pin down this show in October. Through prior bands, we’ve come across some real cool acts like The Press, Gold Streets, and Moving Mountains (from Purchase, NY).

When you are done touring to support In Transition and have given away all your copies of it (I still think it’s worth a TON of money!), what is next for Pilot Cloud?

We surpassed a lot of our own expectations since we released “In Transition”. We toured behind it, made some cool new friends, got some kind reviews, and even had some money tossed our way. Unfortunately, the physical copies of the record are disappearing before we can order more pressings. We’ve gone through close to 300 free copies since last Christmas.
But all that being said, we have really missed the writing process over the last year, so we’re going to get working on a follow-up EP to “In Transition”. We’ve written one new song (which has been assimilated into the live set) called “Diaspora”. Beyond that, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

Thanks to Nick for the interview! And thanks to Pilot Cloud (check their MySpace and listen to some tunes from In Transition) for the amazing music. Pilot Cloud's songs are songs that reveal more and more with each subsequent listen. Upon first listen, Leaf, Map, Sounds of an Era, and the title track all sound like the perfect mid-to-up-tempo shoegaze-style compositions, but keep listening. The real charms of the songs are to come, and that is the mark of some quality song-writing and talented arranging.

More to come in the very-near future about Pilot Cloud, after they come visit New York City for their gig with their friends The Party Faithful, next month!