-valis Pick of the Week

Hail Voyagers! Back with another Pick after a brief hiatus due to illness. Our Pick this week calls Cheshunt, England, home: Neils Children!
Their new album, Dimly Lit, is out now on French label Boudoir Moderne Records. Much like Jacco Gardner, Neils Children have created an album simultaneously of-a-time and out-of-time. Over the course of the eleven tracks I'm certain you, too, will think it a long lost artifact from the prime slice of psychedelia's first heyday.
Founding member John Linger took the time to honor us with answers to our "10 Questions" survey: 1. In ten words-or less, define "psychedelic music." Intelligent, Euphoric, Escapist, Colourful, Exciting, Unnerving, Confusing, Constructed, Enveloping, Distracting.

2. What is the most psychedelic instrument, why? There are no psychedelic instruments, only psychedelic players.

3. Favourite psychedelic album of all time? July by July. It's an amazing, fairly obscure but highly regarded piece of British psychedelia. I have a lot of memories wrapped into it, but I never get bored of listening to it. And I don't think I ever will.


4. What song or album that wouldn't fall into the classic "psych" definition is, nevertheless, psychedelic to you? 'First Band on the Moon' by The Cardigans. I guess experiences cause it to be classed as psychedelic to me, but the production can be darkly strange in places.

5. What was the first song -or album, you remember listening to in an 'altered' state? 'Happenings Ten Years Time Ago' by The Yardbirds. I remember when it was, where I was and why, at the time, it felt like the most extreme record I'd ever heard. Having been very familiar with the bands early work, finding out it was The Yardbirds excited me greatly, and hence started my journey for discovering UK 1960's pop band's slightly lysergic moments, of which there are many!

6. What are some of your favourite current bands? Death and Vanilla, Connan Mockasin, Melody's Echo Chamber, the last Radiohead album and the Broadcast soundtrack to 'Berberian Sound Studio' (and all of their previous work: RIP Trish)

7. We seem to be in the midst of yet another psychedelic revival; what do you see as the cause of this? Maybe people are bored of dry, traditional and formulaic indie rock? Maybe drugs are getting good again? I seriously don't know, everything goes in cycles... once kids are bored of Libertines-esque indie they'll move on to Hot Chip style electro pop, then get bored of that and listen to Tame Impala's stoned grooves. There is always a band playing any style of music, so it's who listens to it rather than who plays it that brings it to the attention of others and makes it a "revival".

 8. You're in a discussion with your great-great-great grandfather, through time travel; what song of yours are you going to play for him from your catalog as an example of what you do? There isn't really a suitable song, as our music has varied so much, and sometimes unrecognisably so. I'd make him a compilation...

9. Top Ten Psychedelic Songs?
1- Dandelion Seeds by July
2- Beeside by Tintern Abbey
3- Walking Through My Dreams by The Pretty Things
4- Man Is Not A Bird by Broadcast
5- Ymaelodi A'r Ymylon by Super Furry Animals
6- No Mans Land by Syd Barrett
7- Lazy Old Sun by The Kinks
8- Essex Dogs by Blur
9- Rheinhardt & Geraldine/Colores by Kevin Ayers
10- Midsummer Nights Scene by John's Children
 10. Turn the tables, if you'd like, and ask me a question. Do you like psychedelia?!
-valis: John: I love it. The genre allows for so much more creativity and colouring outside the lines than the others put together, imho.

* Many thanks to Damien of Boudoir Moderne for being go-between in getting the survey answered.

*** You can listen to the archived stream here; or, hear it this Friday, on The Dead Man's Turn Me On, Dead Man show on Live365, where it's heard every Friday at noon eastern time, as well as Mr. Atavist's Sunrise Ocean Bender show, heard every Monday from 1 to 3 am eastern, on WRIR in Richmond, VA.