Wednesday, February 26, 2014

-valis Pick of the Week



Hail Voyagers! The final pick of February, the cruelest month of 'em all, (imho,) makes this miserable month bearable: from Topanga Canyon, California, Morgan Delt!
Morgan just released his debut long-player, (after a six-song cassette was released earlier last year on his own label, Inflatable Tapes,) on Trouble In Mind. (*That* label is on a ROLL!)


The self-titled debut expands to eleven tracks to satisfy and those prepared for deep inner space travels. I swear every time I hear "Beneath the Black and Purple" I'm reminded of the Byrds "Eight Miles High", squeezed into a three-minute song! As his press states, on the Trouble In Mind site:
" Morgan cites influences from Curt Boettcher to West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band and rounds it out with golden age sunset stip heavies like The Byrds and Love. It ’s all in there; obsessively studied, mastered and then mutated. Side one opens with the one/two punch of ‘Make My Grey Brain Green’ and ‘Barbarian Kings’ blasting apart 40 years of pop-psych and stitching it back together in a way that is both familiar but also refreshingly new. ‘Beneath the Black and Purple’ soars with a chiming guitar grumble right out of ‘8 Miles High.’’ & “Chakra Sharks” squirms it ’s way out of the speakerslike a snake - oiled up with the stink of not only what came before, but what ’s happening NOW. The drums pound hard & heavy, while the backups “la-la-la” all over your noggin like a Frankenstein version of The Flaming Lips & Thee Oh Sees. Each track worms it ’s way into your brain and takes hold. The finale ‘Main Title Sequence’, is all Stu Phillips-worship, right out of the soundtrack to your favorite 60’s cult classic with it ’s angelic backing vocals and lilting tremolo lead but somehow still buzzes with a modern current. As Morgan so keenly described his notion on the current state of genre bending music “I think we’ve become unstuck in time and everything is going to happen all at once from now on.” " (Hmmm, the last quote lets you know he, too, is aware of Terence McKenna. RIP)
Grab your own on vinyl or CD and smoke 'em if you got 'em. It billows and wafts.




***
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 other Thursday from 11pm to 1 am eastern, on WRIR in Richmond, VA.

Note:
Adding the Pick of the Week to their show is Dogs Got A Bone out of Edinburgh, Scotland, from 10pm to midnight, Mondays, U.K. time, (adjust accordingly,) on Belter Radio. Thanks Col Chant!

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