KRAUT KUADRUPLE with FABRICCIO DE LA MORA, FAMILIA DE LOBOS, PHARAOH OVERLORD and THE MIRACLE SEEDS

Peace! Hypnosis! ... Heaviness? Let's get psychedlic, Baby!

THE MIRACLE SEEDS - Nuclear Watermelon (transparent red vinyl LP) (2025)

To attentive Psych lovers the name may sound very familiar. And yes, this basically is the sophomore album of Jack McAfee's Tibetian Miracle Seeds after "Inca Missiles" from 2021. The difference however is that - even though the Scottish multi-instrumentalist still accumulates a lot of credits - the slightly renamed project has officially become a real band now. But already the title of the opening track "I Am The Sherpa" ensures that the Himalayan connection cannot be missed.

As if the music wasn't enough to recognize the artist! The basic ingredients are the same: late 60's / early 70's vibe Psych Rock with lots of beautifully layered sparkling, echoing, fuzzing and rocking guitars, dreamy analogue synth work and super clean vocal harmonies. Yet even though most of the guitars and keys - and all vocals and bass lines we hear - are still played by McAfee, the prevalent combination of him and one of two alternating drummers is enough to convey a full band feeling. Tibetian Miracle Seeds already did this successfully too, but the natural dynamics and live vibes of The Miracle Seeds make it even more convincing.

Where "Inca Missiles" relied quiety heavily on the Indian sitar-like sound cliché, "Nuclear Watermelon" has reduced the gimmicks a little bit in favour of just plain better songwriting.
What hasn't changed though is that I still cannot listen to this music at any given moment. If I'm not in the right mood I might ask myelf what this hippie stuff does in my collection. On an Autobahn night-drive only half a day later it might be the greatest timeless trip ever. Let's say the chance that I love it can be estimated around eighty percent, tendency growing.

In the car I would of course play the digital version, which even contains a sweet little three-minute bonus track. The 12" physical copy from Fuzzed Up & Astromoon Records as compensation comes on nice red vinyl, with a thick cardboard lyric sheet and a distinctive cover artwork, which - as you can easily spot - comes from Noguchi Shimura, the same artist who worked for Minami Deutsch on "Fortune Goodies". Very nice!

FABRICCIO DE LA MORA - Grand Unified Theories (clear/splatter vinyl LP) (2025)

The records of the next two alliterating artists have been released by Necio Records. The instrumental trio of Mexican guitar/bass/synth player Fabriccio De La Mora is mostly characterized by its strong emphasis of analogue space trip synthesizers juxtaposed to a very Garage Rock raw rhythm guitar and steady drum grooves without unnecessary ornaments.

Straight-forward neu!ish Kraut Rock alternates with Berlin style Ambient pieces, while side A also closes with a surprisingly heavy helicoperish Drone interlude.
Here and there Spaghetti Western guitars take the spotlight, paired with a Punk rhythm section in "M-theory" or in full cinematic glory to a marching beat in "Loop Quantum Gravity".

Actually it's hard to come to general unfified conclusions about "Grand Unified Theories", which really apply to all seven pieces without exception. The main similarity is that all fourty minutes of this release are just cool stuff.

The cover artwork and the transparent splatter vinyl are a perfect match to each other, so Fabriccio De La Mora is also a winner in that regard. 

FAMILIA DE LOBOS - Familia de Lobos (red vinyl LP) (2018/2025)

The second Necio Records album of this bunch is this reissue of Familia De Lobos' - as far as I know - only album from 2018. It comes on red vinyl (a white pressing is also still available) and for the first hundred people, who pre-ordered it also included a special insert with their names on it. Not my reason for buying this, but a nice little extra.

The music is a mix of Psych and Stoner Rock combined with South American Folk influences in vocals, percussions and most abviously flute. With a sincere uplifting spirit and profound atmosphere, strong melodies, layered arrangements and a powerful production this album doesn't leave anything left to be desired. Psychedelic Rock with a distinct personality half-way between the imagined Argentinian versions of Les Nadie and Mohama Saz. Awesome!

PHARAOH OVERLORD - Louhi (pink smoke vinyl LP) (2025)

Last, but probably most important, released by Rocket Recordings, comes the first proper studio album of Pharaoh Overlord since their 2020 banger "6". It's fitting that one meaning of "Louhi" comes from Finnish lore and describes an evil witch queen capable of shape-shifting, since that is also a speciality of the band.

The most obvious feature hanging over from the last record are the ridiculously hoarse and aggressive, mighty and inhumane guttural vocals unmistakenly provided by Sumac's Aaron Turner.
Where they contrasted a backdrop of heavy electronic Synthwave on "6" however, the instrumentals have changed to something more organic this time. The outlandish yet still fitting and fascinating effect of this combination persists however. 

"Louhi" consists only of one piece presented in two twenty minutes long parts. Through most of this running time it's carried by a repetitive cool mid-tempo guitar riff and the permanent drone of a hurdy gurdy or nyckelharpa, so think of Earth meets France as a base. On top of that the guitars vary between Ambient textures to noisy Metal chords and  solos shredding,  while some synths are providing subtle atmospheric layers and others are committed to more flashy Psychedelic sparkles, Tangerine Dream and Synthwave patterns.

Given how bass and drums commit to their hypnotic part there's actually a great amount of stuff happening on this album and keeping you on your toes. The only thing Pharaoh Overlord deliberately don't care too much about is packaging all this in a coherent frame of songwriting. Everything just happens when it does and finally abruptly fades away, as if you weren't even expected to finish listening now, but just to turn the record over to side A again, a "Nonagon Infinity" style experience.

"Louhi" is a cool, very addictive Heavy Kraut ride with an original recognizable sound palette. Die Spinnen, die Finnen - and I wouldn't have it any other way. 
 

cassette craze chronicles IX (feat. BADA, JAH CUZZI, LANA DEL REY and TIBETIAN MIRACLE SEEDS)

Tapes, tapes, tapes! And this time it's only recently released stuff, starting with one which combines two of my favorite things to write about on this blog: Roadburn and anticipation for coming live shows!

BADA - Live In Rolfstorf (2021)

After Of Blood And Mercury's live album this cassette from Bada is the second recording of a Roadburn Redux performance in my collection. Or at least it is closely related to that.
Unlike the duo the Swedish band, which features several musicians of Anna von Hausswolff's group - including herself on keyboards - didn't actually play live in an empty room in Tilburg, but recorded and edited a live session in an attic in the southern Swedish countryside. The four tracks on this tape are cut from those same sessions, so there are overlaps, but it's not entirely the same.
It still is absolutely mind-bending stuff though. A rousing but eerie jam of dark psychedelic rock with strong ties to drone, doom, noise and post rock, which - like almost everything Hausswolff is involved in - couldn't possibly more impactful and substantial.
The design of this limited tape is very simple, but it comes with a sticker that's a pretty great commentary on unreadable death metal band logos.
The best thing however is that two days from now, I will finally have the opportunity to experience Bada live in Hamburg. My bada is so ready for this!

JAH CUZZI - Chainsmoker (2021)

It's not the biggest step to get from Bada to the jam of the Romanian trio Jah Cuzzi on last year's split tape with Raw Deal. On their new album "Chainsmoker" however their sound slowly moves into a different direction. At its heart this is still a rather dark blend of psychedelic improvisational music, but they are adding a few nearly contradictatory flavours to it.
The organ (which generally compensates the lack of a bass player so good, that you don't even realize that it's missing) in the opener "Dick Tator" could almost be from Archive, until it gets too skew and dirty for that comparison. Other tracks like "Jahcometti" seem to incorporate elements from electronic music and there's a smack of dub all over the place. But everything Jah Cuzzi incorporates seems to be in a rather raw, unfinished and dirty state. And this is exactly what makes it so potent: there's no filter reducing the impact. This shit hits, just like the primitive album artwork very impressively succeeds in making me cough inside. Bottom line: "Chainsmoker" is a pungent heavy psych highlight!

LANA DEL RAY - Blue Banisters (2021)

Nope. There's no smooth transition from a Romanian band published on a Czech underground label to Lana Del Rey. There may or may not be some common smoking preferences. And of course Universal runs on a tighter budget than Stoned To Death Records. If it weren't so they would surely give you a download card with your cassette, right?
But let's not dwell on the big bad pop machine too long, but talk about the artist! Lana Del Rey has quite a prolific year, as "Blue Banisters" is already her second full album in 2021 after "Chemtrails Over The Country Club". And damn, that was a good one!
The first singles suggested that its successor would be a more nostalgic affair, and in part that's true, with some sounds that could have been on "Born To Die" and deliberately washed-out production choices reminiscent of "Ultraviolence". Several of the fifteen tracks have also been intended for previous albums, indeed going as far back as 2013/2014. But don't worry! This doesn't come off as a collection of rejected leftovers at all.

On the contrary "Blue Banisters" presents itself as equally manifold and balanced as "Chemtrails". It's still obvious that Lana is the master of her musical choices, does this from her heart and constantly works on herself as a singer. And she's clearly having fun with it here. She takes her voice to new places we haven't heard from her like this before, including some severe belting or even imitating a guitar solo. Which may be a little bit silly, but come on, who gives a fuck? Especially since the musical arrangements urrounding her are once again so flawless.

TIBETIAN MIRACLE SEEDS - Inca Missiles (2021)

For the last tape we go back to the world of psychedelic rock and from a possible future pop classic to an established hippie music classic from the late 1960s. Well, at least in some parallel universe.
I truth Tibetian Miracle Seeds is a modern-day Scottish project specialized in time travelling, because "Inca Missiles" gives you the sitar, the wah-wah, the flutes, the relaxed jam bass, the spaced out vocals and fab four harmonies... all that in spades. And don't think that the occasional lap steel guitar, harp or didgeridoo makes this any less  flowerpowery! No, multi-instrumentalist Jack McAfee, who stirs this boat, doesn't aim for any innovation trophies. Apart from very few details like the heavy fuzz guitar of the title track you could sell me this whole thing as the remaster of some obscure treasure from the past. It's the authentic quality and the sheer love for the genre put into the eleven tracks (including one digital only bonus track), which make these weapons of love so irresistable.
Admittedly it's a little much of this sound for me to sit(ar) through in one session, but for one-side-at-a-time consumption it's the sweetest dream soundtrack.
And am I already tripping too much or are they really citing the old Spider Man theme in "Ideas Reprise"?