Graham Reid | | 1 min read
Cypress Receiver
Elsewhere has always had a thing for left-field psychedelic folk which we can trace back to a teenage infatuation with very early Pink Floyd, the Incredible String Band and Donovan as he moved out of the folk period with Season of the Witch, Sunshine Superman, Three Kingfishers and so on.
Artists like Shawn Phillips also passed our radar and of course those who went to the more electric route like Country Joe and the Fish.
One of our favourites came much later in the grunge era with Sky Cries Mary out of the Pacific Northwest who married Jefferson Airplane with swirling folk-rock and dance beats. And they covered the Stones' 2000 Light Years From Home.
In recent years there has been a lot of what we might call psychedelic folk or folkadelic music about.
Not all of it folk in the traditional definition, but certainly psychedelic.
Immaterial Possession are right in that long lineage.
Out of Athens, Georgia the four-piece of former commune-dwellers on this second album serve up a tasty and tasteful brew of tripped-out folk-rock-cum-dream pop . . . although as longtime Ennio Morricone fans we don't quite accept that reference in their promo bumpf.
We hear dialed-back jangle pop, dreamy and slightly droning vocals, widescreen soundscapes of guitar, bass, drums, keyboards and wind instruments delivering 10 well-focused pieces of pop-length songs (the album is fewer than 40 minutes).
Songs like Chain Breaker nudge towards radio-pop (with eccentric fills) but it is when they stretch out you really get a feel for their breadth: Cypress Receiver has a rolling Middle Eastern feel (singer Madeline Polites a real asset); the title track sounds like it comes straight off a lost album on Vanguard or Elektra Records from 1967; they balance pop and melodrama deftly (To The Fete), stop the right side of abstract prog (Ancient Mouth) and surf rock guitar is appropriated briefly for the mysteries of Siren's Tunnel.
And mercifully, Medieval Jig isn't one.
They are too smart for that.
Immaterial Possession hadn't passed our way previously but this had us heading to bandcamp to hear their self-titled debut released in January.
No greater praise, huh?
.
You can hear and buy this album at bandcamp here
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