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Sometimes
I think that psychedelic bands have it easy. First,
don’t shave. Also, forget about deodorant. Buy a
headband. Become a fan of the flip flop craze that has
swept the US over the last 15 years. Then, musically,
slow down the tempo. Fire off the guitars. Use a ton of
guitar effects. You need not be a master. In the back
you just need a dude to keep the time and to sometimes
go all tribal and shit. A mediocre vocalist would
usually do because after all, the strings and one
hundred effects take center stage anyway. Lyrics take
the back seat. Actually, more like the last seat of the
school bus. The less sense you make the better. People
buy into that stuff like crazy. The axeman must have the
blues down though. And by that I just mean a few chords,
notes and a bit of feeling. Play the blues through a few
effects and shit just blossoms, people get a boner,
nipples get erect. If you can afford it, only if you can
afford it, you can add a sitar, or a mellotron, or even
a Casio keyboard if you know how to use it well. Then,
the music can be lush and exotic. Extend the chords.
Turn the movements of a snake into a song, all the
hippies will then shut their eyes and pretend they are
in Bombay. Or have even turned into Shiva.
Don’t get me
wrong. I am sucker just as much as the next guy. That’s why I am
digging this self-released full-length by New York’s trio Naam.
It fits some of my description. The vocals are for
instance, utterly forgettable. Ryan Lugar has one of those
‘please forget me’ voices that fits because of how uneventful it
is. His voice is so normal it begs to be forgotten. After this
recording is done, you are bound to remember the shimmers of
psychedelic music but his voice will just merge with every other
voice of a stranger you ever met in your too long life. And the
music is lush…
…And the
music is soothing. My assessment is that psychedelic bands
borrow a lot from foreign folk (why not just move to India?) but
truly stopped being experimental the moment they picked up an
electric guitar. To say that Naam rocks is to give it too much
credit. Early Monster Magnet rocked. Current Naam write nice
songs with timid guitars and lots of colors and effects. The
feeling is one of calm, one of wanting to be at peace with
your surroundings. The melodies are calmed you see, and even on
the obligatory freak outs, certain cushy production values
prevent this album from truly freaking far out. A few riffs rock
a little, but more than making us sit by their power the six
strings get filtered through all sorts of effects. Or simply
exist in their erratically navigating simplicity.
Official Site
MySpace
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