The cover art of Dragontears‘ third and final album, Turn on Tune in Fuck Off! (review here) — released in 2010 by Bad Afro Records — finds frontman and principle architect Uffe “Lorenzo Woodrose” Lorenzen standing maybe-naked among a trio of mostly-nude women clad in gasmasks and bulletbelts, their faces obscured save for their eyes but their automatic weapons very much in the foreground, aimed up at the downward-facing camera. Lorenzen, eyes obscured in sunglasses, his head tilted and mouth hanging slack, also looks up at the camera, and in each of his outstretched hands, there’s a bunch of pills, clearly being offered to whoever’s eye might’ve been caught by the striking, maddening pinks and blues surrounding. So is the title an invitation or a command? That exclamation point — encouraging or urging or demanding? Maybe pleading, even?

It’s hard to know listening to the record itself, the doomsday psychedelia of which pushed forward in concept and execution even from where Dragontears‘ two preceding LPs, 2007’s 2000 Micrograms from Home and 2008’s Tambourine Freak Machine saw it go. Lorenzen‘s main outfit, Baby Woodrose, for sure had its psychedelic aspects even back to its earliest, most garage-rocking days, but here again, Dragontears pursued another echelon of far out. And found it. Early on side A, “Two Tongue Talk” and the gleefully nihilistic “No Salvation” lead off with uptempo hooks and consummate swirl, engaging with a classic psych feel and prevalent depth of fuzz, while the three-and-a-half-minute “My Friend” marks a turning point to the next stage — or maybe “plane” is more appropriate, considering. The song itself doesn’t fill even that relatively brief runtime, instead drifting off into ethereal synth and keyboard dreaminess. But the real change is before that, as Lorenzen — perhaps in a foreshadow of the solo work he’s done in the last couple years — dons an acoustic guitar and the percussive push underlying “Two Tongue Talk” and “No Salvation” disappears in favor of a peaceful melodic wash. “Time of No Time” finds a middle ground between the two sides, lacing sitar alongside guitar and building on both the acid folk of the song before it and the more rocking feel of the two before that, all the while letting Lorenzen philosophize lyrically like the lysergic cult leader depicted on the front cover.

At just over six minutes, it’s the longest cut on the record to that point, but that doesn’t last, with the 13-minute drone-out “William” picking up in inner peace-inducing fashion, taking the catchiness that (re)emerged on “Time of No Time” and stretching it out across a vast drift with Lorenzen‘s vocals barely acting as a tether to the ground, molten as it is. I don’t know who William is or was, but the song that bears his name is long gone in a hand-percussed melodic expanse, intertwining lines of effects rising and falling in the mix as Lorenzen does likewise, his lines somewhere between spoken hallucinogenic poetry and singing, dropping out before ceremonial-feeling bells jingle maybe to signal the close of mass or, maybe just to mourn for the planet, universe, self, whatever, all of it, who knows. On the vinyl edition of Turn on Tune in Fuck Off!, “William” and the subsequent “Mennesketvilling” (5:49) comprise the entirety of side B, and sure enough the one feeds right into the other, with the closer picking up from the drone and obscure sample playing and bringing some more forward layers of vocals forward in a chant that only seems to emphasize both the depth of the mix overall throughout the material and the obvious care that was put into the arrangement of elements therein. A freakout guitar solo takes hold and the sample returns, the song receding quickly into the fade before a final sweep seems to wipe everything out.

The title “Mennesketvilling” translates in a major internet company’s matrix from Danish to “dual man” in English, or “human gemini,” which is probably closer and still only barely getting at what the track is actually going for. Whether that’s supposed to just mean “twin” or be a statement on the duality of the human species, I can’t say and won’t waste time in speculating, but if it’s one last preach on the nature of mankind, it’s fairly enough earned and nothing if not welcome in rounding out the spirit of the proceedings.

Dragontears did play live around this time, with Lorenzen in the lineup that included Fuzz Daddy (aka Rocco Woodrose), Moody Guru (aka Riky Woodrose), Morton “Aron” Larsen and Henrik “The Hobbit” Klitstrøm alongside a purported host of others that presumably varied from show to show, but again, this was their final recording, with Lorenzen putting the project to rest with the intention to incorporate more of Dragontears‘ psychedelic aspects into Baby Woodrose. That’s a sonic progression that, in truth, had already been underway. The band’s 2009 self-titled had drawn in a fair share of the acidic, and it was hardly the first release to do so, but perhaps 2012’s Third Eye Surgery (review here) and 2016’s Freedom (review here) would follow this path even more. In 2013, Lorenzen and Klitstrøm and others whose history together stretched back to their days in underrated Danish psych rockers On Trial (if not longer) would reform Spids Nøgenhat for the Kommer Med Fred LP, but that seems to be the extent of that outfit’s work at least for the time being. One never knows, of course.

Over the years, Lorenzen has grown into a kind of Danish LSD-guru figure, and his solo output, released in his own name with Danish lyrics and titles, bears that out with a sensibility that seems to draw from some of what Dragontears were doing on Turn on Tune in Fuck Off!, particularly, as noted, on “My Friend” and maybe even “William.” While Lorenzen doesn’t quite try to get away permanently from the hooky songcraft that’s made Baby Woodrose‘s offerings stand up so well to the test of time, both 2017’s Galmandsværk (review here) and 2019’s Triprapport (review here) portray this identity in their visual and aural presentation, and with his beard long and gray and his material more otherworldly than it’s ever been, it suits him. I wouldn’t fight if another Baby Woodrose record was in the offing for 2020 or if Lorenzen were to continue the solo work or something else, since no matter where he goes, he seems to take such a strong presence with him. Sometimes, that’s a voice out in the void of space itself.

As always, I hope you enjoy.

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I was gonna go see Monolord at Vitus Bar on Sunday. I didn’t go to Ode to Doom last week and I’m already hemming and hawing on this, despite my desire to catch Blackwater Holylight and Monolord in that space, let alone the matinee beforehand that I’m co-presenting. Feeling worn out, down, down, down, and like cooking dinner so there are leftovers for the week ahead is probably the way to go. There’s like a seven-pound spaghetti squash sitting on the counter that I should probably throw in the oven now so it’s done in time for Monday.

Shit is large.

The Pecan is up. Early. It’s almost 6:30AM now — not an overly productive morning on my part, but the Dragontears was fun to write about as Lorenzo Woodrose’s stuff usually is — and he’s been up for like an hour. Brutal. I thought he had pooped so I got him from upstairs, but no. He still found time to wind up his legs and kick me while I was changing his diaper though, and that’s what would seem to matter.

He’s two. It’s very hard. We were friends for a little bit there. Not this week.

I tell him, “You’re in control of your responses.” “We can put on shoes easy or hard, it’s up to you.” Even if he doesn’t really know what I’m talking about in terms of actualization of self, I figure that’s good habit for me to say rather than, “Put on your fucking shoes you wretched thing-beast,” and good for him to hear from what’s basically the outset of him understanding words. There’s one corner of the room I don’t want him to go in. Every time I’m out of his line of sight, he’s there. By Wednesday, I felt like my brain was going to explode. Yesterday, which was Thursday, The Patient Mrs. worked from 7AM-6PM (oh, that easy college professor’s schedule; when you’re 80, maybe) and I had him all day and it was too cold to play outside. He bit, he hit, he kicked, he hugged, he pretended to sneeze and laughed, he ran, he ate a good lunch. We went grocery shopping and he sat in the cart. He went in that same fucking corner and I told him, “Okay, that’s cool, you hang out in there and I’ll just put away your toys since you’re not using them anymore. This puzzle looks fun, but if you don’t need it, I’ll put it away,” and he came out of the corner to play with the puzzle. Even if he doesn’t know all the words — and he might — he got the idea, and it was a solid hour before he was back over there playing with the power bar, which at that point was a win.

It was a day, in other words.

So, next week. It’s full. There’s a ton of shit, whether or not I go see Monolord, and if I’m saying that on Friday, I’m probably not going. We’ll see. But it’s a full week regardless, highlighted by a Solace track premiere rescheduled from this week and a War Cloud video premiere, the latter of which will be on Friday to round things out. I’ll review Vessel of Light in there too somewhere.

I’m sure you’re riveted.

Stay glued to your seat, computer, phone, whatever. More Obelisk coming soon.

Ugh.

Everyone have a great and safe weekend. Please be kind and have fun. You can do both.

FRM. Forum, radio, merch.

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If you’re Baby Woodrose frontman and principle songwriter Lorenzo Woodrose, the only place to go at this point is further out. On the band’s sixth album, Third Eye Surgery (Bad Afro Records), they do precisely that, pushing the established heavy psychedelic pop into more ethereal realms without sacrificing the structures and strong sense of composition that always makes the Copenhagen band’s work so memorable. Woodrose, also of Dragontears and once of the defunct On Trial, is the steering figure guiding the band down their path of lysergic enlightenment, and one can only assume from the title Third Eye Surgery, which connotes some willful act undertaken to open or repair one’s own metaphysical awareness, that he’s conscious of the shifts in sound he’s made over the course of these nine tracks. In conjunction with engineer Anders Onsberg, Woodrose also produced the record, so that goes even more toward proving the argument. But what stands out most about Third Eye Surgery, despite the periodic bursts of sitar on songs like “Nothing is Real” or the duet with vocalist Emma Acs on “Dandelion,” is what always stands out most about Baby Woodrose, and that’s the quality of the songwriting. Woodrose is a master of classic psych, and as he’s been doing it with Baby Woodrose now for over a decade since 2001’s Blows Your Mind! – most recently, he revisited the demos from which that album was birthed on 2011’s Mindblowing Seeds and Disconnected Flowers (review here) – his approach is well honed and his methods provide results that are varied sonically but unwavering in their superiority of execution. That is, Woodrose and his bandmates, bassist Riky “The Moody Guru” Woodrose and drummer Rocco “Fuzz Daddy” Woodrose, aren’t necessarily the first to be doing what they do, but they’re unquestionably among the best out there currently doing it, and by the time Third Eye Surgery winds down to the spacious closer “Honalee,” on which the drums drop out to let the guitar and vocals culminate the album’s unceasing swirl, Woodrose has long since shown that Baby Woodrose is beholden to no one so much as their own creative will.

Eastern influences permeate several of Third Eye Surgery’s highlights, from the aforementioned “Nothing is Real” to the slower march of the lyrically darker centerpiece, “Bullshit Detector,” which also closes side A if you’re listening to the vinyl, but the record launches with a strong trio of under-three-minute cuts that reaffirm Baby Woodrose’s pop dominance. Opener “Down to the Bottom” wastes no time in getting to one of the collection’s strongest choruses, but never comes off rushed or relinquishes its suitably dreamy feel, Woodrose keeping his characteristic early-Dave Wyndorfian vocal patterns intact as organs and guitars comingle. The album as a whole sounds bright but lyrics like, “Down to the bottom, where I belong” and indeed the whole of “Waiting for the War,” which follows, are darker and add complexity to the Baby Woodrose aesthetic. You can’t say it’s all upbeat, all the time, no matter what the tempo might be. “Waiting for the War” is near-industrial in its sound, and it’s not until the verse opens to the chorus that the song provides any hint of hope, and even that seems dashed by the cynical title lyric, “There’s a new game in town and it’s called waiting for the war.” As ever, Woodrose’s lyrical sensibility is writ large all over Third Eye Surgery, and “Waiting for the War” works best in the context of the album because it shifts the focus early on, does so quickly (at 2:27, it is the shortest track), and then promptly gives way to “Dandelion,” on which Woodrose is joined in a call and response by Acs, whose voice complements well the late-‘60s tonal luster and Woodrose’s own druggy vibes. The song has no chorus to speak of, and so represents a structural shift from the first two songs, though the lines, “You could show me how you feel, I could show you how I feel” is repeated several times, serving a roughly similar function despite a less-perceptible musical change than “Waiting for the War” or “Down to the Bottom.” The lyrics mark a turn too from the musically-contrasting depression or socially-conscious nihilism. They are sweet and more pointedly emotional.

It’s the breadth of these three initial cuts, however, that most impresses. In under eight minutes, Baby Woodrose has established a deceptively long stride from one cut to the next while keeping hold of a flow as well, and though “It’s Just a Ride” and “Bullshit Detector” maintain the spaced-out mood that’s so far presented itself on Third Eye Surgery musically, they also begin to expand on the straightforwardness of structure. “It’s Just a Ride” opens with tandem organ and fuzz guitar and moves into distant, echoing leads and a bouncing verse and catchy chorus that’s a highlight in terms of bass performance. The extra time between “It’s Just a Ride” (4:07) and, say, “Dandelion” (2:31) before it, is given largely to a more extended, mostly-instrumental ending, but that also works to set up “Bullshit Detector,” the longest song on the album at 5:48. Woodrose is able to quickly entrance listeners, and the end of “It’s Just a Ride” does exactly that, so when it gives way to the (once more) organ intro of “Bullshit Detector,” the change is subtle and smooth, and when “Bullshit Detector” is unfolding, it does so without a sense of indulgence, but with one of grandeur. Perhaps it’s the pointedly grounded lyrics that offsets some of the psychedelic exploring – similar to the opener in that way – but “Bullshit Detector,” as far out as it goes, never feels like it’s gone too far. Instead, it closes side A with a heady groove and an engaging section led by (appropriately enough) layers of lead guitar that add a naturalistic, jam-based feel. Third Eye Surgery is especially rich compared to some of Baby Woodrose’s more garage-sounding past outings, but as side B commences with “Nothing is Real” and the sitar shows up for the first time, it’s clear there’s still territory Lorenzo and company are looking to cover that they haven’t yet.

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When we last heard from him, Copenhagen preacher of the lysergic Lorenzo Woodrose was telling us to turn on, tune in and fuck off with the collective Dragontears. Now back under the moniker Baby Woodrose – the band taking its name from the Hawaiian baby woodrose plant, whose seeds are known to have psychotropic effects on those who eat them – our man Lorenzo takes us back to the very roots of the band with Mindblowing Seeds and Disconnected Flowers (released by Bad Afro). The 15-track, 39-minute full-length is a collection of the earliest Baby Woodrose demos, written and recorded by Woodrose during a rough patch in 1999 that had him crashing on the couch of his then-bandmate in On Trial and current-bandmate in Dragontears, The Hobbit and coming up with over 50 songs’ worth of material following a series of trips with the seeds from which he now takes his last name. He recounts the time in the liner tray of the digipak Mindblowing Seeds and Disconnected Flowers comes in (the gorgeously psychedelic artwork of Kiryk Drewinski both inside the package and out is also worth noting), and the result is that the album, in addition to functioning as a complete full-length with a flow one song to the next, also gives followers of Baby Woodrose an idea never before available of how the band began and just how central Woodrose himself has always been to the process.

Apart from a cover of The Illusions’ 1966 single “City of People,” all of Mindblowing Seeds and Disconnected Flowers is comprised of Woodrose original songs, and even though they are simple in terms of structure – it’s supposed to be; the garage rock elements of Baby Woodrose’s sound really comes out here – it’s still an impressive feat, and no doubt Woodrose had his work cut out for him in mixing, mastering and whittling down the glut of material for this release. Those familiar with Baby Woodrose will revel in the chance to revisit some of their earliest cuts – most would appear on the eventual 2001 debut, Blows Your Mind! – but even for someone who hasn’t followed the band over the course of their career, the immediacy with which these songs hit speaks for itself. In comparing these versions to the final album tracks, these have a directness to them even apart from the rawer feel of the recording. They’re definitely rough, but they show Woodrose’s talent for songwriting and love of mid to late ‘60s psych, as well as awareness of what was happening in the international stoner scene at the time. His voice, as ever, reminds in its inflection of Monster Magnet’s Dave Wyndorf, and he plays the rest of the instruments on Mindblowing Seeds and Disconnected Flowers, so it’s about as much a solo venture as you can get.

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The populous Danish outfit Dragontears specialize in a brand of heavy psychedelic pop that you simply don’t find in the American scene. Not only is the group’s third album, Turn on Tune in Fuck Off!! (Bad Afro), blissed out and loaded with all the synth swirls, backing vocals, electric tones and whathaveyou that you can handle, it’s also undeniably pop-driven, with at least the first several of its total six tracks boasting catchy classic psych choruses that, the more you hear them, the more you want to hear them again. Fans of heavy Europsych will recognize fronting figure Lorenzo Woodrose from the long-running and still very much active Baby Woodrose, and Dragontears also boasts members of On Trial… and probably five other bands. Hey, there are eight people. It’s bound to happen.

Joining Woodrose, who handles bass, guitar, drums and organ (it’s a rotating cast, and given the fact that no one seems to do just one thing, one gets the impression that whoever picks up whatever instrument and makes noise with it gets to handle it for that song or given period of time), are The Hobbit, Ralph A. Rjeily, Anders “Evil Jebus” Onsberg, Moody Guru, Fuzz Daddy, Lars Von Lundholm, Emma Acs, Sebastian Winther and The Adam. If the personnel doesn’t say it enough, Dragontears is more of a collective of friends built around Woodrose and a couple other core contributors than a band with a set lineup composing songs. The approach is dangerous, as it could lead to uneven songwriting and an incongruous flow that could be the undoing of an album like Turn on Tune in Fuck Off!!, but with Woodrose’s vocals as the element most up-front, Dragontears avoids any such issues. The album’s flow is linear, despite the break into farther-out space territory with “Time of No Time” four tracks in, and moves easily, especially in the latter half, where druggy hypnosis takes hold and the psychedelic haze seems to float one song to the next.

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If 1964 was 1968, if Sydney, Australia, was San Francisco, CA and if life was half scored by Strawberry Alarm Clock and half scored by Ennio Morricone, Aussie five-piece outfit The Dolly Rocker Movement would fit right in. However, since none of those conditions are met by existence as we know it (the former being impossible according to the laws of physics), the band’s unique blend of pop rock, bright-hued psychedelia and occasional flourishes of spaghetti western atmospherics is individual enough to make their third album, Our Days Mind the Tyme (Bad Afro), memorable beyond its songs.

I say “if 1964 was 1968” because tunes like “Our Brave New World” and the acoustic-led waltz “A Sound for Two” have an innocent sweetness to them prevalent in A Hard Days Night-era British invasion rock that was lost by the time the sultry lysergisms of late-‘60s hippie rock took over, despite the fact that the keys of Martin Walters inevitably aligns The Dolly Rocker Movement with the latter musically. And although Our Days Mind the Tyme is unquestionably a work of psychedelic rock, its pop sensibility and lack of outward heaviness make it an accessible, friendly album that capitalizes on a retro ideology without overdoing any single aspect of the era it’s emulating. Guitarist Dandy Lyon’s vocals, in sometime trade-off with a female vocalist, as on “Coffin Love,” only enhance the retro atmosphere, calling to mind visions of orange bellbottoms and paisley bandannas the likes of which simply aren’t found in the world as we know it in the 21^st Century.

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