It’s all over now, I’ve got momentum on my side. This is day four of the Quarterly Review. The first three days have been nothing but a pleasure on my end, putting them together, and with just today and tomorrow left, I’m feeling pretty good about the entire endeavor. I’m not sure yet if this will be the end of the year as regards QRs, but if it is, it’s a good one to go out on.

And basically to make that determination, I need to look at next month’s schedule and see what’s coming when, when I’ll do things like the year-end poll and my own big end-of-year post. No idea on any of that yet, but I’ll get there. Getting this done in relatively smooth fashion is a help. Thanks for reading and I hope it’s been a good one for you as well.

Quarterly Review #31-40:

Psychedelic Source Records, The Initiation Outlaws

Set to release through Echodelick in the US and Weird Beard Records in the UK, in addition to Psychedelic Source Records‘ own distribution, The Initiation Outlaws brings eight pieces and a full 98-minute double-LP’s worth of cosmic improvised jamming, with a cast of regulars from the Hungarian collective — Bence Ambrus, Máté Varga, Róbert Kránitz, Krisztina Benus, Gergely Szabó — taking part in collaborative exploration with Go Kurosawa of Kikagaku Moyo, who goes from drums to bass to guitar as the release progresses, sliding right into the amorphous methodology of Psychedelic Source Records while distinguishing the heavier push in “Three Golds Reward II” or the snare work on “The King of Magic Colts and Wands I” earlier. Trance-inducing as ever, these captured moments are gorgeously fluid and immersive, active enough in parts like “The King of Magic Colts and Wands II” to defy mellowpsych-improv expectation, but abiding just the same. If you’re not there yet, it’s time to start thinking of Psychedelic Source among Europe’s finest purveyors of heavy psychedelia.

Psychedelic Source Records on Bandcamp

Echodelick Records store

Weird Beard Records store

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Bell Witch & Aerial Ruin, Stygian Bough Vol. II

The forlorn folkishness in the midsection of “Waves Become the Sky” bring to mind an extrapolation of emotive doom from the likes of Warning, but that’s understandable with Aerial Ruin and Bell Witch renewing their collaboration for Stygian Bough Vol. II, following on from a first volume (review here) in 2020. The album takes place over four extended tracks from the rolling density of the aforementioned opener through the minimalist-till-it-isn’t “King of the Wood” and the longform folk-death-doom of “From Dominion Let Them Bleed” and the melancholy triumph of heft wrought in 19-minute finale “The Told and the Leadened,” which dwells in spaces empty and full and remains conscious enough to end with tense noise and drumming. This is artistry on its own wavelength, working in its own time, and patient to a point of extremity. But they do it to offer comfort, make no mistake. There’s consolation in these songs, in addition to all the mourning.

Bell Witch website

Aerial Ruin website

Profound Lore Records website

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Giöbia, X-ÆON

Unrepentantly cosmic Italian outfit Giöbia are like a fresh coat of antimatter for space rock. The four-piece obviously hunkered down in their secret lab after 2023’s Acid Disorder (review here) and worked hard to refine their chemical compositions, such that “Voodoo Experience” nods grounded even as its synth and guitars surge beyond the thermosphere. The results show everywhere throughout X-ÆON in their outsider cohesion of classic and neo-space rocks, heavy psychedelia and oddball synthscaping, whether you’re doing the sensory thing with the dream-jam “1976” or embroiled in the four-part side B concept piece, “La Mort de la Terre,” which draws a cinematic curtain for life as we know it in “Dans la Nuit Éternelle,” a wordless epilogue that feels half a world removed from the stomp-and-verse of “The Death of the Crows,” but of course, that’s the whole idea.

Giöbia website

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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Bone Church, Deliverance

The included acoustic guitar, organ and FM-radio classic rock vibes in the eight-and-a-half-minute closing title-track aren’t a coincidence. They’re part of a stated intention the band had in taking on more of a traditional sound, coming down from some of the harder-hitting doom of 2020’s Acid Communion and working in more of a ’70s-inspired style. That manifests to varying degrees throughout, as leadoff “Electric Execution” feels like it’s working in the vein of “Neon Knights” or “Turn Up the Night” in Dio Sabbathian raucousness (I know that was 1980-81, don’t @ me), and while “Lucifer Rising” has a weighted march, it’s more Scorpions than Sleep, and “Goin’ to Texas” brings in the organ to emphasize the Southern geography of the album’s centerpiece. It’s a striking turn but they pull it off for sure. “Muchachos Muchachin'” has mid-’70s charm to spare, and “Bone Boys Ride Out” seems to bridge the more modern attack of Bone Church-prior with who they are today. Not every progression plays out like you think it will, and if this is the band Bone Church have wanted to be all along, they sound accordingly right to have made the redirect.

Bone Church on Bandcamp

Ripple Music website

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Js Donny, Death Folk

The ‘soft scream’ vocals give Js Donny‘s Death Folk an immediate sense of extremity, but it’s a quiet extremity. The French solo artist — who also plays bass in adventurous Marseilles sludgers Donna Candy — released an EP with a full lineup in 2023, but this six-song/33-minute offering is more intimate. Js Donny dwells in the quiet, creepy spaces the songs create, the vocal gurgle giving shades of otherworldliness and malevolence alike. It’s called Death Folk, but especially with the electrified/distorted wash that takes hold in “Not Like That” and again at the outset of closer “Black Heart” — a biting tone, like harsher blackgaze — I can’t help but wonder if Js Donny isn’t working in a kind of post-death-metallic framing. There are no drums, which is a fair trade for what’s gained in grim ambience, but even without, the album is clear in manifesting both sides of its title, and while Js Donny isn’t the only one laying claim to death-folk as a style, how it happens here sure feels like an act of genre creation.

Js Donny on Bandcamp

Bamboo Shoes on Bandcamp

29Speedway on Bandcamp

Chrüsimüsi Records on Bandcamp

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Nuclear Dudes, Skeletal Blasphemy

In some distant future, when the history is written of our idiotic, persistently awful time, no one will ever say, “and the right-thinking people of the day had no choice but to seek refuge in avant garde cybergrind,” and that’s why history is bullshit. Skeletal Blasphemy is the third album from Nuclear Dudes and second of 2025 behind September’s Truth Paste (review here) — keep ’em coming — and is the solo-project’s most vicious and realized offering to-date. Spearhead Jon Weisnewski (Sandrider, ex-Akimbo) brings powerviolent catharsis on “Victory Pants,” the title-track and assorted others, working in collaboration with guest drummer Coady Willis (High on Fire, Big Business, Melvins), and whether it’s the punker push in “Bad Body” or the slow, undulations of the closing “The Octopus” and the burgeoning thread of progressive melody throughout these songs, it’s exactly the sort of self-bludgeoning that being alive right now requires. Album of the year? Fuck you, fuck the year, and fuck capitalism.

Nuclear Dudes on Bandcamp

The Ghost is Clear Records website

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Kronstad 23, Sommermørket

With an instrumentalist foot in progressive, horn-inclusive jazz, heavy psychedelic fluidity and a resonant warmth of tone alongside a will to meander, Kronstad 23 feel tailor-made for El Paraiso Records, run by members of Denmark’s Causa Sui. Sommermørket is the Norwegian outfit’s debut album and without sounding consumed by its own ambition to do so, it organically nestles the band in a stylistic niche that allows for the explorations in “Caesar” and “Astralreiser,” the latter of which will seem barely there in its early going at low volumes, to exist along the daring-toward-dancey opener “Dølgsmål” and building a kind of dreamy tension between the guitar and drums on “Trosten,” with none of it feeling out of place. They’ll invariably get comparisons to Kanaan, but the foundation is different and the delivery gentler, with “Helgen” finding its way on drum rolls and key/guitar drift into a classic-prog horn section in a payoff that’s somewhat understated until you look back across the five and a half minutes and see how far you’ve come. I can’t wait to hear how they grow.

Kronstad 23 on Instagram

El Paraiso Records website

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Rolls the River, Love of Driving

“Love of Driving” is the debut single from newcomer New Jersey-based krautrock-minded two-piece Rolls the River. The band brings together Dan Kirwan of Pyre Fyre on bass, guitar and vocals, and Victor Marinelli on guitar, synth, drums and vocals for a sub-five-minute cosmic reachout, obviously schooled in where it’s coming from — that is to say, one doesn’t krautrock by accident; it is a form to adopt and refine — but still feeling like an initial exploration of both style and composition. Fading in on an initial keyboardy drone, the guitar and drums come in together and the neospace shuffle is mellow as layers are added, guitar, keys, but the sense of movement brought to “Love of Driving” is enough to explain the title, whatever you might think of the Garden State’s highway system. Rather than get caught up in jughandles, though, Rolls the River harness tonal presence and linear development and still find room to include voice as part of the atmosphere. Formative, and an encouraging start.

Rolls the River on Bandcamp

Rolls the River on Instagram

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Psychonaut, World Maker

Belgium’s Psychonaut may yet teach progressive metal a lesson or two. The post-metal three-piece reach what sure feels in “Endless Currents” like a new level of expression and craft, and while at 11 songs and 60 minutes, World Maker isn’t a minor undertaking — one could easily argue making a world takes time — the utter consumption achieved in “All in Time,” which I won’t spoil any further, the blissful wash of “…Everything Else is Just the Weather” are not to be missed, and worth whatever minor investment of attention span might be required. Exciting as the intermittent metallic surges are, “Endless Erosion” caps in a quiet place, and the atmospherics across the first two and a half minutes of “Origins,” just as one example, help to bring a feeling of place (of ‘world’) to the procession. It is a vivid place Psychonaut have made, and there are listeners for whom the melodies of World Maker will be transcendental.

Psychonaut on Bandcamp

Pelagic Records website

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Cabfighter, The Sea Between Stars

Following an apparent 2024 EP called Anachronist that is below because this debut album isn’t streaming yet that I can find, The Sea Between Stars — a suitably romantic framing of what you might otherwise call ‘the void’ — brings a progressive take to classic-style doom rock. The Oregonian five-piece roll out a genuine feeling of dynamic across the album’s 10 tracks, from the proto-metal shove of “Knightrider” at the outset to the later rush and wail of “Sky Sized Heart,” to the doom-epic ballad reach of “Bridge of Irreconcilable Sorrow” to the acoustic turn in the last movement of “The Words We Don’t Speak” and variable but unifyingly soulful vocal arrangements throughout, up to the minimal voice-and-piano closer “Ghost Notes” or the duet in the crescendo of “Still Breathing.” Ambition set in balance with organic production and songwriting. I don’t know when The Sea Between Stars is coming out, if it’s now-ish, early 2026 or what, but if you want to take this as an early heads up, do.

Cabfighter on Bandcamp

Cabfighter on Instagram

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The story being told in music throughout the seven tracks of Diablo in Alpujarras‘ self-titled LP — part of the Psychedelic Source Records collective in Hungary — is presumably the same story told by Bence Ambrus in the liner notes for the release. I’ll present them here to save you my paraphrasing:

About ten years ago in Spain I had a crazy experience in the Granada night with a Colombian coke-guy who held a knife in his hand. All I had with me was my backpack, its contents: some water and clothes. No map, no phone either.

I decided to escape the knife-police-situation and the city itself, so I decided to walk all the way down to the coast… The only problem was I hadn’t realized that the highest mountain range of Spain would be in the way between Granada and the coast.

So I walked “down” into the Alpujarras, then on towards the Almijaras, then down to Almunécar. The trek took a few days, during which all I had to eat were almonds and pomegranates.

In this release, I’d like the listeners to accompany me on my trip: washing your underwear in mountain springs, scavenging for edible seeds and fruit, having to keep on going all night because there are only cliffs both left and right, with not a single flat place to lie down to sleep at. Not to mention nights being cold as hell, of course.

When you finally reach the coast, buying a few beers and drinking them by the sea is a definite must.

Ambrus, who is at the center of Psychedelic Source and organizes many of the get-together-type jams that result in the releases on the label, has also released solo outings under his own name, and Diablo in Alpujarras is close to that in terms of what he’s playing. But it’s also a band name. Band and self-titled album, in the vein of Psychedelic Source Records offerings like River Flows Reverse, :Nepaal, and so on. And Ambrus is joined on the 45-minute (not days-long) outing by Sándor Nagy, who solidifies the ethereal guitar and bass at the foundation of the material, while Mátè Varga adds further percussion hither and yon along the way.

In telling his tale — whether it’s true or not, I don’t know and it doesn’t really matter; given the proclivity for improv, I tend to believe it — Ambrus goes on to say that the guitar parts across Diablo in Alpujarras, whether it’s the wistful meandering of “Consolamentum” or the cool night air wrought in “Solanaceaes,” were recorded at home in August, following the birth of his (I think second) child. Nagy‘s drum parts had already been tracked, and one assumes those became the backbeats around which the atmospheric, psychedelic meander takes place. I don’t know how much editing was or wasn’t involved, but the clever play between rainsticks in the penultimate “Sleeprain” and actual rain in the subsequent “Sleeprain Pt. II,” Ambrus finds a balance between droning minimalism and intimacy.

Especially as “Sleeprain” has no drums to speak of and “Sleeprain Pt. II” dials them way back from the level of activity, say, on opener “Diablo Oscuro” — still plenty mellow, by the way — or the 11-minute “Beneficio,” where after seven minutes into the total 11 the drums allow the listener to stay grounded as the guitar prefaces the float one finds in the “Sleeprain” duology, the balance between Diablo in Alpujarras seems to be between solo-album-type expression and a fuller-band presence.

There’s a whole other layer to the release when one considers the narrative unfurled above next to the birth of a child, and whether it’s escapist nostalgia from an overloaded brain — if you don’t have a kid, I’m sorry but I can’t think of a situation to compare it to in terms of what’s happening in your body chemically and emotionally; its like crazymaniajoypanichorrorreliefplusnosleep — or just thinking of new life and the ways one has spent one’s own, the fact of putting the listener in a different space by going there musically makes for a fascinating aspect of the material’s persona. Sometimes I think about driving out 12-15 hours to go to a doom fest in the Midwest like 15 years ago, or that time The Patient Mrs. and I got lost in Rome on our honeymoon (20 years ago and then some) and wandered along the side of a highway for however many kilometers it was before we gave up. Never did make it to the catacombs. Alas. On the most basic level, it’s not the kind of decision you would undertake if you had a kid with you.

I think a lot about family, about music, about what it means to be a ‘lifer’ in some form of creative existence. There are always balances to strike, to adjust, work and rework, and in my experience over the last eight years as a parent, there’s nothing more consuming or difficult that parenting. Nobody likes to talk about that aspect of it — I can’t speak for everywhere, but where I live the broader cultural expectation is that you should be like an advertisement for parenting while doing so; “isn’t this great and rewarding and something you’d definitely want to do even if you weren’t genetically compelled to do so?”– but most of parenting is a job. It’s work. I’ve had more hard days than easy ones, and part of that is my personality and mode of parenting and part of it is just the nature of the thing. Unless your idea of ‘raisin’ ’em right’ involves putting them in a basket and floating it down the river, sooner or later you’re going to have to put some effort in.

Maybe that means less time for other things just then, and it can be hard to keep the broad-view in mind when it’s seven-plus years later and all of a sudden you’re not allowed to sleep through the night again and you have no idea why, but when something is a part of you, whether that’s art, music, woodworking, whatever, you find ways to do it and maybe even share it that, hopefully, you can appreciate as refreshing and a new kind of experience unto themselves. I don’t know that that’s what’s happening here or not, but at the very least Diablo in Alpujarras is evocative, and that’s where my head went with it. This world is mostly garbage. Find your satisfaction where, when and how you can.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

—

I don’t have a ton to say here. The Pecan has strung together a few good days at school — we see the updates on an app they update in the classroom; I both hate it and it’s pretty convenient at tracking basic compliance with what’s happening in the class — and that feels good in the cautious way of having seen the rug pulled out from under such things before. But the point is she’s working hard and I respect the shit out of that. They’ve got her trying to ‘earn points’ to get to play on an iPad at the free period at the end of the day. All carrots at the ends of all sticks rot eventually, so I’ll be curious what the next thing will be when this wears itself out.

Next week, as much as I can review, I will review. That’s my plan. I was honestly thinking of doing another 50-release Quarterly Review, but no. No. Not yet. November, maybe, or early December ahead of year-end-list time. It’s too soon, having just finished one on Monday.

That made the week kind of weird, but so it goes. I’m glad the week is over. The Pecan’s birthday party is this weekend (her actual birthday is next weekend) and we’ve invited like 20-something kids to go ice skating at Mennen Arena — a North Jersey staple — for it. I don’t skate. Or party. That’ll be Sunday. Saturday night I’m going to see Kal-El in Brooklyn. I’ve been dreading the drive for two months. Not even kidding. That’s what it’s like to be in my head at this point. Once the music starts, it’ll be fine.

Have a great and safe weekend. Hydrate. Fuck fascism, free Palestine, death to the corporate overlords. Never forget who the assholes are now so you can hold it in front of their faces later at fantasy tribunals that’ll never happen.

FRM.

The Obelisk Collective on Facebook

The Obelisk Radio

The Obelisk merch

The Tail, the Head and the Snake Itself is the second vinyl to be pressed by the Páty, Hungary, collective Psychedelic Source Records, and while it keeps with the label/group’s common modus of improvisation and exploration, the four-song procession feels carved out with specific intent all the more because they’re telling a story with it. To wit, from the album info on Bandcamp:

Cause we are strong. We are creating what we see.

We are creating through our thoughts, as we destroy through our emotions, and it makes up the endless circle. The roundabout is not evil, it just exists. The evil is the faceless, the unreal, the monster, the fake glitter, the wheel, the rush and it is the SNAKE.

The snake which bites on its own tail, symbolising the circle which misleads all humans, makes life worthless, to make you begin its path again and again and again.

Be aware of the impersonal.

Be aware of the wheel. BE AWARE OF THE SNAKE.

The soul mirrors through the voice, the life mirrors through the rhythm, but its true self could be manifested only through improvisation, a wave-like motion instead of spinning. You cannot access reality through impersonal monotony, or sticking to habits.

It reads almost like they’re building their own modern ouroboros mythology, though certainly that’s not the only instance of snakes as malevolent actors in folklore — from Eden to the Hungarian folktale of Snake Johnny, European culture is replete — and if the cycles of our age are to be represented by the snake continually eating itself, well, fair enough. If you’ve ever been in a car crash and you could extrapolate into an entire year that slow-motion millisecond just before impact where your body goes preemptively into shock to lizard-brain prepare for the impact, that would be 2025. It’s to Psychedelic Source Records‘ credit that there’s more to the movement in these songs than escapism, though invariably that’s something the listener will bring to their own listening experience anyhow.

The session took place earlier this year at some unspecified time, and despite the story-enhancing, packed-in layers of iconography in Toth Tamas‘ (that’s family-name first, which is how it goes in Hungary) artwork and the scenes there of death, life and rebirth in a cycle that might be hopeful — arrow in the eye notwithstanding — were it not for the tail, head and snake itself (hey, that’s the name of the album!) surrounding, the flow within and between the songs is unmistakable. I’ve said this before with PSR outings — the latest prior to this Aug. 31 release was Flaming Hurricane (review here) from July, and that is indicative of the pace they keep — but despite the fact that the lineup for any given session can consist of different players, there has grown to be a collective chemistry between them such that the four songs and 46 minutes of The Tail, the Head and the Snake Itself can emerge carved via editing from the jams at their foundation and feel, if not directed, then certainly aware of themselves in time and space in a way that connects with the audience to build trust.

That is to say, performing as the instrumentalist five-piece of drummer Megyeri Krisztian, bassist Kranitz Robert, guitarists Ambrus Bence (who also mixed and helmed the digital master; Debreczi Akos did the vinyl master) and Karancz Akos and keyboardist Benus Krisztina, none of the parties involved here are strangers to each other, and the sound they’re able to hone, especially in the two extended pieces “The Snake Itself Pt. 1” (19:02) and “The Snake Itself Pt. 2” (14:06) respectively closing side A and opening side B, bears out that chemistry in a surge of cosmic push and scorch that’s both thrilling and atmospheric. With a clear divide between them — that is, it’s not the same jam continuing one into the next, but two distinct beginnings and endings — these pieces of course characterize The Tail, the Head and the Snake Itself by the sheer fact of their taking up more than half an hour of its runtime. And no, I assure you, that is not a complaint.

But whether it’s the subtly funky start given to the LP by the four-minute leadoff “The Tail” (it’s got some wag, that tail) or the serene post-rock that grows thicker, denser and noisier as its sub-nine-minute run plays out with its comedown preserved in the fade, these shorter cuts are not incidental or haphazard either. They obviously don’t have the same gravitational pull as the “The Snake Itself” two-parter, but a body is most of a thing compared to a head and tail, so this too seems like part of the plan and the story being described through printed words, art and music. It’s worth emphasizing this because “The Tail” demonstrates that in order to immerse the listener, the crew from Psychedelic Source Records — and again, who’s in that crew can vary from jam to jam — can enact that level of engagement without leaning on temporal sprawl as a crutch. I’m saying don’t discount the effect the short jam up front has on the mood of what follows.

A vinyl outing from Psychedelic Source Records is rare. There have been various band releases through the label-arm, for When River Flows Reverse, Black Batik, Protoaeolianism and others, but Psychedelic Source Records operating under its own moniker is a mostly-digital endeavor to-date. The Tail, the Head and the Snake Itself, by virtue of the concept applied, feels all the more tied together and solidified as an LP. Certainly there’s no lack of fluidity, as one would expect from these players at this point, and they highlight a sense of craft-in-the-immediate — everybody realizing they’re part of the build and the direction they’re headed; Megyeri is crucial in this — that still feels like it’s only beginning to unfold in terms of possibilities. Further, that they not only take the opportunity to unite their material in a concept, but then to use that concept as a chance for social commentary, speaks not only to classic outsider-art of the ilk to which PSR belongs, but again to the continued forward potential in the various incarnations they take. On practical, musical and organic levels, they have more to say now than they have yet said.

Psychedelic Source Records, The Tail, the Head and the Snake Itself (2025)

Psychedelic Source Records on Bandcamp

Psychedelic Source Records on Spotify

It’s been a minute, so a bit of context to welcome the uninitiated (and that’s no judgment; good on you for checking out something you’ve never heard before): Hungary’s Psychedelic Source Records, despite the name, isn’t a record label in the traditional sense. Though it’s also that sometimes, pressing and releasing LPs or, occasionally, CDs, in limited batches. Mostly, Psychedelic Source Records is a collective of players and bands operating under the banner. These players, sometimes whole or parts of other bands, come and go throughout different improvisational jam sessions recorded sometimes in a special place (there was that time on the goat farm, for example) or with an outside collaborator, as last month’s Sokkyō (with LP pending) teamed a group of players in the collective’s stable with Go Kurosawa of Kikagaku Moyo.

These sessions are taken home and edited down, generally by Bence Ambrus, who plays guitar and bass and starts the recorder and so is about as close to a top-banana as Psychedelic Source has, but if it’s a hierarchy, it’s the most casual of them. To wit, Flaming Hurricane is the latest offering from the prolific, semi-amorphous group. It is the 10th release Psychedelic Source has had in the seven months of 2025 so far, and it brings two-thirds of Budapest’s Band in the Pit — guitarist Szabolcs Kesmarky and bassist Vilmos Schneider — into the fold with regulars like Ambrus (on guitar), guitarists Ákos Karancz (aka Pilot Voyager) and drummer Krisz Megyeri, the latter of whom proves to be the glue holding it all together as the three guitars go wandering through an expanse of psych drift, dynamic fuzz and at least partially improv processions.

Flaming Hurricane runs nine tracks and is two hours and 21 minutes long (2:21:34), so it’s probably safe to call it a productive day. In the spirit of past Psychedelic Source outings, it is presented in as organic a manner as possible, to the point that, on the Bandcamp release page, Ambrus posted the timeline of the day. Here it is for posterity:

The chronological order of the session:
11am: Bence arrived at the place, set the studio up.
12pm: Szabolcs and Vili arrived from Dunaujvaros, Krisz appeared too.
13pm: Session started, first five songs played in order, nothing weeded out.
15pm: Bence left the room.
Around 17pm Akos arrived.
second four songs played in order, nothing weeded out except a final one.
Later some drunker mates arrived (David, Pali), all the rest of the songs weeded out.
Enjoy

Note that in that, it’s stated that there was more, maybe a lot more, put to tape that day — presumably just weeks or maybe a month ago — but the jams didn’t work so they were “weeded out.” Flaming Hurricane, then, brings the best takes of the day. There are no overdubs, and right from opener/longest track (immediate points) “Glyphosate on Socials” (29:59), the troupe on tape dig into the moment with suitable gusto, Megyeri‘s drums — look out for “The Less We Speak the Better” (11:58) later on if you’re keying in on his performance — provide the backbone for movement through mellow dream-tones and the ebbs and flows around them. Schneider acquits himself well on bass late in the opener, and in the early going of “Self-Burial” (17:23), underscoring a skronk that builds through the song’s midsection and devolves nearly to complete silence before an epilogue of quiet standalone guitar leads the way out.

It’s more than a listener would probably be able to engage with in one sitting, because who the hell has two hours-plus to sit and actively vibe with heavy jams, but certainly “Glyphosate on Socials,” “Subliminal” (18:15), the fuzzblast-then-post-fuzzblast “Mahakala” (15:35), “Self-Burial,” and the finale “Robot Influences” (20:58), which meanders through a long drone and lead guitar only to be given shape in its second half by — you guessed it — the arrival of the drums, present the audience hearing them with broad soundscapes in which to immerse, get lost, dwell, really whatever you want to do with them. “Robot Influences” and “Glyphosate on Socials,” though the latter would need editing, could be a single LP on their own, and would satisfy as one, but “The Less We Speak the Better” — a fun title from a generally-instrumentalist outfit — and sub-10-minute pieces like “Throbbing Pulse” (9:28) and its apparent companion, the later “Pulsing Throttle” (8:40), as well as the penultimate, howling, heavy tube-blower “Atman Versus Brahman Cagefight” (9:17) extend the atmospheric reach of Flaming Hurricane such that, if you do sit down to give the album its requisite front-to-back time, the journey undertaken will be that much richer, even as the recording remains fairly raw.

Like a lot of what Psychedelic Source Records does under its own name — as opposed to putting out albums from Pilot Voyager, Band in the Pit, River Flows Reverse, Satorinaut, etc. — Flaming Hurricane offers documentary value as well as an engaging listen, and for those who’ve followed the imprint/group for some measure of time, there is perhaps extra satisfaction in the listening experience in terms of the chemistry and musical interaction between stable players. That is, while Schneider and Kesmarky are new, Ambrus, Megyeri and Karancz have done a career’s worth of jamming together at this point, and through the changes of “Self-Burial” the mellow desert-jazz of “Pulsing Throttle” and the hypnotic working-the-long-game build of “Robot Influences,” the instrumental conversation is happening at a level that, even just three years ago, wouldn’t have been possible.

If that sounds like I’m slagging off the older Psychedelic Source outings, I’m not. Sticking to their root methodology has given this collective their own kind of nascent maturity that one can hear throughout Flaming Hurricane, whether it’s in the smoothness of the changes from one part to another — not that all transitions are so smooth, as is natural — and that can’t replace the freshness or spontaneity of past sessions, even if it means their work has become more complex and farther ranging over time. Pastoralia continues to be a major factor in what they do, but the evocations of Flaming Hurricane — something that this climate-wrecked century seems likely manifest in a literal sense before it’s over — are limited only by the imagination that the listener brings to it. You could spend the rest of 2025 with these jams, but given that it’s Psychedelic Source Records and there are more sessions happening all the time, you probably won’t have to.

Psychedelic Source Records, Flaming Hurricane (2025)

Psychedelic Source Records on Bandcamp

Psychedelic Source Records on Spotify

Confirmed: hemp and goats. There were plenty of both the day a crew of no fewer than 12 players in the sphere of Psychedelic Source Records — something like a collective, but looser, more casual — jammed in a field at the bottom of a small hill. Hemp behind and goats running around on the hillside further back. As I understand it, there was also a very large pig, but I didn’t get to see it. Can’t have everything, and it was already a full day of players switching in and out, trading instruments, stopping for a drink and then picking back up when somebody decided it was time — sometimes that was Bence Ambrus, who organized the get-together-and-jam I was fortunate enough to be hanging around for in Páty, Hungary, last month, sometimes it was someone else — to start playing again.

Released now as the 12-track/two-hour-and-19-minute Recorded at the Goatfarm, the day would seem to have been a success. Obviously unnamed while they were being made up on the spot, songs have been given titles like “Goats on the Horizon” (12:35), “Sungarden” (6:29) and “Heavy Hemping” (7:10) — also “Mercat Encants” (19:52), “Slagamite” (9:56) and “Voids” (10:37), so not everything is strictly farm-relevant — and carved out of the live-captured, improvised pieces played in the grass under the summer sun with the breeze blowing around during the early August afternoon.

I won’t pretend to be impartial about it. It was incredible and humbling to be there while it happened, and hearing Márton Havlik‘s flute amid the languid heavy drift on “Wopila” (10:18), Krisztina Benus‘ vocals and synth on “Goat No. 8” (12:46) and the jazzy drumming — the day boasted three drummers in Máté Varga, Sándor Nagy and Krisztián Megyeri — behind the flowing lead guitar of “Blues From the Field to Mass Customers” (8:35), it’s hard to think of the endeavor as anything other than a success. The fact that Psychedelic Source — and you’ll note on the cover here the ‘Records‘ is dropped — got more than a 2LP’s worth of material from it and have already hosted a similar happening-style jam less than four weeks after the fact would seem to hint toward agreement.

Whether it’s the walking bassline of “Sungarden” (6:29) or the extended cosmic build and float of “You and Me and the Goat Makes Three” (17:00), and no matter who’s playing where — on bass throughout: Ambrus, Barna Bartos, Dávid Strausz, Gergely Szabó, Róbert Kránitz; on guitar: Ákos Karancz, Dávid Nagy, Balázs Tavaszy, also Ambrus — the sound of the recording is alive and organic, exploratory as “You and Me and the Goat Makes Three” reaches into its last two minutes of standalone drone guitar meditation and in the banjo-style saunter of “Hamaku,” with what might be Havlik on zither in the mix alongside the lighter-strummed guitar, and duly broad for having been cast into the open air. Given its near-20-minute reach, it’s not necessarily any great surprise “Mercat Encants” is especially encompassing, but it gets there through likewise expansive and patient flow, a resonant echo of effects tying together movements through and down the other side of its builds. Was that Karancz on guitar? Could be, but from the wash at its most fervent circa 11 minutes in through the will-to-meander course taken from there on, the entrancing aspects of what Psychedelic Source Records does remain at the fore for the duration.

It’s hard to know where my always-spotty memory ends and the actual listening experience of Recorded at the Goatfarm begins, but there is some very fortunate overlap between the two as the extended release plays out. To wit, the wah-drenched pastoralism of “Voids” and the openness in terms of style. Under the vast blue sky depicted on the cover from over to the side of where the jams were happening, seen through tall grasses creating an easily surmountable barrier between where the van was and where instruments were being played — it was an easy walkaround if you didn’t feel like going in the grass — the sounds didn’t have the same kind of immersion as they do on headphones in the after-the-fact, but they complemented the sunshine and warm air gorgeously, and they still do when put in that context.

Varying in length, personnel and intent, each jam finds its own way. “Voids” noodles out like slow-motion Earthless as it heads to its shimmering-tone midpoint where flute-inclusive closer “The Last Goat Was Capricorn” feels more expansive with a current of effects or synth running beneath the main guitar ramble and set atop a vital percussive pulse. In spirit and execution, the material is meditative, and depending on who’s doing what where, it can get pretty far-out if you want to start mixing metaphors between the terrestrial setting and the ever-expanding cosmos just on the other side of the blue sky noted above, but if the music takes you someplace other than where it was made, I think that’s valid. As much as Havlik‘s flute and Benus‘ voice might provide an intermittent folkish tie, there’s plenty on Recorded at the Goatfarm that comes across as otherworldly and ethereal, including those elements.

Ultimately, Recorded at the Goatfarm fits in with the mellow sprawl of many Psychedelic Source Records releases. Less pointed than some of what the likes of Pilot Voyager or River Flows Reverse put together in terms of songwriting, but harnessing something of the primordial energy that lies beneath that craft. As with the best of improv-based heavy psychedelia, there’s appeal in concept and audio alike — that is, you’re not sacrificing listenability to either experimentalist concepts, and there’s no one indulgence taking away from the impression of the whole. Aspects stand out, be it a guitar or bassline, a drum progression, flute, voice, synth or whathaveyou, but the entirety is bolstered by all participation in the process including — one likes to think — that of the after-the-fact listener.

I guess what I’m trying to say is Recorded at the Goatfarm represents something special about Psychedelic Source in a way that much of what comes out through their Bandcamp also does, and that however special it might have been to be there while these sounds were being made, there’s more on offer here sound-wise than my own sentimentality. I may not be there to witness it, but I hope the next goatfarm session produces such vibrant results.

Psychedelic Source Records, Recorded at the Goatfarm (2024)

Psychedelic Source Records on Bandcamp

Psychedelic Source Records on Spotify

The plan changed a couple times before the thing actually happened, which wasn’t necessarily a surprise. With fewer than 100 hours left in the country, I was to meet up with the crew — or some of the crew, anyhow — from Psychedelic Source Records, who had a plan to make an album this past Saturday that seemed as much like a get together as a recording session.

One could not ask for a more perfect day to do such a thing. Sunny, 25C, comfortable breeze. I got picked up at the apartment where I’ve been staying by Ákos Karancz from Pilot Voyager, and we picked up Robi Kránitz of Satorinaut and various others, who plays bass, and they, their partners and I stopped off at a Spar to pick up some food on the way out of the city through a part of Budapest I’d not yet seen: namely where it keeps the trees and rich-people houses. I don’t know at what point Budapest-proper gave way to not, but the car soon enough was rolling down a wooded hillside and we were headed to a farm in Páty where the recording would happen and where Bence Ambrus, who seems to be the organizing principal behind a lot of what the “label” Psychedelic Source Records does, and a few others had been setting up gear since earlier in the morning.

Up and down hills with light dappled in roadside forest, there were some houses and roads but he we were clearly out of the city. I could’ve asked, but I’m insecure. A big field of corn that I assume would soon end up in all kinds of salads in ways that continue to seem strange to me, but whatever, and then pavement giving way to dirt. Still warehouses in the distance — it wasn’t like doing the trail ride in Moab or wherever the hell that was, but it was more open space than I’d seen in a few weeks, at least, and the smell coming in the car window was cedar-spiced dirt. Also there was construction equipment.

This was the farm in question: not just a place out in the country but an actual, working farm. The original plan had been a studio session — i.e., in a building — in the city. I was not about to complain about the opposite. I was given a spot in the shade and some coffee, which is pretty much what you need to do what I do, and met Krisztina Benus, Barna Bartos and various others, drummers Krisztián Megyeri, Sándor Nagy and Kundi, all of whom have contributed to various PSR projects and who spoke better in English than I can ever reasonably hope to do in Hungarian. A little girl — maybe two but not three years old, and that’s still a point where months matter — gave me one of the tiny crunchy pretzels she was eating, which was very generous, and there was a younger baby crawling around here and there and being passed around. Family atmosphere. I was a bit the sore thumb, but that’s hardly a new experience for me.

The music started after a few minutes and the sound filled part of the open air but left room for the breeze through the trees over by where a white van — somebody’s van, with a homemade couch — was parked. Goats on the hill behind, a jam taking a doomier turn then twisting back around to psych with tambourine to add to the movement, sunshine, chlorophyll pumping out green like it was getting paid per pigment, and an easy vibe. Beers casually consumed, funk in the wah. Stuff of life. I was both sorry to have not brought my actual-camera and happy to not have to deal with it.

That jam lasted about 20 minutes, maybe, and went where it was going to go, then wrapped up easily, a fleeting thing. In the various groupings, projects and bands around Psychedelic Source Records, I feel like some of this idyllic atmosphere has carried into the music, but exploration is part of it too. Where the recording gear — mics, a board, laptop, etc. — was set up, they were in the sun while they played. Short breaks were decided upon as the solution, which seemed fair enough.

More people came so there were maybe 20 total, including a bassist in his 60s named Wes Brinson, who was from — wait for it — Middlesex County, New Jersey. The NJ diaspora is incredible. He was local enough to me at home that we went back and forth naming highways; 287, Rt. 10 & 202, the numbers of home. Dude was on Motown, met a Hungarian woman and settled here, had stories to tell about being in Junior Walker and the All-Stars, knowing the Parliament cats, the alligators in Florida, and so on. History in a lawnchair. The next jam started, this one with two guitars and a blanket in front for folks to sit and watch, which was about right in terms of the general vibe.

Wind in the tall grass pushed the floating guitar into a kind of spread and all was resonance for a bit, but the underlying groove stayed grounded, Bence on bass doing cycles along with the drums, a nod with nuance for the guitars to work around; a familiar dynamic for a jam but cool to see and hear the moment being felt out as it was happening. The heavy in that low end was greeted by a wash of noise from Ákos’ guitar, and there were a couple times where it seemed like it was coming apart, but a bluesy solo met up with the bassline and allowed the moment’s four-piece to realign. It occurs to me I don’t know if this is a ‘band’ or not, if it has a name. I don’t know how they got this space on the farm. I don’t know how or when I’m getting back to the apartment. On a certain level, it matters less than being here.

It was after 4PM when that jam wrapped. As good a time as any. A quicker changeover this time, with a swapout of drummers, a switch from bass to guitar, a couple more beers and the kids getting ready to take off on a bike that someone wisely brought along. All of a sudden, quiet guitar started up in a dreamier tone, sticks were clicked, and they were off again to do the thing. A little more active this time around, a little louder and more immediate. Builds that felt a more out of the Earthless school, but were more even in their ebbs and flows and about more than just the guitar, with synth going at the same time, fluid bass and sharp pops in the snare. Sounded good over in the shade, not 15 feet away, loud enough that the kids had ear protection on but not so much that I felt compelled. The jam worked itself up and came back down, easy, casual, and was chill however loud it was. When it was done, I sat for a stretch and chatted with Wes, who was talking about knowing God Forbid and a bunch of others from Jersey; small world stuff. There was a longer break and so we talked for a while. I hope someday if I make it to 70 and I break my back someone will be interested to hear my stories about music. This might be one of them.

The afternoon was getting on, and the air was decidedly cooler by 6PM or so, but they set up a P.A. so Krisztina could sing. There were a few pops and cracks early in the speaker, but with two guitars, bass, drums, hand percussion and keys, the circa-18.00 jam was the fullest and most elaborate yet, with a little tension in the guitar strum that was soon redirected into a mellow-out by the drums as Bence dropped guitar to fix some technical issue. Tambourine and hand percussion and drums, it was inevitable that it would start to move and the bass player, who Wes introduced as Joe, would be having a good time. The remaining guitar went jangly and it stopped but they weren’t ready to let it go for real yet, and they were right to pick it back up, as what came next was pretty special in a pastoral-prog kind of way, with the second guitar back and a roll in the low end, a little louder and still right on on the way to a more natural stop.

The next break was also short, but when they came back there was lap steel in addition to everything else, then Marci Havlik’s flute, some more defined vocals, percussion and such and sundry, thick with vibe in the early evening shadow. Both of the day’s drummers were going — just one kit, but sticks on hand drums — and as both guitars tripped off into the watery unknown, Joe’s bass hit a stride. Flowing groove. The tambourine came out again between vocal parts and it got more intense, more cosmic, but nestled quickly into a swing with that flute in back ethereal in its purpose cutting through the wash of distortion and synth. They brought it back to ground for another few lines of vocals, lyrics read off the phone, and I don’t know if a signal was given or what, but they were soon under way at full-volume for a bridge. Another car-load of people showed up, some others were dancing.

Total personnel swap after that last jam with Krisztina’s vocals — and I had to work hard not to nerd out about River Flows Reverse when we were introduced, but I managed — and the lap steel. The new band was a five-piece with a different drummer and two additional percussionists, Ákos out front on effects guitar and some contemplative notes accompanying from a seven-string. Every jam has been different somehow, or found some way to do its own thing, and this did too. I stood in front (I’d been off to the side) and it was a bit fuller immersion for a while, which suited where my head was at. The flute was gone and the drift of the guitar gave a kind of spaced backdrop while bass, drums and percussion pushed deeper. They never actually stopped, but it was drone for a bit before the bass, drums and other guitar rejoined, the latter still more terrestrial in tone in a way that grounded without really being on the ground, where longer shadows were being cast.

It was 7:30 by then — time doesn’t matter, but my understanding that was sundown was a kind of natural time limit — and the flute was soon to come back in amid a more lysergic meditation, the effect of reachout in the sharper notes folkish and jazzy in kind with the bass, liquid guitar and riff. They took it to space rock for a while and let it down smoothly in a way that was particularly satisfying, guitar again holding the residual noise until Bence stepped in for Ákos and the bassists did a swap for another stretch that started off super-fluid and got a bit more active before an organic finish. The bass player started playing a riff that the rest picked right up and rolled with, a little more classic blues rock, met with a vibrancy of effects-laced strum. It built up quickly, as that kind of thing will, and the seven-string was ready for it, as people started donning hoodies that they thought better than I did to bring. In my defense, I had earplugs, which I didn’t really need until that last group got going.

When they were done, Ákos picked up the guitar again, grabbed a drummer and went on a subdued post-space trip. Bence joined in on bass, the other guitar came back, along with the flute, and once more they dug in. It was like it just happened. And then there was another jam, and it was 8:30, and it was getting dark, and colder — something of a novelty on this trip, as The Patient Mrs. pointed out — and there was some talk of calling a cab to get back. The Bolt app I’ve been using here didn’t work, but I think the same driver was on Über and that went through, so fair enough. I said a few goodbyes. The sun was down, and it was closer to nine than not as the taxi came down the dirt road. I ended up going with Joe and Wes in the car, which took my old man ass a while to figure out since I’ve used Uber like twice in my life. I think what was probably the last jam of the day was done by then — man, Ákos can go; I guess that’s how you wind up with a prolific one-man outfit — and everybody was kind of hunkered down in a wrapping-up mode, putting instruments away and such. My didn’t turn out to be terrible on departure, and by then it was legitimately chilly.

I’ve been lucky in my life to see some things that, if it was a different life or if I spent my time in some other way, I wouldn’t see. Days like today feel special to me because they are special. Not everybody gets to do this — go to an open field in Páty, Hungary, and watch a live-recorded jam session for like six hours; if more people did, it would’ve been crowded — and I realize how fortunate I am. I put my work in, but a lot of people work really hard at an lot of shit and don’t end up down on the farm with Psychedelic Source Records, and I am grateful and humbled to have had the chance to spend the day as I did. I still don’t know if it’ll be an album or what, or if so, when, but even if that’s never, I’m thankful to have been there while the music was made and cast into the hills surrounding.

Thanks for reading.

Psychedelic Source Records on Bandcamp

Psychedelic Source Records on Spotify

Los Tayos are a recent formation in the expansion-prone ouevre of Páty, Hungary’s Psychedelic Source Records. And true to that label/collective’s vadmadar ethos, their debut release is actually two releases, the six-song/45-minute Los Tayos and Los Tayos II, the four songs of which play out across another 48-ish minutes. They were recorded in the same session, in the same day, by the four-piece assemblage of vocalist/keyboardist Krisztina Benus (also Nepaal, River Flows Reverse, Lemurian Folk Songs), guitarist/keyboardist Bence Ambrus (also production/mix/master, outreach for Psychedelic Source and numerous other projects and solo experiments), bassist Attila Nemesházi (who also aided in the production process, has been in Lemurian Folk Songs, etc.), and drummer/percussionist András Halmos, who has never appeared on a Psychedelic Source release to my knowledge, but has a long pedigree in jazz, folk and other styles, all of which come into play across Los Tayos and the even-jammier stretches of “Golden Grail” and the pairing “Inhale” and “Exhale” Los Tayos II.

If you read the info in blue text from Psychedelic Source about the project — with Los Tayos framed as a collective within a collective — you’ll see that over 100 minutes of material was recorded during that one-day delve, and that two full-length releases (to be issued across 3LPs) with somewhere in the neighborhood of 94 minutes’ worth of songs came out of it makes it feel like a pretty productive afternoon. But it becomes clear in listening that more effort has been put in than that.

With an acid folk spirit conveyed through Benus‘ vocals and the softer twists of guitar in “End of Illumination” or “Exhale” — on which Halmos offers a correspondingly gentle shuffle on the ride cymbal — Los Tayos weave their way through subtle thematic variations from the bluesier outset of “Bright Sorrow” and the wah-and-reverb excursion that follows accompanied by Spanish lyrics in “Sombre del Diablo” before the instrumental “Valle Gran Rey” redirects from the second track’s wash ending into a more classically progressive vibe. The underlying message is less about the stylistic variations — not that the nuances don’t matter; they just matter less than the flow that spans the entire offering — than about the fact of the songs themselves.

By which I mean they are songs. Even as “Valle Gran Rey” moves toward its percussion-laced midsection jam with a bit of a pickup in energy, the sense of a plan at work is palpable. In that particular case, the piece is given its shape in no small part thanks to Nemesházi‘s bass and Halmos‘ drums, but Ambrus‘ guitar follows a distinct pattern at least until it doesn’t (ha) and the movement into a more improv-sounding lead shimmer in the second half still holds its rhythmic foundation, while also leaning a bit on the right-into-the-verse beginning of “End of Illumination” for structural reinforcement.

That transition from “Valle Gran Rey” is gorgeous and strikes as purposeful in that, and as “End of Illumination” is the shortest single piece in Los Tayos and Los Tayos II, layered in its vocals and harnessing additional breadth with an almost Tuareg flair in the guitar, it brings into focus the manner in which the material on Los Tayos‘ first LPs seems to have been sculpted from what was captured at that original session. The inevitable editing, the laying out of vocal melodies and patterns, and the diverse but fluid shifts undertaken between and within the component tracks — which surely meld together even more on vinyl, despite the platter-flip interruptions — all of these aspects become an essential part of the listening experience, as well as part of the creativity behind it in the first place.

The self-titled portion caps by pairing the post-rock-ish liquefaction of “Closed Eyes” with the eponymous “Los Tayos,” the latter of which answers back to the grounded feel of “Bright Sorrow” in the guitar-forward balance of its mix but has its own physical motion as well, pulling together smooth turns and highlighting the conversation happening between strings and drums. These two at the end, as well as the percussive, eight-minute “Alma Ruida” that gives open-air-whispers ethereality to the start of Los Tayos II, make it worth noting just how amorphous the shapes given to the songs can be.

It might not be a surprise that an extended cut like “Golden Grail” works in some rather vast spaces of drone, float and subsurface groove, but the humanizing and persona-setting contribution of Benus‘ folkish declarations shouldn’t be underestimated, either on “Golden Grail,” “Bright Sorrow” or anywhere else in Los Tayos and Los Tayos II. A soothing organ drone emerges to give the course of “Inhale” not so much to anchor the drifting-away guitar lines as to give a tether to let them return as they will or won’t, and “Exhale” sees mouth harp added to the progression in its first half before the delay effects really take over in the midsection and carry the finale to its ending, an organic coming-apart over the last minute-plus that brings the shimmer up and then fades it out, as if to emphasize the message of Los Tayos‘ instrumental capstone salvo.

Expansive as it is, there’s no guarantee Los Tayos — as a project — will ever happen again, or if does, what form it might take. There are defined bands as part of Psychedelic Source Records, to be sure, but the fact is that any given Saturday might result in a new release as a result of some reorganization of players or maybe just whoever checked their texts that morning. I don’t know, is the bottom line. But, true to an ethic one finds in some of the most engaging heavy psychedelia, period, Los Tayos‘ duly-outside-the-box double-feature debut retains the soul and vitality of its root explorations while offering a deeper experience through applied craft.

Considering how much each player brings to Los Tayos and Los Tayos II, one hopes Benus, Ambrus, Nemesházi and Halmos can do more at some point in the vast unknowable future, but even if not, these songs and the open atmosphere they present stand ready to welcome any and all adventurous enough to take them on.

If that’s you, please enjoy:

Los Tayos, Los Tayos album premiere

Los Tayos, Los Tayos II album premiere

https://psychedelicsourcerecords.bandcamp.com/album/los-tayos
https://psychedelicsourcerecords.bandcamp.com/album/los-tayos-ii

The first idea of this collective came up about a year ago in the heads of András and Bence. Finally when we got together, we recorded more than a hundred minute-long session during one day. Later, we did a few vocal and percussion overdubs to complete, then selected the best picks for the 3LP-long set.

One part of this supergroup came from the middle-early Lemurian Folk Songs, as Attila, Krisztina and Bence did that before. András, who is one of the Hungary’s best professionally recognized multi-drummers, brought a totally different feel in the music.

Miklós Kerner (Misu Magos, trumpeter of Microdosemike) – cover art.
Ákos Karancz – band photo.
Recorded, mixed, mastered by Attila & Bence.

‘Los Tayos’ tracklisting:
1. Bright Sorrow (9:02)
2. Sombre del Diablo (6:11)
3. Valle Gran Rey (8:11)
4. End of Illumination (4:52)
5. Closed Eyes (10:22)
6. Los Tayos (7:09)

‘Los Tayos II’ tracklisting:
1. Alma Ruida (8:00)
2. Golden Grail (16:12)
3. Inhale (10:59)
4. Exhale (13:23)

Los Tayos:
András Halmos – drums, percussion
Attila Nemesházi – bass
Krisztina Benus – vocal, keys
Bence Ambrus – guitar, producing, lyrics

Psychedelic Source Records on Facebook

Psychedelic Source Records on Bandcamp

If at any point in the last seven or so years since Psychedelic Source Records started putting releases up on their Bandcamp page, there’s probably not much more to say about the seven-jam collection This is Psychedelic Source Records that came out earlier this month than, “Yeah, pretty much.”

Based in Páty, Hungary — about 40 minutes west of Budapest by train — and featuring a rotating cast of artists, bands and one-offs like this may or may not be, Psychedelic Source Records is more a collective than a record label, bringing together groups like Pilot Voyager, River Flows Reverse, Satorinaut and a slew of others under one banner with the apparent central ethic of creative freedom. Sometimes there are songs, sometimes it’s an improv session, a couple times it’s just been founding spearhead Bence Ambrus noodling around in his garden. The framework is about as open as you can get, and the sounds range from expansive acid-folk to heavy psych exploration, and it’s all captured with a feel that only adds to the organic vibes. Releases don’t come with months of hype — though every now and then I’ll get to do a premiere for something they’re putting out, and that’s fun; I’ve got one booked for April 12 — and aren’t always pressed physically, but if you find value in the musical stream of consciousness, it is an open world waiting for you to immerse.

This Is… runs 92 minutes and was posted March 11 accompanied by the simple explanation, “Long time no see jam session, set up accidently two days ago.” So it was recorded March 9. I suppose what you’re hearing is technically a reissue, since at some point in the 18 days since it went live, Ambrus went back and reworked the mix, saying, “update: previous mix was little shitty so i redid it sorry.” Fair enough.

As you might’ve already guessed, the abiding spirit here is casual. Ambrus plays bass and guitar and is joined by Krisztina Benus on keyboard, Ákos Karancz on guitar, Barna Bartos on bass and Máté Varga on drums. I don’t know how much editing or actual mixing was done to what was recorded at the ‘accidental’ session — I love that idea; like, “oops, we just made a record”; the very heart of spontaneity — but the resultant flow within and between the pieces is hypnotic, and a cut like “Bum Bumm” (19:04) comes across as almost surprising itself as it evolves from its drone-backed psych ambience into a more active dub progression, as though the swirling mist solidified and decided to mellow-dance for a while. The guitar gets louder, but volume isn’t really the driving consideration anywhere on This Is…, which is more about the space being created and the conversation between the players presented with as-it-happened sincerity.

One can hear the glittering shimmer of guitar in “Sow Your Seeds and Be Patient” (14:09) or the wisps at the outset of “River Styx” (15:23) just prior and float along with the gentle-but-not-inactive rhythm in a semi-hypnotic state — from the subtle build-up of opener “Jamship” (8:15) onward, there’s room to dwell in the sounds being made, and not just because it’s feature-length in runtime — but there are nuances of character to be found too if you’re paying attention, shifts in tone as “Jamship” ends its course with resonant melodic drift and the drums start “Gentle Human Transform” (14:36) which comes to feel more surf-leaning in the reaches of guitar, or the centerpiece “River Styx” redirects from its quick fade-in to free/acid jazz-style searching in its midsection, the group finding their way into a slower, evocative wistfulness before they’re finished in a way that may or may not have been anticipated going in. That is to say, the sense in hearing it is that this check-in jam assemblage are also surprised to find out where they end up. That’s not an easy thing to convey on any kind of recording, even in the outer territories of improv psych, and it feels natural here. It’s part of what ties This Is… together, though I’ll admit that for something so broad and malleable in structure, that idea of ‘tied together’ is more about not interrupting the aforementioned flow.

And in preserving that easy-feeling course throughout while allowing each of its processions to embark and develop on its own terms, This Is… could hardly do more to encapsulate what is readable as the central ethic behind Psychedelic Source Records, which is to foster creativity without restraint. To that I might also add that the just-a-thing-we-did-on-Saturday-here-it-is presentation also speaks to this ethic. It’s a thing, to be sure. It exists. But it’s not a thing in the sense of being any kind of drag, or anybody’s job, or feeling like it’s a hassle somewhere along the line — perhaps notwithstanding Ambrus‘ noted remix after the fact. It’s low-key, agreeable, inviting psychedelia, no less expansive for being so inviting as “Sow Your Seeds and Be Patient” meanders around its guitar as it approaches the six-minute mark or capper “A Mermaid Found a Swimming Lad” echoes the surfy strum of “Gentle Human Transform” before resolving in twistier notes that wouldn’t feel out of place played on a sitar. These aspects also represent Psychedelic Source Records, giving a loose definition or vague shape to an intention, but not losing its freeform character to that.

If you think of art as a declaration of self, This is Psychedelic Source Records makes a fitting summary of what this group was all about on this day during these jams. It is not trying to be a part of any scene other than itself, or to end up on somebody’s chart, or be ‘content’ for some jerk-ass blogger like me to share on social media. It is honest rather than perfect, and while one acknowledges that authenticity is a myth in all cases and nothing can ever be objectively enacted or received because simply by that it becomes a part of human subjectivity — oh I could go on about this; I won’t — there’s no mistaking the ring of truth in these captured moments. And even if both moments and truth are fleeting, well, so is everything. Live in it while you can, if you can.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thank you for reading.

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Yesterday was a wreck of lost time. I overslept by 45 minutes — woke up with my phone on my chest having apparently shut off the alarm and left it there at 5AM — and never got back on track. A Costco trip that was going to be today and a chasedown of Siggi’s Vanilla Yogurt (4% milkfat, not the 0%) — which is one of like two and a half things The Pecan will eat at this point — later, it was after noon and I was back on the couch trying to pound out that Early Moods review and today’s other posts. I apparently didn’t get enough of that done before needing to go pick up The Pecan at school, which is effectively the end of my writing time most days, and that’s a thing I know because I was up all night thinking about finishing the shit I’d left incomplete.

As Orange Goblin (who should be announcing a new album any day now, I hope) once said, “Some you win, some you lose.”

This weekend is Easter, which we don’t really celebrate as anything more than candy and egg-coloring — yay, pagan fertility rites! — but still have to show up for. Tomorrow we drive north to color the aforementioned eggs. Sunday is a brunch that, honestly, I’m just kind of relieved to not be hosting. From there, next week is The Pecan’s Spring Break, so she’ll be home Monday to Friday. I don’t really know how that’ll play out yet. The Patient Mrs. has work, and a lot depends on the weather. If we can go outside, we will, in other words. She’s got a half-day camp-ish-thing Monday to Wednesday (the kid), and so that’ll be my work time on those days, and the rest I’ll just have to sort as I live through it. The biggest surprise of the entire thing is that I’m not doing something completely life-eating like a Quarterly Review or some such. It seems almost out of character.

I have a couple video premieres — Borer, The Vulcan Itch — and I want to review the Craneium record that I’m super-late with and the Viaje a 800 reissue that I’m not super-late with, but we’ll see how it goes. I was also supposed to send questions for a Viaje a 800 email interview that I haven’t done yet. I always find that nerve-racking, asking artists to talk about their work without the benefit of vocal inflection. You never know how somebody is going to read what you say when you’re asking them about something so personal. “So, your art does this. How’s that make you feel?” seems like not the best conversation option, but there’s a language barrier in this case too, so I get it. And I’ll get there.

I hope you have a great and safe weekend, whatever you’re up to. Have fun, watch your head, all that. If you’re celebrating, remember to enjoy it because that’s what a celebration is. I’m talking to myself there, to be sure, but don’t doubt that you’re also included. In any case, thanks again for reading.

FRM.

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