Posted in Whathaveyou on January 25th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Weedpecker‘s page on Facebook got hacked. First of all, that that happens to anyone in 2023 is emblematic of how much the tech model of “continuous improvement” — executed most often in a situation where something done mostly right the first time is gradually made worse over a period of however long until eventually it’s so awful everyone moves onto something else — is bullshit. The band issued their righteously proggy IV: The Stream of Forgotten Thoughts (review here) album through Stickman Records in late 2021 and are not letting the social media woes get in their way as they announce a Spring 2023 tour to support the album that will include slots at Heavy Psych Sounds Fest in Bologna, Italy, a stop at Echoes of Erebus in Wien, and a swing through the UK that’s got them dropping by Desertfest London 2023 on May 7, adding to the already epic lineup there.
I honestly don’t know if giving them a follow on Facebook helps their cause or not — I’m waiting for my turn to be hacked; everybody seems to get there — but the band asked people to share the dates and doing so seems reasonable enough. There are a couple shows open — unless that’s another fest already confirmed but not yet announced — and of course, if you happen to have a venue handy for them to play, can provide a meal and so on, I’m sure they’d love to hear from you, whichever platform you might use to get in touch.
Tour looks like this:
“Hello everyone, we are happy to announce Weedpecker’s spring tour. We can’t wait to see you all! As some of you may know, our FB page was hacked 2 weeks ago and we still have no access to it. Every share, likes and comments would help us a lot to spread the message. Thank you all for your help and support.”
28.04 Brno Kabinet Muz CZ 29.04 Vienna Echoes of Erebus Fest AT 30.04 Bologna Heavy Psych Sounds Fest IT 01.05 Basel Hirscheneck CH 02.05 TBC 03.05 TBC 04.05 Manchester Rebellion UK 05.05 Glasgow Ivory Blacks UK 07.05 Desertfest London UK 08.05 Nantes Decadanse FR 09.05 Gent Trefpunt BE 10.05 Tilburg Little Devil NL 11.05 Rotterdam Baroeg NL 12.05 Cologne MTC DE 13.05 Jena Klub Kuba DE 14.05 Dresden Club Novitas DE
Weedpecker is: Walczak (Tankograd, ex-Dopelord) – drums Wyro – guitar/vox Seru (BelzebonG) – keyboards Piotr Kuks – bass
Posted in Reviews on December 27th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
One has to imagine that at some point in the last two-plus years, founding guitarist/vocalist Piotr Wyroslaw “Wyro” Dobry had to decide whether the music he and his band were putting together was still Weedpecker. Obviously, the answer was yes, but listening to the band’s fourth album, IV: The Stream of Forgotten Thoughts, issued by the venerable Stickman Records, the question feels legitimate. After all, Dobry in the three years since III (featured here) has overseen a complete revamping of the group’s lineup, including the shifting of his brother/fellow founding member Bartek Dobry to more of a producer’s role, contributing to arrangements and even a few riffs here and there but not necessarily participating in the day-to-day writing or shows.
As the lone remaining original member, Piotr Dobry has recast Weedpecker as nothing less than a supergroup of Polish heavy, bringing in Piotr “Seru” Sadza, also known as “Cheesy Dude” in Belzebong, as the band’s first full-time keyboardist, as well as Major Kong‘s Dominik “Domel” Stachyra on bass and Tankograd drummer Tomasz Walczak (also ex-Dopelord) to complete the band.
And in many ways, Weedpecker are the same band, and IV: The Stream of Forgotten Thoughts is an outgrowth of the more rock progresywny direction undertaken on the last album. But there’s no denying the sonic shifts happening across its eight-song/39-minute span either, and given that they open with the careening, twisting and winding movements of “No Heartbeat Collective” — also the longest track (immediate points) at 6:11 — denial is about as far from the intention as they could get. Embrace, more like, and fair enough.
Like any good stream, it flows. And like any good dream, IV: The Stream of Forgotten Thoughts begins and ends with clarity, the initial chug of “No Heartbeat Collective” establishing the ground from which to launch before its suitably motorik takeoff, and closer “Symbiotic Nova” seeming to answer with its own final measures of driving riffs. There are similar moments peppered throughout, and the Elder influence that has been a part of them since their outset remains intact despite never having before been so richly surrounded or individually interpreted, but Weedpecker are less of a ‘riff band’ than they’ve ever been in these songs, the focus instead on shimmering melodies and complexity of composition.
For having cut back to one guitar, I’m not sure if they’ve ever had so much happening in their material as even the three-minute interlude “The Trip Treatment” works in layers of wash and turns, let alone songs like “Fire Far Away” and “The Stream of Forgotten Thoughts,” which balance between serenity of atmosphere and cascading layers of motion. The word is “busy,” but Weedpecker don’t seem to be without purpose in having so much going on in the material, and it’s more than just throwing everything into everything so that the quiet stretch at the outset of “The Stream of Forgotten Thoughts” and the harder-hitting outset of “Big Brain Monsters” can stand out.
Across the span, to varying degrees, Dobry‘s vocals are buried beneath the instruments and subject to an effects treatment, and while like many of the elements put to use across IV: The Stream of Forgotten Thoughts, this is something Weedpecker have done before, it’s never been done in quite this way and to quite this degree. The band, then, have pushed further beyond the early accomplishments of their 2013 self-titled debut (review here) and the course set by II (review here) in 2015, toward a less-charted heavy space rock aesthetic that is resonant in melody and atmosphere and able to both overwhelm and soothe at will.
This, honestly, would probably be enough of an accomplishment to call the record a victory for Dobry and the band he’s remade, but it still doesn’t account for the boogie that emerges in “Big Brain Monsters” or the float-into-submersion that unfolds in “Endless Extensions of Good Vibrations,” its five minutes shifting from stillness to gallop skillfully punctuated by Walczak‘s drums as the guitar soars and shreds in kind ahead of the key-led drift of the first half of the penultimate “Unusual Perceptions,” which follows and soon finds its own, almost jazzy, pushes and pulls in a fitting summary of the various sides of Weedpecker on aural display throughout the record.
The quiet and loud, the fast and the slow, sure, but that’s a simplification. Superficial. It’s more about the elements at play — very much playing — at any given moment and the ambience they create either by working in accord or crashing one into the other in Large Hadron fashion. Willful contrast and cohesion. Science! Theories tested, observations recorded, preserved for posterity and to be used as a basis for future discovery and, hopefully, progress of thought.
“Symbiotic Nova” feels suitably like a conclusion — a point of arrival for the journey the four-piece have undertaken together. Vocals still occur from a distance, and the intensity of the beginning moment gives way to a moment of more subdued fluidity before the final stretch begins; a last intake of air before the last exhalation to come. At 3:35 into the total 5:02, a march is established and offset by a sweeping figure on guitar that itself moves into a lead line, and the ending is duly announced. The whole of Weedpecker ride that groove to an ending no less atmospheric than anything that’s come before it but still able to cast itself as, as previously noted, something utterly clearheaded and meant to be.
Invariably, the same is true of IV: The Stream of Forgotten Thoughts as a whole, and while the abiding brew they craft is heady to be sure, there’s no less heart at work in their exploration. This is only consistent with Weedpecker as they’ve always been, and while they’ve undertaken a mission different from that with which they set out nearly a decade ago, their readiness to embrace new ideas and methods assures that their work will not be so easily forgotten, even as their travels into the sonic unknown of their own making continue.
Weedpecker, IV: The Stream of Forgotten Thoughts (2021)
Posted in Whathaveyou on October 15th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
If you’re seeing these words, you don’t need me to tell you what to do here. The song is right there. Go ahead and stream it. Don’t worry about hurting my feelings by skipping the next paragraph. I’ll live. Some things take priority.
And when you’re done, take a trip back in time a few years and re-listen to Warszawa-based progressive heavy rockers Weedpecker‘s 2018 album, III (discussed here). You can hear the proggy melodies meeting with the heavy psychedelic drift as the sound of the new track, “Fire Far Below,” seems to be taking shape on the horizon. Weedpecker have never failed to grow from one offering to the next — it seems to be their priority, in fact — and IV: The Stream of Forgotten Throughts reorganizes the band itself with a new lineup and configuration around founding member Piotr Dobry while continuing their forward aural progress unabated. You can hear it in the song, if you’re not already listening. And I hope you are.
Player is here, III is all the way at the bottom, and PR wire info is in between. IV: The Stream of Forgotten Thoughts is out Dec. 3 on Stickman Records. Dig in:
Weedpecker IV: The Stream Of Forgotten Thoughts
Psychobabble 121 | LP/CD/digital
Release date: December 3, 2021
The vanguard of the Polish psychedelic heavy rock scene returns with a brand new album! Continuing to defy expectations and challenge what it means to be a “stoner” band, Weedpecker have crafted a new masterpiece.
After several fundamental lineup changes in the past years, fans of Weedpecker were left wondering what might become of the band’s newest incarnation. “III”, their last outing from 2018, was the final one with longtime bandmates Bartek Dobry, Robert Kulakowski and Grzegorz Pawlowski (the first of whom is remaining founding member Piotr Dobry’s brother).
In 2019, the band gave a very brief glimpse into their new lineup featuring members of Dopelord, Major Kong and Belzebong while on a short tour. The most surprising change was the switch from dual guitars to a full-time keyboardist. So much for history, where does this take us to now with the new album?
“IV” is a deep, vividly textured psychedelic rock record with tons of layers begging to be picked apart upon multiple spins. Beginning with the driving opener “No Heartbeat Collective”, the song immediately brings new elements into the mix. Ethereal keys and twisting guitar lines meld in harmony, giving way to chunky riffs. Moving forward, “IV” continues to surprise with mellow psychedelic gems reminiscent of early Tame Impala, blistering Oh Sees-esque rock bursts and of course the trademark melodic heavy riffage.
Former co-lead guitarist Bartek has teamed up with the band in the position of engineer and producer, while also lending his arrangement skills. This combination of new input and experimentation has led to the most radical Weedpecker record thus far, a killer album which will doubtless make a late entry for 2021’s album of the year.
Available on 180gr. transparent yellow LP including download card and on CD.
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 17th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
What do we know about the next full-length from Weedpecker? As of today, the title and artwork, but that’s hardly all. We know, and have known for a while, to expect something different, as the follow-up to 2018’s III (discussed here) sees founding guitarist/vocalist Piotr Wyroslaw “Wyro” Dobry surrounded by a different band. Sure enough, the album boasts a marked shift in sonic intention and realization, and while it builds on what Weedpecker have done in the past, it finds its own clarity of approach to progressive heavy as well, distinct from what was even as it moves outward from it. You may recognize it as Weedpecker if you’ve heard the band in the past, but your definition of what that means will be expanded. Yes, I’ll openly admit to having heard this one.
Details as yet are pretty sparse — just the title and cover art, as noted above — but for those of end-of-year-list-making persuasions, you might want to do yourself a favor and hold a spot for a late entry.
Stickman Records sent the following down the PR wire in its newsletter:
Coming this December! Weedpecker – IV: The Stream Of Forgotten Thoughts
New album out December 3rd, 2021
We are happy to announce the forthcoming new full length by Weedpecker!
We find that the album’s trippy cover art (by Maciej Kamuda) perfectly reflects this record’s contents, which blew us away upon hearing the masters. Weedpecker has undergone a few fundamental lineup changes in recent years, with longtime bandmate and brother Bartek Dobry stepping out of the band and into a new engineer role for this album, and the result of this new incarnation is truly mindbending. We can’t wait for you all to hear this!
More details and music will be released in the coming months.