COSMONAUTS of Fullerton, California have certainly had a busy 2011. This new cassette entitled “New Psychic Denim” is their third release of the year from Burger Records, while they have another 7″ in the works from Bad Afro. Continue reading “Cosmonauts – New Psychic Denim CS”
Early on it seemed like the VOYAGEURS of Fayetteville, AR never fully caught on although they were capable of delivering. With this new collection of songs they look to change that entirely with their own brand of psych rock. Continue reading “Voyageurs – Freak Cave”
You’ve got to admit, we’ve been loving this stuff from Chile as of late. Here’s another EP from FÖLLAKZOID, who share some members from other Chilean bands we’ve recently covered, from the Sacred Bones camp. Continue reading “Föllakzoid – Föllakzoid EP”
Dating back to 1986, Spacemen 3 released their very first single on Glass Records. Twenty-five years later, Fire Records does these space-rock godheads a huge (and completely necessary) solid by repressing what appears to be a great deal of their discography. Continue reading “Spacemen 3 – Walkin’ with Jesus 12″”
Forming right within the city limits of Philadelphia comes NOTHING. They’re a self-described “shoegaze” band with their first recorded single now under their belt. These guys opened up for Creepoid the other night, and it was a surprising and refreshing performance. Continue reading “Nothing – Last Day in Bouville”
Coming out just before the new year was VOYAGEURS second official set of songs “Nude Vegas”. The band had added a new keyboard player to their lineup, and hence they decided to record their songs once more with their new keyboardist. Everything you hear was recorded in a live setting somewhere in the town of Fayetteville, Arkansas. Continue reading “Voyageurs – Nude Vegas”
Yo dudes. So I know this post might be going a bit out of the loop of where we’ve been lately, but I just can’t stop listening to this stuff in the car (oh yeah – I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this here – if you haven’t noticed, I get most of my listening done while driving around town delivering pizza in my lovely car). This album is by a band called UFO from England, and they’re actually still active today. I think I first came across this stuff in my Facebook news feed one day when a guy from the Tequila Sunrise record store in Philadelphia was posting videos to their music. This looks like it was their second full-length album, and it came out back in 1971 (the same year as my favorite Pink Floyd album “Meddle”. Hopefully I get around to posting that up here some day). This just goes to show all the great psychedelic records that were coming out around that time period, and this album goes a hell of a long way to prove that statement.
This LP is five tracks long, with the final track “Flying” nearly reaching a half-hour in length. Altogether the album clocks in at just about an hours worth of time, as promised by the title. They also promise space rock, and they’re certainly not joking around. This album is psychedelic-space rock at it’s finest, coming from possibly the best time period for this style of music, so if you haven’t heard any of this stuff yet, stick around and listen to the songs at the end of the post. Unfortunately for us, there seems to be absolutely no chance of us snagging this LP for ourselves without spending a nice chunk of money, but hey, I’m sure it would be worth it. If I ever come across one you can be sure I’m going to buy it. I think it’s time you stop listening to me – check out these invigorating, electrified, guitar heavy jams right below. Try starting with “Silver Bird”. Shortly after you’ll fall in love.
Silver Bird –
Prince Kajuku –
My Rating: 9/10
Genre/ Tags: Psychedelic, Space Rock, Alternative
UFO 2: Flying – One Hour Space Rock: Tracklist:
1.) Silver Bird
2.) Star Storm
3.) Prince Kajuku
4.) The Coming of Prince Kajuku
5.) Flying
UFO on Wikipedia
Definitely can’t buy this one, long OOP – yr best bet is eBay
Find more info. on this record right here – I ❤ Discogs.
Back in May I was browsing around the internet to snag up some new vinyl, and in the process I came across this fantastic website based out of California. It’s called Aural Exploits, and they’ve got a TON of music you can buy, and they’ll ship it all directly to your front door. Well it just so happened that when I was surfing their store back in May, they were accepting pre-orders for the reissue of the timeless epic “Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space” by Spiritualized on vinyl – on beautiful, 180 gram vinyl to be exact. So obviously I wasn’t about to pass this opportunity up – a chance to own such a fantastic album on two pieces of gorgeous vinyl is basically why I wake up in the morning. So almost two months went by (because the label had to delay the records) before it received it in the mail, but it just came in this past Tuesday and I couldn’t have been more psyched. I realize that there isn’t much left to say about an album of this caliber, or about an album that came out over 10 years ago, but I certainly think this record deserves a spot here on the Styrofoam Drone, let alone all your record shelves and CD players. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s get floating…in space.
There’s a sticker that came on the front of the vinyl, and it reads “A psychedelic gospel album full of confessional songs about heartbreak and drug abuse; a flat out masterpiece” – I don’t think I could have described the record any better myself, but I’m still going to give it a shot. Here we go: It all begins with the self-titled song, and it’s basically like an introduction for the entire album. Of course this marks the start of the record, but if you’re asking me, things don’t really kick off until track two, “Come Together”. With the quick roll of the tom-tom and a quivering sound effect, “Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space” takes off, and there’s really no looking back after that. And it really does sound like a “take off” type of start, ya know? Suddenly you’re thrown into the world of Jason Pierce, and it doesn’t let up for 70 minutes until the jazzy/crazy epic final track “Cop Shot Cop…”.
While listening, you’ll come across endless highlights and just about every traditional instrument music has to offer. Some tracks that definitely stand out would be “I Think I’m in Love” with Pierces question and answer vocals, and “Electricity” with it’s ability to pulse through your veins and make you drive crazy-fast if you’re listening in a car. The song turns into this huge wall of sound by the time you reach the end, and chances are you’re going to want to play it over and over again. Then there’s other tracks that are noisy, instrumentals that are sure to make your head spin – like “The Individual” which is totally dominated by brass instruments, or “No God Only Religion”, which is just a sprawling mess. You even get tracks that could bring a small tear to your eye, like the moving “Broken Heart”. But no matter what you’re into or what you like to hear, chances are Jason Pierce did it somewhere on this record, which is why this slab of wax has been praised for so many years since it’s initial release back in 1997. I’m going to leave you guys with two songs from the record, and if you’ve never heard anything from Spiritualized yet, I suggest you make that your goal for today.
Come Together –
Electricity –
My Rating: 10/10
Genre/ Tags: Psychedelic, Space Rock, Shoegaze
Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space: Tracklist:
1.) Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space
2.) Come Together
3.) I Think I’m in Love
4.) All of My Thoughts
5.) Stay With Me
6.) Electricity
7.) Home of the Brave
8.) The Individual
9.) Broken Heart
10.) No God Only Religion
11.) Cool Waves
12.) Cop Shoot Cop…
Spiritualized – Official Website!
Spiritualized on Myspace!
BUY the album from Aural Exploits – It’s on back order now…
My Rating: 6/10
Genre/ Tags: Psychedelic, Space Rock, Stoner Rock
Good morning folks! How’s it going on this fine Thursday? So did any of you visitors notice the web address today? If not, take a quick peek. There is no longer “wordpress.com” in the address, how exciting! We now have the domain name “Styrofoamdrone.com” all to ourselves. Isn’t that great? I think it is.
Today’s band hails from San Francisco, California, and they have been active since the year 2005 when they released their first self-titled album. They put it out on their very own “Sunburst Sound” label, and it was only limited to 500 copies, so good luck tracking that one down. Since that first album, the band has signed to Tee Pee Records, and they have released two full lengths with Tee Pee, 2007’s “Ekranoplan” and 2009’s “When Sweet Sleep Returned”.
Today we have their 2007 record “Ekranoplan” on our minds. It was their first album to be released to the masses, and it’s quite a hard hitting album. It picks up pretty quickly in the beginning, starting off with the self-titled track “Ekranoplan”, and with the tap of the cymbal, it all begins. The hard and heavy guitars are immediately in yr face, followed by lead singer Jefferson Marshall’s vocals, who is already screaming and carrying on as soon as he can be heard in the song. The following track “Mosquito Lantern” takes a step back on the vocals and mellows out a bit this time, but the musical heaviness is still entirely present, but that’s part of the bands appeal. The heaviness is a sprawling mess of cymbal crashes and absolutely face melting guitar solos about two and half minutes in. The track also starts off with that same familiar cymbal tap before it kicks off into something more, being reminiscent of the intro to the first track “Ekranoplan”. Following “Mosquito Latern” is the track “Rudy on the Corner”, which again has that same cymbal tap for an intro, but this time it’s a bit slower. That being said, this is one of the slower jams on the record. It’s songs like this that really bring the term “stoner-rock” to mind. The vocals are calmed again in this song, which can be much more inviting than the screaming from the first track. Coming up next on the album would be in the instrumental track “Summon the Vardig”. It’s a 6 minute jam session featuring an immense bass line that’s present throughout, and again featuring that same cymbal tap to start off the song. It’s actually starting to get a bit old – the cymbal tap kicks off this song the same way it did for first 3 songs on the album. The only difference with it would be the tempo of the song. But moving on. I’m going to skip “Occult Roots” and move on to “Message by the Mistral and Thunderclap”, because once again this song is counted off by the tap of the drummers cymbal. I don’t know if it’s a big deal to anybody, but practically every song on this record starts off the same way. Not to mention that the songs themselves might seem to overlap at times, with the calmer intros that lead into the heavy, face melting material. The next track “D. Brown” is yet again brought in with the faster tap of the cymbal, but this track stands out by far on the album. It’s has a bluesy feel to it and it sounds like it’s fueled by nothing but attitude and the love for straight up jamming. The final 2 minutes of the track break it all down, even with the keyboards coming into play. At first, the next track “The Chocolate Maiden’s Misty Summer Morning” sounds like it’s going to be different, but sure enough that count off on the cymbal comes back, and then you’re right in the midst of another AHSS jam out. This song is instrumental as well except for the howl of the vocals towards the end, which leads us into the last track of the album, “Gemini 9”, which is also free of vocals entirely. I guess that would make this one more of an authentic instrumental track as opposed to “The Chocolate Maiden’s Misty Summer Morning”….but that’s all for today, be sure to check back real soon. I’m going to see The Strange Boys tonight, so hopefully I’ll have some videos for you guys tomorrow. See you then!
Ekranoplan: Tracklist
1.) Ekranoplan
2.) Mosquito Lantern
3.) Rudy on the Corner
4.) Summon the Vardig
5.) Occult Roots
6.) Message by Mistral and Thunderclap
7.) D. Brown
8.) The Chocolate Maiden’s Misty Summer Morning
9.) Gemini 9
The Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound on Myspace
Ekranoplan – BUY! directly from Tee Pee
When Sweet Sleep Returned – BUY! directly from Tee Pee
Perhaps one of the most interesting and reclusive figures in musical history, Syd Barrett (January 6th, 1946 – July 7th, 2006) was the original driving force behind the band we all already know as PINK FLOYD. Syd Barrett was present in Pink Floyd from their very beginnings, but he only lasted in the band for a short time. The band began to form back in England in 1964, which is when Syd Barrett would be considered the leader of the band. After a few line-up changes and a few band name adjustments (Syd gets credit for coming up with the name “Pink Floyd”), the band was ready to release their first album, which was titled “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn”. This album came out back in 1967, and it was the only Pink Floyd album to be made fully under the leadership of Syd Barrett. In the midst of all the commotion surrounding Pink Floyd after their first release, Syd Barrett had been continually experimenting with drugs like LSD. This led to a very unpredictable and frightening Syd Barrett, who would eventually be replaced in the band by the guitarist David Gilmour. Before finally “leaving” the band, Syd also helped out on their second release in 1968, entitled “A Saucerful of Secrets”.
After leaving Pink Floyd, Syd was certainly not finished with his musical career, and he had much more up his sleeve for us. His solo career began in 1968, with his first solo album release being in 1970. This first album was called “The Madcap Laughs”, featuring many wonderful tracks like “Terrapin”, “Octopus”, “Golden Hair”, and “Dark Globe”. The second and final solo studio album we would get from Syd Barrett is the one I have for you today. This album came out originally back in 1970, and sadly was the last studio album we would get. The album starts off with a bluesy guitar intro on the track “Baby Lemonade”, which soon escalates into a delightful song, with Syd begging for some lemonade. Skipping ahead to the extremely drone-y and almost-haunting track titled “Dominoes”, this is certainly one of the tracks worth hearing from the album. The track ends with an all too appropriate keyboard solo from Pink Floyd member Richard Wright (July 28th, 1943 – September 15th, 2008), which is probably why it sounds so familiar. A few other highlights from the album include “Gigolo Aunt” with its funky basslines, “Effervescing Elephant” which is great to sing along with, the somewhat creepy sounding “Maisie”, “Waving My Arms in the Air”, “Rats”, and “Wined and Dined”. Happy belated birthday Syd, and also: Rest in Peace Syd Barrett and Richard Wright!
Barrett: Tracklist
1. “Baby Lemonade” – 4:10
2. “Love Song” – 3:03
3. “Dominoes” – 4:08
4. “It Is Obvious” – 2:59
5. “Rats” – 3:00
6. “Maisie” – 2:51
7. “Gigolo Aunt” – 5:46
8. “Waving My Arms In The Air” – 2:09
9. “I Never Lied To You” – 1:50
10. “Wined And Dined” – 2:58
11. “Wolfpack” – 3:41
12. “Effervescing Elephant” – 1:52
Syd Barrett: Official Website
Barrett: BUY
Styrofoam Drone 