It feels like it’s been forever since I posted any Italian prog rock to this blog, so here’s some from 2013. Le Porte Non Aperte have been keeping me company with this album while I’ve been translating Euripides and Tacitus. Expect flute and guitar dueling, retro keys, and really happy feeling bass lines.

I’ve been looking forward to Secret Colours’ new record all year, so I’m very excited to be posting from it today. To my ears the album sounds a little closer to pop than to rock, not trading in too many memorable guitar riffs, but focusing on hazy vocals and psychedelic ambiance which are perfect for summer porch listening. The band is from Chicago, and, taking a look at their last.gm page, I’m surprised by how under-listened to they are.

Don Cavalli is a French artist with a great take on modern blues. He mixes in healthy doses of country, funk, and psych rock, anything he thinks his voice sounds good to. I’ve been absolutely glued to this new album for the last week or so.

I learned a bit about digitally ripping vinyl this week, so now I can post some things to this blog from my collection that have never been posted to Tumblr before. Like this way too obscure album from 1968, Home Grown Stuff!

Mother Tuckers Yellow Duck was a psychedelic rock group during the 60s in Vancouver, BC. Originally the record was put out as a tiny, privately pressed run, and later in the year Capitol gave it a somewhat broader distribution. But basically it only crops up when a collector dies or goes broke. Lucky me! They have the same sort of heavy but relaxed feel found in another of my favourite West Coast Canadian groups, The Collectors.

Dodson and Fogg is a folk rock project helmed by Chris Wade, a British musician with a quite a few writing gigs on the go. For this record he scored contributions from Celia Humphris and Alison O’Donnell, of the legendary British folk bands Trees and Mellow Candle respectively. The guy sure seems to have great contacts. On this song, Can’t Hold Me Down, it’s eerie how similar the guitar solo sounds to those in Trees’ work.

Spent the long weekend doing some crate digging, and came up with some serious gems. The Possum Hunters released this LP in 1968, filling it with lo-fi folk and blues standards. This is the band’s darling rendition of In The Pines, one of my favourite songs. It’s a welcome addition to my reading-about-southern-US-history job.

Orgone’s music falls somewhere between funk and psych rock. This record is instrumental and aimed at being used in film soundtracks. The band’s guitar tone is gritty and they lock into catchy grooves over which to throw some big band jamming. I would love to watch something utilizing these songs, and they’re all available for free here.

I’ve spent too long tying to decide which song I should post off of Pyramidal’s new record, so I’m just posting the first one, Altar of Delusion World. This album is truly fantastic, deftly mixing together and layering psychedelic effects, guitar work, and even horns. I do take issue with the cover art a bit though as it’s not nearly as striking as the astronaut-staring-off-into-a-cryptic-symbol cover of their 2012 record.

This blog can never stray too long from heavy psychedelic rock. Half Gramme of Soma are a Greek group that put out this self-titled record in January. Soma is a name for a traditional Central Asian drink of fermented mare’s milk which stems from ancient nomad cultures. The Persian’s drank it and called the Scythian tribes north of Thrace and wrapping around the Black Sea the ‘Soma-drinking Scythians.’

The Scythians called the drink koumiss, and Greek historians claimed that they would force blinded slaves to stir the milk for 24 straight hours. Fun guys, the Scythians. Actually, they kind of were: Buzkashi, the Afghani cavalry sport, likely arose in their culture, and the Greeks claim they liked to hot-box their tents.

I’ve been lapping up this new record by The Relatives today. They were a funk/soul/gospel outfit active in L.A. during the 60s and 70s, and reunited in 2009. Four months ago I posted a 2011 song by Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears which featured them as backing vocalists, and now they’ve got a new LP out. It’s fantastic, especially for a group that all age over 60.

A long time favourite of mine, Wolf People, released a new record yesterday, and I am loving it. At times it reminds me of Jethro Tull and at others it sounds like what I was expecting from Opeth on their Heritage album. It’s better than the latter and I can’t wait for what these guys cook up in the future.

Here’s a song off the fuzzy new EP from Mars Red Sky, released earlier this month. They’re a great band at locking into deep bass grooves that are laced with just the right amount of psychedelic distortion nonsense. Their merch store has an endorsed effect pedal which is seriously tempting to me. Apparently if I’d been more on top of things in April I could have scored a limited print of this record signed by the band, but alas I will have to make due with the regular edition.

Egypt are another heavy psych rock/metal trio to put out a sophomore album this year. Their a little heavier than Kadavar and tap into Southern blues influences all throughout the record, which results in a good deal of jamming. They’re also a lot growlier, but less bearded.