![]() The act of creation being as important as the end result, Psychedelic Horseshit is willing to deal with a little flotsam and jetsam amongst the nettles. What’s clearly evident from these records-and from the band’s recent live shows-is a certain restlessness. “Magick Defends Itself” is closer in tone to the cassette, though, a shapeshifting mix of effect and minor chords. “Portals (5am Demo)” presents the album track in a more-if you can believe it-barebones form, while “Silent Speed” is another cut of jerked folk. ![]() The under-a-minute leadoff to “New Wave Hippies” is actually more reflective of its “Dub Gazel” title, a quick venture into reggae riddim, while the rest of the single resembles the record’s namesake. Lastly, they remind us that on September 17th, 2 new rounds of (now CE-approved) Navigating Psychedelics will be starting up, and there is a new class for sale developed with Johanna Hilla-Maria Sopanen called Imagination as Revelation, which focuses on Jungian psychology and how it can be applied to understanding psychedelic experience. It’s not exactly the wonder stuff of the band’s debut, but if anything it reveals some of the deliberateness of the band’s approach and its capability to deconstruct itself as it deconstructs its influences. Similarly, “Bob Dylan’s 42nd Annual Report,” is a sprawling bout of warped electronics and fed-back guitar eventually leading to a chicken-scratched folk song. “Rather Dub,” conceivably a remix of “Rather Dull,” is instead re-sculpted into an instrumental, a crumbling wall of sound hardly resembling that track. Rather, “Catch a Wave” is a surf-song reborn as gospel drenched in holy din. Despite its title, the latter isn’t exactly a bunch of Scratch Perry remixes. Further evidence of this are two new UK releases, the “New Wave Hippies” 7-inch on Half Machine and Magic Flowers Dubbed on Bumtapes. Lead Horse Matt Whitehurst has been digesting the whole of pop music and is now regurgitating it in his own image. Let the naysayers neigh, but as Psychedelic Horseshit’s Siltbreeze debut, Magic Flowers Droned demonstrated, this isn’t a band of simpletons incapable of conforming to sonic standards, but rather whiz kids hell bent on bending tone, melody and dissonance to their own standards. Having assigned what was probably the first article on the band two years ago (that feature being written by Agit associate editor Kevin Elliott), there’s no question which side of the divide I fall on, and it’s with a certain amount of glee that I’ve watched as the band has instigated a good deal of head-scratching as well as tongue-wagging. They’ve been both heralded as progenitors of a new renaissance of DIY aspiration and castigated as pure, er, shit. This ragtag outfit leaves no middle ground their recorded in a vacuum, lo-fi cadence has drawn a line in the sand, with listeners either firmly on their side of it or not daring to come anywhere near crossing. That band would be Psychedelic Horseshit, the Hüsker Dü to TNV’s Replacements or, to use a more current example, the Brian Jonestown Massacre to TNV’s Dandy Warhols. There was some local writer here in Columbus who called Times New Viking the most polarizing band of the year. New Wave Hippies and Magic Flowers Dubbed
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