Psych Fest Austin 2012 Portraits

Taraka Larson of Prince Rama

Cole Alexander of Black Lips 

Nate Grace of Pure X 

And Max aka High Wolf

All Photos by: Fabian Villa 

Ty Segall and White Fence - Hair (Drag City 2012)

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"Ty Segall meets White Fence on the golden road to unlimited devotion! Known for rock & roll both savage and incisive and pastorally acid-winged, Ty Segall and White Fence have collaborated on a set of songs that accelerate wildly from where we last found them. Hair squares their guitar-fringed traffic with purple flashes, escalating every song before multiple explosions rock the frame during their penultimate joust, with Sean Presley and Mikal Cronin along for the frantic carpet ride."-Insound 

Virtual - S/T (Beer on the Rug 2012)

Diamond Rugs - S/T (Partisan Records 2012)

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"Diamond Rugs is a collaboration between John McCauley (Deer Tick), Robbie Crowell (Deer Tick), Ian Saint Pé (The Black Lips), Steve Berlin (Los Lobos), Hardy Morris (Dead Confederate) and Bryan Dufresne (Six Finger Satellite). The Diamond Rugs long player is going to be released April 24th, 2012. It was recorded in Nashville and produced by Adam Landry and Justin Collins (Middle Brother, Deer Tick)."- Partisan 

Bola - Volume 7 (Awesome Tapes from Africa 2012)

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Via Dayvanzombear

"Bola's music aggressively melds sheer force of spirit with a sound not often heard by ears outside the remote Upper East Region of Ghana. His bold fury stems from the kologo--a two-stringed lute with a calabash gourd resonator--and Frafra-language vocals, emitted in raspy bursts. This is some of the most distinct and dynamic music to come out of Ghana since the emergence of hiplife music in the mid-90s." - SC Distribution

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High Wolf - Know Thyself (Sun Ark 2012)

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"Ascendent, crystallized tones from High Wolf. Calm, mantric expansions, burning at the center. France's finest in contemporary psych, art by Max" - Sun Ark

Black Jeans - S/T (Tundra Dubs 2012)

Art Post - Alex Steele

Artist Website

Predator Hauntings, series

"At first glance the work is presented as an organic, fluid repetition of botanical textures and patterns. But a shift in focus reveals a look at the darker side of humanity. Beneath the surface, this series of collages exposes the body as an uninhibited being; a sexual figure, a volatile monster, and an irrational mind. Using jungle images to form the figures proposes that people have an inborn potential to be as brute as nature can be." - Alex Steele

Lumens - S/T (Holodeck 2012)

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"Originally conceived as a project based around healing frequencies, Lumens’ self-titled debut actually manifested into an exorcism of sorts; understated swells of cavernous brass and strings, decaying drum loops, warm-electronic pulses of synth & home-made tape-phrases, and ephemeral layered vocals (more playing out as an instrument than voice) are various expressions of the greater body which is Lumens (HD004).

Lumens’ debut is as understated as it is emotive; the sound of tape machines extend out of their murky aural-bed never to return again; ambiguous samples play out to reveal hidden facets of detail; acausal song structure becomes suddenly coordinated in minimal, yet dense, movements of reserved sonic exploration and focused ambiance.

Opener Sweet Voice and closer When I knew You feature respective visitations of reversed and layered vocals, the former track collapsing into a narcotic kraut-groove halfway through its duration, marked with measured swells of foggy trumpet and viola; the latter leading the album into a final ascension, guided by collisions of brass and effects-laden voice over a primordial pulse of echoing floor-tom. The centerpieces of the album, Fake Time and Valley, recede back into expansive panoramas of minimalism; gradient soundscapes that deliberately journey through wide-open spaces of tonal depth and texture. Space and time shed their former boundaries, and there exists Lumens, embracing the void and bringing form where it was once absent."- Holodeck

Thousand Foot Whale Claw - Lost In Those Dunes (Holodeck 2012)

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Featuring Members of Pure X and Troller.

"As the name would imply, Thousand Foot Whale Claw are only concerned with large proportions. This is TFWC’s debut release, though the Austin-based four piece have been mind-controlling live audiences with wave after wave of sub & ultra-sonic psychedelic frequencies for over a year now. Walls of synth(s) and infinitely-sustaining guitar(s) ride the undercurrent of deeply effected bass to create two 11-minute slabs of sound that comprise Lost in Those Dunes (HD002).

The release opens with its self-titled track, patiently smoldering and taking form like a star being born in a cloud of heat and dust: filters open, unintelligible sound sources emerge, a glowing bass-line breaths subtle rhythm into the track, and what was once a barely audible frequency is now a resonance that you are inside of. Fleshwave follows a similar path, though opting for a noisier, more chaotic, and formless nebula of sonics to float through. Order out of chaos, they say.

The overall expansiveness of Lost in Those Dunes brings “spaced out” to a new exponential level; the feeling of being lost is undeniable, though finding out just where you are lost will be a more difficult question to answer."- Holodeck

Smokey Emery - Soundtracks For Invisibility Vol.1 (Holodeck 2012)

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"Re-release ​of the ultra limited CD-R on Kiamisha Drive (KIA011, 2003), the imprint of one Daniel Hipolíto, also known as Smokey Emery. Only a handful were released initially, including one exclusive repress for Aquarius Records in San Francisco, who was awfully fond of the album. Now, Holodeck is proud to release the first installment of Smokey Emery’s three part ​Soundtracks for Invisibility ​series on the format that’s most proper: tape.

Soundtracks for Invisibility Vol 1: Youth Burnt While Traveling​ (HD001) is an arresting listen: symphonic drones and tape-loops are captured and constructed, and subsequently manipulated, on a series of reel-to-reel recorders, passed through effects & multiple generations of pitch-shifts, then allowed to loop over each other and explore the natural decay and idiosyncrasies of their respective formats. The machines feel as if they are given their own voices, like overhearing the hushed conversations between the components of a drenched city in the dead of night. Hipolíto acts as a medium between these voices, invisibly orchestrating an experimental narrative that facilitates the pulses of mechanical drones with plucks of timeless music boxes and other field recordings into a coherent and emotive whole.

The end result is incredibly intimate, and undeniably personal; even if Smokey Emery remains decidedly unseen, his fingerprints are on every single facet of this album, and we are all better for it."-Holodeck

Melissa Cha Video - Not Not Fun & Friends - Hounds of Love 2012

NOT NOT FUN & Friends @ Hounds of Love 2012 from Melissa Cha on Vimeo.

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White Car - Everyday Grace (Hippos In Tanks 2012)

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"Everyday Grace' brings you White Car's mutant rendering of America's electronic dance roots, European electronic post-punk, Dutch drug techno and British post rave absurdity lead by the paranoid neo-greaser kiss of Elon Katz's hyper-ego digital whisper and processed stammer.

The sound of the debut LP is less 'site-specific' than White Car's previous work, with Katz cooking his influences and interests into a personal vision that has little to do with retro-fetishism and genre-fascism. 'Everyday Grace' deals with assimilating human life into this digital age- 100 years of western industrial dominance now morphing into a nebulous stream of globalized interconnected captivity. 'Everyday Grace's' lyrical content charges the narrative of technological incorporation with sexuality and élan, words about the truncation and abuse of time, the contracting of personal space while the universe expands, and the virtual / physical interfacing of human interaction."- Hippos in Tanks

Dolphins Into The Future - A Star Maker, Strange Dreams and Clairvoyance (NNA 2012)

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"Naturalist visionary Lieven Martens brings us along the latest voyage of his musical vessel, Dolphins Into The Future. “A Star Maker, Strange Dreams, and Clairvoyance” induces a state of lucid dreaming where we experience tales of romance, stargazing, cosmic motion, and eternity. Not unlike a painter’s brush, Martens utilizes a sound palette of colorful, synthesized organics to bring the listener directly into the vivid and exotic world that Dolphins has spent years cultivating. After much anticipation, we’re very pleased to offer the latest creation of a true hero of the Nu New Age."- NNA

LX Sweat - Sweat Sweat Sweat (Not Not Fun 2012)

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"Given that we're living in the age of the come-back, one terrain we’ve been extra-pleased to see get resurrected and siphoned through the stargate of cassette-crud mutation is hypno R&B. A significant cut of global listeners can count the style as one of their formative musical memories, so there’s nothing shallow or ironic about its recent reappropriation in alien-ized bedroom beat scenes (regardless of what blog conservatives post to the contrary). All of which is joyously confirmed and celebrated in the retro-futurist exoskeletons scavenged and funkified by Germany’s one-man groove merchant LX Sweat. Screwed Up Click backing tracks are stacked high with sci-fi vocoder-soul vox, lush synthesizer counter melodies, and classic echo/reverb unit studio trickery for a production that’s vaguely reminiscent of Barry-White-on-morphine-transmitted-through-a-fax-machine-to-a-low-wattage-pirate-radio-station. Steamy, disembodied bubble baths of endorphin slow-rides and pleasure crunk. Excellent shit, and only the beginning for this inspired dude."- Not Not Fun

Keel Her - Demos 2012 (S/R 2012)

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Casino Gardens - Fantasies in Cools Palace (Lillerne 2012)

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Via Stolen Lynx

"We are always asking if the pyramid gives us meaning/Asking if our simulacra can lean in close and whisper/A few sweet words about our paranoid operation/But does anyone ask if the music is still playing? Casino Gardens' follow up to his brilliant 2011 self-titled debut on Beer on The Rug. Twenty-four minutes of perfect short-attention span pop, 4-track detritus, cooing vocal modulations and infectious melody. Lo-fi dream state transmissions. CG takes the current cut and paste aesthetic to new and more honest, analog realms with this release. Captivating soundscapes placed into tiny portable radios. As easy of a tape to listen to repeatedely as I've ever heard. Upbeat, vintage radio pop and sleepy synth ambience filtered through a yellowy-lit, late night bedroom window."- Lillerne

Sun Araw & M.Geddes Gengras Meet the Congos - Icon Give Thank (RVNG 2012)

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Mac Demarco - Rock and Roll Night Club (Captured Tracks 2012)

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"Mac DeMarco, formerly Makeout Videotape, is the anti-thesis to your stereotypical singer-songwriter. Disregarding the seriously somber moments, he replaces them with whimsical and youthful spontaneity, whilst retaining the endearing and subtle commentaries that exude his familiarity. Promptly after leaving his Edmonton garage for Vancouver he embarked on a North American tour accompanying fellow Canadians Japandroids on a grand voyage of enlightenment and alcoholic debauchery.

DeMarco’s a weird cat cultivating an affinity for occult imagery, nudity and social satire. But his most impressive trait is his undeniable and instinctual ability to compose magical pop jangles, of which he’ll likely refer to as “jizz jazz”. His dusted jams have garnished him accolades that are as ever-increasing as his song writing abilities; his sound rendering comparisons, but in a nomadic fashion alluding no distinct origin. Come March DeMarco’s debut solo EP entitled Rock And Roll Night Club will ramble into the great unknown guided by Captured Tracks, DeMarco’s inner Elvis a tow./ Mike Dupar"- Captured Tracks