In treading through the annals of rock music, it’s hard to argue that any approach to the genre has been more persistent than psychedelic-rock. From the jangling opening riff of 13th Floor Elevators’ “You’re Gonna Miss Me,” to the outpouring of groups that flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the late- 60s (therein forging a widespread counterculture), to the shoegaze sounds that swept the U.K. throughout the 90s, rock artists have continuously found new ways to interpret the ever-malleable, wide-ranging sound of psychedelic music.
Aside from modern pop’s incorporation ( cough appropriation) of the genre’s aesthetic, the national craze around this music and its culture is clearly not as prevalent as it once was, when thousands of young Americans blew off their middle-class expectations for the Learyology of “dropping out and tuning in.” Since the start of the decade, however, a more subtle independent scene has been brewing thanks to forward-thinking artists like The Bl
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The jam-heavy live set captured between Walkerâs four-piece band and the Japanese psych-prog quintet is a heady meeting of the minds.
Ryley Walkerâs got jokes. By now, the songwriter might even be as known for his witty, self-skewering online presence as for his increasingly weird, increasingly excellent psych-folk. But one of his recent gags has nothing to do with the former and everything to do with the latter. In 2019, Walker launched Husky Pants Records, a âjoke record labelâ (his words) for a series of minor releases. Was it really just for kicks? Or is Walker deflecting, setting a low bar to relieve some pressure before releasing honest and vulnerable music out into the world? He has blurred that line before.