Sky Picnic
Paint Me a Dream
Nasoni

If the spirit of Syd Barrett is still out there in the ether somewhere there's no doubt that he's digging this album, especially tunes like "Freak Out Ethel," a mid-60's leaning near-instrumental, vocally featuring only haunting oohs and aahs and whispered phrases that would indeed cause Ethel's trip to get a little freaky. Early Pink Floyd seems to be a major influence here, highly noticeable on tunes like "Dream Yourself Away" but the Brooklyn trio also sounds a little Jefferson Airplane-ish on songs like "Lost is Found" and "Rippled." All in all a very satisfying listen for fans of low-fi psych.

Black Hearted Brother
Stars Are Our Home
Slumberland

Opening cut "Stars Are Our Home" is an instrumental track that sounds a lot like I Robot era Alan Parsons and that kind of trippy groove features on much of the album. But the psychedelia really kicks in on songs like "(I Don't Mean To) Wonder" where washes of lysergic guitar and echoing vocals give the tune a floating-in-space vibe. "UFO" is Moody Blues style space rock, "Oh Crust" is souped-up psych driven by warbling organ riffs and seasoned with synth blips'n'bubbles while "My Baby Just Sailed Away" is spacey and again reminiscent of Parsons.

Aqua Nebula Oscillator
Spiritus Mundi
Tee Pee

Disjointed (female) spoken word, the mewling of children, sludgy, non-melodic experimental instrumentation and effects that sound like the rusted doors to the darkest corners of your mind creaking open; that's all to be heard in the title cut of this new effort from the French psych trio. More conventional means are used for the psychedelic garage rock of "Human Toad;" here the band uses fuzzed out guitars, Doors-style organ riffs and gruff but understated vocals that taken together make it sound like the band was licking toads before the performance. Weird and wonderful throughout.