Aeternal Flux II

  Some groups draw inspiration from a literary source; others elevate influence into creative symbiosis. Pace Mark E. Smith and Albert Camus’ novel The Fall (or Nick Cave with Harold Pinter’s play The Birthday Party ), the Brighton, UK-based psych rock outfit Codex Serafini do more than take their name from Italian architect and artist Luigi Serafini’s imaginary encyclopedia Codex Seraphinianus . They aim to emulate the work’s fantastical reinvention of the world. Self-proclaimed emissaries from Saturn, they operate under conditions of strict anonymity, performing in red robes and black masks. Although most of the tracks have lyrics, their female lead singer sometimes sings in an invented idiom, as asemic and open to interpretation as the language in which Serafini wrote his codex. Musically, they combine elements of sludge metal, freak folk, space rock, noise rock and psych fusion into a potent brew that can gather in contemplative pools or trickle forth speedily under its own f...

    The neo-psych continuum is both mutable and ecumenical in the 21st century. An audience after good vibes and warmth in the style of old school psychedelic heroes like The Beatles and Todd Rundgren has the paisley revivalism of The Flaming Lips and Tame Impala, the consolatory soulfulness of Syd Arthur for succour. A more aggressive, edgier form dating back to the acid punk phase of the late 70s/early 80s and further shaped by post-hardcore, post-metal and math/noise rock in the 1990s and 2000s caters for those seeking harsher bad trip revelations. Bristol-based group My Octopus Mind dwell somewhere in the second camp but are capable of a melodicism more suited to the first. They occupy a position in this musical spectrum adjacent by turns to the dystopian balladry of Radiohead/The Smile, the carnival grotesquery of black midi and Mr Bungle or the raw garage psych approach of Osees and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. This bonus edition of My Octopus Mind’s Faulty at...