Now living in Switzerland,
David Max has a pretty impressive psychedelic CV, the former bassist/songwriter
with cult 90s Hoboken/NYC Psychedelic/Space Rock band Tadpoles has worked with,
amongst others, Ex Spacemen 3 member Sonic Boom and Gibby Haynes of the
Butthole Surfers along with a five year stint playing guitar in Psychic TV. Now
based in Basel it can’t just be a coincidence that he has rocked up in the same
city where Albert Hoffmann was working in the Sandoz Labs. Following the more
folky Simple Psychedelic Pleasures released on the Chicago label Mind Expansion
Records, Sons Of The Void is the latest project from David Max in collaboration
with guitarist Nick Nobody. They describe themselves as an “experimental rock
band attempting to marry the beauty of the pop song with the magical elixir of
other-world modalities” and judging by how their debut album sounds Sons Of The
Void have succeeded in mixing together the potent essence of early Pink Floyd,
The Velvet Underground, The Red Krayola, The Byrds and 1980s Neo-Psychedelica
into a swirling maelstrom of Sixties influenced psychedelic sounds.
Released by those fine purveyors of immaculate taste Sunrise Ocean Bender, the debut album from Sons
Of The Void is somewhat of an oddity in 2016, being a proper psychedelic record
in an age where a great deal of Psych Rock is effectively 70s heavy rock
dressed up in groovy threads (although we would happily pay good money to see
Black Sabbath, Can and Hawkwind fight in a sack, it would no doubt become
tedious after a while). Sons Of The Void take their inspiration from the sonic
experimentation of the Sixties (the “golden age of psychedelia”????) following
the path where the journey to the centre of the mind coexisted with the primal
force of music but have made it relevant to the now………it is music fuelled by
the finest psychotomimetic and hallucinogenic drugs known to man as opposed to
cheap speed, mushrooms and whiskey. Opening with a headrush of sparkling
guitars, the Suns Of The Void debut album takes you on a twisted trip through
eight acid drenched tracks that at their core all have a rock solid pop sensibility,
it’s as if pop history has been rewritten and the Byrds made lo-fi records with
Timothy Leary. There are some great, lysergically warped tunes on this album………’Kolliderscope’
is a fantastically trippy track, part West Coast Sunshine Pop and part Acid
Test freak out while ‘Absorption’ is a beautifully psychedelic head swirler.
Flip the disc for more fantastic lo-fi psychedelia from Sons Of The Void with
the folky ‘The Things We Wish’ and the acid whirl of ‘Little Children’ being the
stand out tracks here. This is a really great record from a bunch of people who
really understand the acid experience………check it out people, it’s electric
music for the mind and body. After
hearing this we must now go and check out the Tadpoles records from the 90s………if
they are anywhere as good as this, they are going to be pretty special.
Methinks that this is a
labour of love for SOB (check the track listing for Tadpoles album Whirlaway). Released
on 4th March, Sons Of The Void is available to pre-order from the
Sunrise Ocean Bender web store or from Bandcamp at https://sonsofthevoid.bandcamp.com/album/sons-of-the-void
(also check Clear Spot as they will be dealing with the European distribution).
Housed in some of the grooviest psychedelic artwork we have seen for quite a
while, Sons Of The Void is available in a limited edition run of 250 copies on
cyan coloured vinyl and if you need the digital version to play on your phone
while you have a crafty spliff at the back of the magic bus, a download is also
available. Turn On, Tune In and Trip Out with Sons Of The Void.
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