Oct 122010
Innerspeaker, by Tame Impala
The moment of truth has arrived. Yesterday’s Mystery Date was a track by Tame Impala, a new Australian psych band whose debut album, InnerSpeaker, is a fine homage to the sounds of Piper at the Gates of Dawn, S.F. Sorrow, and related “head” records from the Summer of Love. Here’s one of the “hits,” a most Norman Smith production-styled “Lucidity.”
[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/04-Lucidity.mp3|titles=Tame Impala, “Lucidity”]
We had a discussion along these lines years ago that I think is worth revisiting, it was something to the effect of “What is psychedelic music? Is it primarily music that sounds like the original psychedelic music of the late-’60s, or can it/should it be a living, breathing notion of psychedelic music that reflects current times? Can it even be the latter?” Or maybe that’s merely how I feel about the entire issue.
I downloaded a few songs from this album last month and really like hearing a song at a time pop up on the shuffle of my iPod. However, listening to an individual track on purpose, as I just did (and this is my favorite track of the four I own), I’m less satisfied. I still like the music and the sound of the song, but I can’t help but get annoyed at the cliched lyrics/topics of too much neo-psychedelia. It’s the same beef I have with probably all neo-genres. It’s 2010, dammit, we need to move beyond faux-ponderings of lucidity just like we need to make roots-rock music that has a little more on its mind than chicks, hootch, and hot rods. I get the same anxious feeling whenever I listen to that Dungen (sp?) guy/band – and I can’t even tell what they’re going on about in whatever Scandanavian tongue they’re singing in. I can sense it’s more of that “I see God in every blade of grass, man” thing, even though it’s just as likely these people never got further than freaking out the first time they smoked a joint.
In short, can’t the “visionary” nature of psychedelic music be used to support some fresh insights? For instance, it’s a bit of a joke song from a fake band, but Colin Moulding’s “What in the World,” done under the psilly psych guise of the Dukes of Stratosphear, has lyrics that are straight out of the no-nonsense worldview of Moulding’s “real” works with XTC. I find that much more refreshing than yet another psych song that attempts to re-create Columbus’ first trip across the Atlantic.
So why did you have “a hunch that there are a lot who know this one”? Are the Tame Impalas more popular than I realize?
Maybe the fact that an old fart like myself already knew it made ladymisskirroyale think the record was fairly popular?
I think Animal Collective is pretty much making non-dated psychedelic music.
I’m embarrassed because that song is on my iTunes, and I didn’t even know it.
I’ll have to give Animal Collective a listen again. I think I saw them on a tv show and they were standing around laptops, which is a major turnoff. I’ll try BigSteve’s Listen But Don’t Look Principle.
Middle class hippies from Perth, Western Australia.
Fuckin’ middle class hippies! 🙂
Isn’t god in a blade of grass a timeless notion? As well as chicks, hootch and cars? I haven’t paid much attention to the lyrics of Tame Impala but the music feels like a fresh take on pysche to me with minimal posing. That said I too prefer it as an addition to shuffle and/or listening while doing other things. If I give it my full attention, it fails to satisfy.
However given the amount of new music I find that does satisfy under the scrutiny of attention, I’m glad that isn’t the bar for me as I’d play very little new music…
Good questions, sammy, which I’ve been wondering about myself. I’m never sure if this criticism I tend to make is in any way valid.
“Lucidity” came up on my iPod last night, and it sounded great in the car. I hooted at some chicks walking down the street and then took a swig from my flask of hootch.