I’ve been sort of curious about these Aussie psychedelic adventurers known by the oddly titled moniker of Psychedelic Porn Crumpets. Seems a bit bonkers. And for the most part, they are. Sadly, I missed them the last few times they’ve come around, once at the Regent, followed by an obvious and well-curated slot at Desert Daze 2019. But it ain’t for lack of curiosity that they’ve slipped past my radar. Just bad timing …
Psychedelic Porn Crumpets have been around since 2014, and they’re part of the welcomed psych revival that’s been growing over the past few years. They’re Australian, and unsurprisingly, share common sonic ground with some of their homeland peers, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Pond, and even a little Tame Impala.
They’ve got an eccentric and off-kilter vibe, filled with wildly raucous intentions and multilayered melodies. Their tunes are highly listenable, trippy and cool, boomeranging in all sorts of interesting directions, zigging, zipping and zagging, sometimes for the hell of it, others with focused determination. And when the rowdy roll of crunchy reverberation and free-flowing feedback needs a break, they can swing things in a smoothly flowing breeze of bluesy vintage and chill psychedelia.
They also happen to sport a semi-loungey whirligig of paisley rock titled “November,” which caught my ear the other day, and seemed an appropriate (and obvious) way to kickstart the month.
This one falls in the latter laid-back style of Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, offering a fairly smooth roll of intricacy and kaleidoscopic intrigue. “November” sways and swings with slickly fuzzed guitars, wielded with wild complexity and extreme competency, complemented by swirling rhythms and velvet smooth vocals, weaving and wavering amongst each other in a labyrinthian dance.
And just to shake things up, somewhere around the two-thirds mark, it kicks on the volume and shoves the feedback to the foreground with a bit of headbanging guitarwork, before seamlessly slipping back to the sunny disposition they started with.
Not sure if this is a symbolic sign for how this month’s going to transpire. But if it is, things don’t sound too shabby. Anyway, like I said, I’ve been curious about the Psychedelic Porn Crumpets (and seriously, with a name like that, who wouldn’t?), not to mention their “November” track seemed perfectly on the nose.
So here it is to start November off with a bit of a paisley kick. Enjoy!
“November” from the 2017 album “High Visceral, Pt.2.”
