1. Motorpsycho – Here Be Monsters (Rune Grammofon)
“Here Be Monsters continues the prog-space adventure that Motorpsycho began on 2010’s Heavy Metal Fruit, but this set explores the vastness of inner space. The arrangements are exquisite, the textures multivalent & the emotional resonances cavernous, intuitive & expressive…” (allmusic.com) / Listen & get it on Vinyl here
2. DIIV – Is the Is Are (Captured Tracks)
“On ‘Is The Is Are’, everything carries more meaning; he’s well and truly made his point here…” (diymag.com)
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
3. Mino
r Victories – S/T (Play It Again Sam)
“Minor Victories is Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell, Editors’ Justin Lockey, Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite, and James Lockey of Hand Held Cine Club.” Each member’s background shows through in the final product, coalescing into something greater than itself” (http://consequenceofsound.net) / Listen & get it on Vinyl here
4. Fews – Means (Play It Again Sam)
“FEWS have created an excellent debut they can be proud of. Fresh, exhilarating and mesmerizingly addictive, Means is neither a limousine nor a Mini – it’s a triumph from start to finish…” (www.musicomh.com)
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
5. Mind Spiders – Prosthesis (Dirtnap Records)
“Prosthesis is Mind Spiders’ darkest release yet, both in themes and atmosphere, and electronics feature more prominently in its eight songs than ever before…” (http://www.npr.org)
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
6. Coffin Problem – S/T (dizzybird records)
“…The inspired feelings one gets while immersed in the wall of guitars on this album. Death. All things inevitable…” (http://dizzybirdrecords.com)
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
7. JuJu – JuJu (Sunrise Ocean Bender)
“…Inspired by sources of Earth magic and soil secrets, JuJu strives to turn that defeat into a celebration of spirit and modern psychedelia…”
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
8. True Widow – Avvolgere (Relapse Records)
“…Blurring the boundaries between the heft of stoner rock, the droning atmosphere of shoegaze, & the twangy catchiness of blues and indie rock, Avvolgere has TRUE WINDOW sounding more infectious & consummate than ever before!…” / Listen & get it on Vinyl here
9. Bloody Knives – I Will Cut Your Heart Out For This (Saint Marie Records)
“…The album nods to the nihilistic abandon of the Birthday Party, the passionate desperation of The Sound, the dense filth of Merzbow, the electric disquiet of Christian Death, and the pummeling beauty of My Bloody Valentine…” (saintmarierecords.com) / Listen & get it on Vinyl here
10. Night Beats – Who Sold My Generation (Heavenly)
“It offers a contemporary take on the psychedelic experience, a heady set of hoodoo voodoo songs…” (heavenlyrecordings.com) / Listen & get it on Vinyl here
11. Josefin Ohrn + The Liberation – Mirage (Rocket Recordings)
“Their second effort Mirage, which follows a mere year after its predecessor, sees the band sculpting sprawling, hypnotic jams into elegant nocturnal serenades…”
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
12. Ghost Wave – Radio Norfolk (Flying Nun)
“…with Radio Norfolk created something even more captivating and intriguing. In their own words it’s “…the countdown to the meltdown.”.songs for a real summer’s summer, one of those idyllic ones you see in faded photos from the 60s with surfboards & oversized sunglasses…” / Listen & get it on Vinyl here
13. Levitation Room – Ethos (Burger Records)
“The Southern California psychedelic garage rockers Levitation Room take inspiration from all the obvious ’60s sources on their debut album, Ethos” (www.allmusic.com)
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
14. Tracy Bryant – Subterranean (Burger Records)
“…When you have such a combination from Tucson, Arizona (Corners frontman Tracy Bryant, Matt Rendon of The Resonars & featuring members of Froth & Mystic Braves) this is simply a rock’n’roll explosion to the ears!…”
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
15. PJ Harvey – The Hope Six Demolition Project (Island)
“…It’s a vibrant record that can play smoothly along, but catching the details can derail you…” (www.popmatters.com) / Listen & get it on Vinyl here
16. The Coral – Distance Inbetween (Ignition Records)
“…‘Distance Inbetween’ is a cohesive, imaginative psych-rock record that grows with every listen…” (www.nme.com) / Listen & get it on Vinyl here
17. Magic Wands – Jupiter (Cleopatra Records)
“…Main duo Chris and Dexy return with their most ambitious album to date, self-produced & featuring even more cosmic layered guitar tracks, swirling pop vocals, and dreamy pop grooves!…”(https://cleorecs.com)
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
18. Yeti Lane – L’Aurore (Clapping Music, Sonic Cathedral)
“Yeti Lane are a band to fall in love with and adore. To miss out on this album is to miss the key to what makes psychedelia so important to our minds…” (http://echoesanddust.com) / Listen & get it on Vinyl here
19. Katla – Embryo (Svart Records)
“…Katla is an enticing mixture of everything that was unforgettable and magical in the musical landscape of the seventies – a hint of krautrock here, a dash of Hawkwind-y psychedelia there and a touch of Swedish folk rock on top…” (http://svartrecords.com) / Listen & get it on Vinyl here
20. Dreamtime – Strange Pleasures (Cardinal Fuzz , Sky Lantern, Tym Guitars)
“…This is a majestic album, truly amazing! – this really is “one of the most ambitiously creative projects the international psychedelic-rock scene has seen in many a moon”…” (http://dayzofpurpleandorange.blogspot.com)
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
21. Mirror Travel – Cruise Deal (Modern Outsider)
Cruise Deal, takes the same smoldering psych-rock of Mexico and submerges it in a sea of dense and dreamy post-punk sludge.
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
22. Holy Wave – Freaks Of Nurture (The Reverberation Appreciation Society)
“…The band sounded just fine before, quite properly psychedelic and dream state-y; on Freaks of Nurture they have made all the right moves to jump themselves out of the pack and up near the front of the line of their fellow time-traveling freaks…” (allmusic.com) / Listen & get it on Vinyl here
23. Thee Oh Sees – A Weird Exits (Castle Face)
“…On their latest, Thee Oh Sees show an eagerness to drift away from their foundational ’60s psych-pop and garage-punk roots into more cosmic realms…” (http://pitchfork.com)
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
24. Savages – Adore Life (Matador / Pop Noire)
“Adore Life sacrifices intensity for heart and with some exploration into the use of space and silence, it could be their perfect album. After all, absence makes the heart grow fonder…” (clashmusic.com)
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
25. The Big Eyes Family Players – Oh! (Home Assembly Music)
“The sound of the album is perhaps best described as psychedelic pop, with fizzing organs and droning synths, flutes, reverbed guitars and bass and playful drums swirling around Heather’s vocals…” (homeassemblymusic.com)
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
26. Magic Shoppe – Wonderland (Little Cloud Records)
“…‘Magic Shoppe’ collectively create a swirling cacophony of modern day psychedelia intriguingly peppered with sonic atmospherics, fuzz and droning instrumentation…” (http://primalmusicblog.com)
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
27. Black Mountain – IV (Jagjaguwar)
“…Black Mountain have become more capable than ever of transmuting their kaleidoscopic visions into a volcanic unison…” (www.thelineofbestfit.com)
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
28. Bonfire Nights – Entopica Phenomica (Holy Beatnik Records)
“…The album is a lush, pulsing, ethereal and at times high-intensity journey into psych-drone-acid rock territory…” (http://louderthanwar.com)
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
29. Ghost Box Orchestra – High Plaine (Self Released)
It’s brilliant guitars shimmer as they stir within a heady brew of steading drum progressions, beautiful synth swirls and impressive throbbing bass lines (http://primalmusicblog.com(
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
30. Salems Pot – Pronounce This! (RidingEasy)
“Pronounce This! is their turning point. It’s a record beyond anything the band’s ever attempted, imaginative in its composition and ambitious in its playing…” (http://consequenceofsound.net)
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
31. September Girls - Age Of Indignation (Fortuna Pop!)
“…The aesthetic was clearly well in place, anyway, with walls of reverb, washed-out vocals, and melodic guitars plucked straight from The Velvet Underground…” (www.thelineofbestfit.com)
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
32. Psychic Ills – Inner Journey Out (Sacred Bones)
“…Inner Journey Out is by no means as “out” as Psychic Ills have gotten in the past, but it’s an album well worth getting into…” (t.wilcox / http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com)
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
33. Electric Eye – Different Sun (Jansen Plateproduksjon)
“…A dynamic rollercoaster where the landscape soon fluctuates between open and calm desert moods, and then suddenly ignites the rocket engines and leaves the atmosphere once and for all…”
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
34. Mystic Braves - Days of Yesteryear (Lolipop Records)
“…sounds like a forgotten gem from the late ’60s that turned up at the back of some paisley-filled closet in the Electric Prunes’ basement. The songs are full of Farfisa organ, quavering guitars and wispy, ethereal vocal harmonies…” (http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy) / Listen & get it on Vinyl here
35. The Underground Youth – Mademoiselle (Fuzz Club Records)
“…The story of Mademoiselle is a testament to the power of great music being able to reach an audience, regardless of the fact the artist might be unsigned, underground and almost unheard of.” (Fuzz Club Records)
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
36. The Orange Drop – Stoned In Love (Mega Dodo)
“…blending dreamy psychedelia with some darker, acid-soaked sounds. Half of the songs on Stoned In Love are modern Psychedelic Rock songs that fans of BJM will have an affinity with, but when The Orange Drop fly, they really fly”
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
37. Hurricane Heart Attacks – Incredible Machine (Scotch Recordings)
“As the band themselves express, “A sea of electric guitars six twelve strings take over the speakers, the batteries come forward and organs Farfisa embrace this new chapter of the band-enhanced imagery inspired by the endless visions and vanishing points of the roads and busy routes to achieve the increasingly tempestuous encounter I craved. The journey begins…” / Listen & get it on Vinyl here
38. Kikagaku Moyo – House In The Tall Grass (Guruguru Brain)
“…A ’60s psych throwback, this album utilizes a poignant balance of folk, pop, and jam-band influences, adapting them to fit within the context of modern music….” (www.stereogum.com)
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
39. Parquet Courts – Human Performance (Rough Trade)
“…If guitar music is condemned to skulk in the margins for the time being, it might as well do so sounding as spiky and agitated as this…” (www.theguardian.com)
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
40. Breanna Barbara – Mirage Dreams (Self Releasesd)
“Breanna Barbara is an intriguing, intense, fun, lo-fi original punk blues resonator guitarist/singer songwriter.” – (New York Daily Music)
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
41. Fontan – Polar Star EP (Hoga Nord)
“Fontän has poured hundreds of generations’ musical expressions in their filter of Swedish west coast psychedelia to let three tracks drop down on your turntable. The band feel no fear to break musical conventions, but yet they pay true homage to their predecessors…” (hoganord.com) / Listen & get it on Vinyl here
42. Whyte Horses – Pop Or Not (CRC Music)
“…Whyte Horses are an enigmatic group from Manchester who make guitars chime like lysergic bells and sing songs so full of wonder that they make your heart ache…” (crcmusic)
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
43. onDeadWaves – S/T (Mute)
When collaborations like this take the artists so far from their comfort zones, and when the results are as profoundly successful as these, you do have to wonder why they’d ever go back. There’s plenty more life in these here dead waves on the evidence of this record (www.clashmusic.com)
44. Comet Control - Center Of The Maze (Tee Pee Records)
“…The record is just as heavy as their first, just as gazey and dreamy, just as packed with overloaded guitars and soaring choruses. If anything, it may be better..” (www.allmusic.com)
/ Listen & get it on Vinyl here
45. Haley Bonar – Impossible Dream (GNDWire)
It’s soothing but rugged, honest and introspective and full of hooks and melodies that are both soft and forceful. If your interests lie anywhere between unassuming alt-country and fuzzed out ’90s influenced alt-rock, Impossible Dream might be the best thing you’ve heard all year
This February (17/02/2017), Primitive Music in collaboration with Blackspin Records will release the self-titled debut LP from the psych-kraut collective, Holy Monitor, from Athens, Greece.
Blackspin 