Dream Phases – In a Box
Genre: Shoegaze, Psychedelic Rock, Indie Rock
People talk about escapism as if it’s something bad. Dream Phases’ In a Box proves that there’s something to gain from refusing to accept reality.
Like a person needing to blink more frequently in order to see the world, so too do the great dreamers of modern times need to do. There’s not much in the way that the world sounds and looks to tickle their fancies.
The only way out is to create your own. It’s a psychedelic-DYI-approach. It’s an attempt to trick the brain into spraying colours over all the things that the eyes witness. The 1960s proved to be a particularly fertile period for such strategies.
Dream Phases seems to have grown as an artist all while letting the music of the 1960s make a home in their head. In a Box is a whimsical sound of escaping the shackles of modern times. It’s a tune that glistens with psychedelic optimism, and tales of running away in search of freedom.
Olive Vox – Sunflower
Genre: Garage Rock
Olive Vox sounds like a grunge band deciding to nurture a passion for obscure 1960s psychedelia on the single Sunflower.
Or, maybe, the original grunge artists weren’t that different from the original garage-rockers after all. Their guitar tone was similarly muddy. The singing seemed to design to overcome the yells of a barn full of people. And, the visions of the lyrics suggested there was more to the musicians’ diet than tea and biscuits.
Garage-rock, at its best, is scuzzy, sleazy, and gorgeous. It’s music designed for people that would rather spend time in their garage rather than pay witness to the sunshine outside. It’s music for people that don’t mind hearing the same fuzz-guitar riff over and over again.
Olive Vox’s Sunflower feels like music born out of those dingy garages. The song displays the band’s proud love of loud, distorted riffs, but also their willingness to imagine just what might be lurking outside of the confines of their rehearsal space. Olive Vox makes colourful psychedelia for the gutter.
