Golden Alphabet – Bucky Bronco
Similar artists: Flaming Lips, Beach House, Pink Floyd, Modest Mouse, Broken Social Scene
Genre: Americana, Psychedelic Rock, Indie Rock
As kids stuck in an uneventful district of a large Eastern-European city, we came upon a picture that was guaranteed to make you go insane. At least, that’s what the magazine publishing the picture promised. We were stocked!
The way it worked is that you had to stare at the picture of a strange-looking woman for more than 15 seconds. If you managed to do that, your life would never be the same again. It wouldn’t necessarily be improved. But, more than likely, you would become the kind of person who needed to be locked up for psychiatric evaluation. Nothing happened… as far as I know.
A lot of music promises similar thrills. Usually, it disappoints. Shock artists aren’t what they used to be. Everyone has heard of Captain Beefheart. And, no major label stars will ever take chances that risk alienating their audiences.
But there’s hope. Listen to Golden Alphabet’s Bucky Bronco on repeat at your own peril. I can’t claim to know for certain, but this country-psychedelia pastiche could well produce the effects of highly-potent brown acid. It’s music from an eerie parallel universe where mass murderers get to host children’s television shows.
Talk to Your Neighbor – Half Moon
Genre: Electronica
Almost all musicians dream of creating songs that few will understand and many will love. Some of the greatest recording artists, the ones praised by numerous publications, have managed to achieve this.
Still, it’s a road that is generally blocked for almost everyone else. This is because of a few reasons. First of all, few are the ones that will truly take it upon themselves to risk their reputation for such a thing.
Secondly, many artists are simply not that interesting. While everyone dreams of floating away on a wave of pure inspiration and producing something mind-altering, few have the ability to travel there.
What Talk to Your Neighbor’s Half Moon is to draw a musical map to a land that’s never before been recorded, and, frankly, we can’t even be sure it exists. It achieves this through singing that has more in common with shamanistic rituals and Radiohead-like electronica experimentation meant to leave the listener in a constant state of unease. It’s music that needs to be experienced, not merely heard.
