5 Psychedelic Essentials From Down Under
Psychedelia is working its way back into mainstream music, but it is not exactly picking up in the same place it left off, with Australia becoming a new home for the recent psychedelic revival.
Written by Evan Ryckebusch
Photo courtesy of Billboard
Psychedelic rock, a subgenre of rock centered around the recreation of drug-induced psychedelic effects, rose to the forefront of music starting in the early 1960s. British and American artists — including The Beatles, Pink Floyd, and The Doors — dominated rock music for almost a decade. Psychedelic rock faded into relative obscurity in the following decades as glam rock, punk, and eventually grunge took over the genre. However, in the 2010s, psychedelia has seen a resurgence, especially in a country not previously notable for its contributions to the genre: Australia. From international sensation Tame Impala to more eccentric acts like King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, psychedelic rock in Australia is thriving now more than ever. Here are 5 of the most important psychedelic cuts to come out of Australia in the past decade.
1. “Elephant” - Tame Impala
“Elephant,” the lead single from Tame Impala’s sophomore album Lonerism, was not only the start of Tame Impala's mainstream success (at least in the US), but is also characteristic of everything that makes Tame Impala’s music so unique. The song’s surreal lyrics coupled with rock instrumentation and Kevin Parker’s distinct yet modern psychedelic production style make this track a solid starting point for anyone interested in the genre.
2. “Love Forever” - The Babe Rainbow
The Babe Rainbow’s 2014 single, “Love Forever,” offers a modern take on 60s psychedelic acts. The instrumentation — including an upbeat chord progression, spacey vocals, and dreamy lyrics — may draw comparisons to the Grateful Dead and others, but the song’s production has a distinctly contemporary feel.
3. “Nuclear Fusion” - King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
Melbourne’s King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard is known for their incorporation of unorthodox concepts into their albums. This cut, off of King Gizzard’s 2017 project, Flying Microtonal Banana (one of five albums released by the band by the year’s end), features two drummers who often play alternate parts and a bass line played on a microtonal variation of a bass guitar. The song is not only rhythmically interesting, but explores microtonal melodies in an impressively cohesive way.
4. “Rolling On” - The Murlocs
The Murlocs, whose frontman Ambrose Kenny Smith is also a member of King Gizzard, has a more organic feel than many of their contemporaries. Smith’s strained, raw vocals set the band apart from the majority of psychedelic acts that tend to favor heavy use of delay and reverb pedals. The band combines elements of psychedelic rock, folk, and soul to create a unique sound palette that sounds eccentric yet comfortable.
5. “Let it Happen” - Tame Impala
While Lonerism pushed Tame Impala into the public eye, Currents cemented the band as one of the biggest acts in not only psychedelia, but pop music as a whole. “Let it Happen” is indicative of Tame Impala’s ability to combine the unconventional with the accessible. The psych-pop song’s eight minute runtime and atypical structure has not stopped it from becoming one of the band’s most popular songs (second only to “The Less I Know The Better”), receiving over 100 million plays on Spotify and finding its way into a Ford commercial .