Clairaudience

Various

Clairaudience

Devic Craft Recordings (Greece)

As the devilish little cover pic above suggests, this is twisty spirit-of-the-forest psychedelia double-dipped in hoffman’s special brew (TM) with a sense of humour. Rip Van Hippy kicks off with the hammond-spiced conematic weirdbeat of Bite The Flower, setting the tone for the album as being one of those trips when you’re sure you’ve forgotten something but never sure what it is. A vibe continued by Spyweirdos with Soryps, a squarepusher-esque monster with angular beats, jazzy stabs and plenty of silliness at every turn. The gorgeously twisted house of Looups in Fabula’s Funky Town is wonderful, Spaztech’s 18U is only describable as thunderstomp acid tech junglism, Weird Alchemy are weird (possibly they’re alchemists too), and Silent Disciple’s Millenium Drone takes care of the crusty anarcho-feedback nightmare department. The Omm Squad’s Phoenix is pure future-perfect funk, like an alien Herbie Hancock who’s abducted a drum machine, and the utter schitzout outdoor stompathon of Sienis’ Feel The Power of My Itchy Foot is battered sausage for the clinically insane. Chips and gravy all the way then, and it’s only left to Poly 61 to bring things down with Out Here We Aren’t, a nice slice of melodic morning trance with a breakdown that’ll replace your lysergic gurn with a nice beamy smile. We like.

4/5