TPR Featured Band-to-Watch: Deep Space

Written By: Chris Parsons

February 2013’s release from Deep Space— “Cosmic Waves”– should be noted as a highlight for the month, as well as for the band’s career as they’ve been gradually emerging within the buzzing world of Austin, Texas’ psychedelic music scene, and this debut studio EP pushes them even further, recently having the honor of opening for the likes of Psychic Ills, Ringo Deathstarr, and Holy Wave…all on the same billing!  Now, you might think that with Texas’ history of high velocity psychedelic acts (such as The 13th Floor Elevators, Golden Dawn, Bubble Puppy, not to mention the whole, contemporary Austin Psych Fest scene/community) it’d be tough to make a significant impact or strive to make your sound original enough to stand out and grab everyone’s attention. But Deep Space does just that, establishing themselves as a heady, wall-of-sound quintet with a hankering for surf-groovy, astronaut rock. These dudes aren’t out to cop anyone’s psyche style but rather, any associations that come to mind seem totally derivative and second-nature, probably slipping out of their own mind-manifesting and reverberating music collections. If anything, their total sound is ultimately a tribute to the rich culture of Texas’ abundant music scene, then and now, and even draws allusions to the commonplace mythos of NASA’s space center.

The 4-track “Cosmic Waves” EP is a great introduction to Deep Space‘s sound, exhibiting a strong magnetism for slow-burner grooves, and heavy psych drone jams in the vein of blending layered, krautrock-style earworm hooks and subtle ragas. A big staple of the warm and full sound on this record is definitely the two guitarists’ use of 12-string axes, replicating a similar sound to dual sitars. The reverb-drenched vocals also infuse a heady, cavernous effect into the larger-than-life rock as the drummer and bassist tend to lock into a mutual groove that is both deliberately paced, yet propulsive, sending out gripping vibrations that’ll have your spine snaking in a funk. To close out the album, we’re even graced with a powerhouse live recording of “Strawberry”  at Hotel Vegas, as if Deep Space had something to prove before their introduction was through. This intimate EP captures every angle of this band of adaptive up-and-comers, and what’s more, it appears that they personally tended to each aspect of producing, recording, mixing, and mastering to ensure that their living sound and energy was properly relayed to their audience, down to the very frequencies of their intricate and pulsating sound.

TPR Featured Artist-to-Watch: The Counter Culture

Written By: Joe Brown

The Counter Culture is also known as the psych rock, jangle-pop solo project of Jamie Thompson, based within the United Kingdom (split between Edinburgh and Aberdeen), which brings together an eclectic range of easy-listening and tranquil shoegaze sounds in one tidy bundle: the concise, debut 8-track EP, “Lost in the Underground” officially released just this week for “Free Download” in your choice of quality/format from Bandcamp.

“Lost In The Underground” sonically harks back to the influence of fellow Scots, The Jesus and Mary Chain, in the laid-back and minimal instrumentals reminiscent of the latter’s “Just Like Honey,” coupled with the hazy, subdued vocals that saunter in and out of the soft collage of sound. The vocals haunt the record with several cameos that appear as if off in the distance before dissipating into soundscape. There’s no real rush or push to the album as it drifts from one track to the next with the warmly murky, lo-fi sludge of “Surf Fuzz” and “Drones,” and then slips right into the swirling dreamwold of “Blue.”

A slight, stuttering undercurrent to “Surf Fuzz” stops the listener from being lulled totally into a calm trance as it also highlights the nonplussed unease that is the subtle foundation for the album, as some rough, yet lucid, textures move in and out of each other. In this heady give-and-take of the sound, it can be easy to find yourself drifting off into your daydreams; The Counter Culture‘s sound is by no means a rocking and frenzied “heavy psychedelia” which is the path most contemporary artists seem to be favoring. Instead, there are elements that keep you grounded and a slowcore energy that is calm and wise and in control. You’ll hear on “Drones,” that the guitars are only a transparent veil of wailing feedback and piano tinkerings. It’s almost subliminal in it’s approach, yet it wouldn’t be as effective any other way. This approach of layered and embedded motifs accompanied with gently strummed guitars make for a soul-stirring mix of earworms that slowly hypnotizes and captivates its listener, much like a beautiful, yet sinister, siren, drawing in her prey. It’s not until “Blue” that things become a bit more complex with a more adventurous melody coming into play that seems to swerve around delicate musings, building a sound that combines a busier composition, all the while maintaining the chilled-out, soothing vibrations.

And the brief interlude, “Glisten,” does exactly that for us, creating a floating and meditative energy. It features glistening synths that are underpinned by a sorrowful riff from the guitar as an undercurrent of ocean waves rush at the floor of the sound, surrounding the listener in melancholy. The nostalgic melancholia quality continues through “Heartburn” and into “Alight” where strange reversed samples come through to bring you back to a sense of “the familiar.” It’s not immediately within your comfort zone, yet it’s still comfortable as the album seems to play with the listener’s boundaries with its gentle, distorted lullabies. The final track, “Who Knows When,” descends into a psychedelic soundscape as phased swooshes interject to and The Counter Culture introduces what is probably the most upbeat passage off of the “Lost in the Underground”, which brings a definitive closure to the EP as it references earlier elements and subtly picks up in pace, just in time to shake you out of the warm haze and right back to reality.