Tag: psych pop

New Video: King Black Acid Shares Trippy and Groovy “Dialing 911”

Daniel Riddle is Portland, OR-based is a singer/songwriter and musician, who has written and recorded music under the moniker King Black Acid since the late 1980s, while spending time as a member of industrial outfit Hitting Birth. Since the early 90s, Riddle has led a number of different collectives and projects that have toured and shared stages with Elliott SmithNirvanaLowMobySonic YouthThe Dandy WarholsFaith No MoreDead Moon, MenomenaThe FugeesArctic MonkeysSpacemen 3DanzigNine Inch Nails and more. 

Throughout his career, Riddle’s music has been featured on CSI: MiamiBuffy the Vampire SlayerUnderworld: Rise of the LycansThe Mothman PropheciesWitchbladeDream With FishesDo Me a Favor and CNN Sports, as well as ad campaigns for Nike, Reebok, Tiger Woods Golf, CNN, Coca-Cola, Abercrombie and Fitch, Gap and The Olympics. 

Riddle’s latest King Black Acid effort, Telling Secrets in a Crowded Room is slated for an August 21, 2026 release through Cavity Search Records/Mazinga Records. The album reportedly features 10 cinematic and anthemic songs that “embrace total and subversive emotional anarchy.”

Telling Secrets in a Crowded Room‘s latest single “Dialing 911” is a sleek and mind-bending synthesis of Madchester-era sound, Evil Heat-era Primal Scream and Echoes-era The Rapture dance punk that showcases the collaborators uncanny ability to craft a remarkably catchy hook.

“Fierce stoner pop that explores the fragile human psyche in the modern digital thought prison,” the band says of the new single.

KThe accompanying music video by Kat Perkins and Daniel Riddle features a mix of collage-driven animation reminiscent of The BeatlesYellow Submarine and the intro to Monty Python with strobe lit, monochrome footage of Riddle and dancing and instrument playing humanoid rabbits. Trippy, indeed.

New Audio: Moon Construction Kit Shares Cinematic “Down the West Coast”

Olivier Cornu is a a Lausanne-based singer/songwriter, musician, producer and creative mastermind behind Moon Construction Kit, And with Moon Construction Kit, Cormu specializes in a sound that draws from and meshes elements of indie pop, psych pop, synth pop, late 1960s pop and film scores.

The Swiss-based artist’s latest single, the Steve Stout co-produced “Down the West Coast” is a sun-dappled, tune featuring twinkling synths, a supple and propulsive bass line and dreamy woodwinds serving as a lush bed for Cormu’s dreamy delivery. Seemingly channeling Pavo Pavo’s retro-futuristic, 60s psych pop vibe, “Down the West Coast” is a remarkably cinematic, sun dappled tune that’s perfect for that summertime road trip with the track conveying bittersweet nostalgia, the hope of new beginnings and new experiences, the barely contained excitement for new experiences.

New Video: Babe Rainbow Shares Groovy “Polymuscalsaccharide”

Aussie JOVM mainstays Babe Rainbow — Angus Dowling, Jack “Cool-Breeze” Crowther and Dr. Elliott “Love Wisdom” O’Reilly — will be releasing their seventh album, ACID AND HONEY on July 16, 2026 through Impressed Recordings. Recorded on a houseboat-based thrift shop in Amsterdam and finished a zen master Mullarky’s Malibu ranch, the album’s material is a synthesis of country-pop beat production with hip-hop-inspired, hard rocking finger funky sounds paired with wailing vocals.

“Polymuscalsaccharide” ACID AND HONEY‘s first single is a sun-dappled, hook-driven tune that seemingly channels Oracular Spectacular-era MGMT, anchored around a hypnotic groove, bursts of twangy guitar paired with dreamy vocals. The track manages to evoke a hazy, psilocybin-fueled trip on a summer afternoon with some pals. Fittingly, the accompanying video is mind-bending while capturing the band’s goofy, surfer seeding the next big wave-like vibes.

New Video: POND Returns with Searching and Yearning “Through The Heather”

Perth-based JOVM mainstays POND — currently, Nicholas Allbrook (lead vocals, guitar, keys, bass, flute, slide guitar and drums); singer/songwriter and producer Jay Watson (vocals, guitar, keys, drums, synths and bass), who’s also the creative mastermind of acclaimed JOVM mainstay outfit GUM and a touring member of acclaimed, Grammy Award-nominated JOVM mainstays Tame Impala; Joe Ryan (vocals, guitar, bass, 12 string guitar, slide guitar); Jamie Terry (keys, bass, synths, organs, guitar); and Jamie Ireland (drums, keys) — will be releasing their 11th album Terrestrials on June 19, 2026 through their newly-minted Mangovision/Secretly Distribution

The writing and recording process for Terrestrials was subject to a simple set of rules: No fuzz pedal. No ballads. No “Pink Floyd shit.” Conceived from a place of deep reverence for a particular potent era of Oz rock, the JOVM mainstays’ 11th album reportedly mines the sound of open sky melancholia, heat haze sizzling on the plains and jangly pub backrooms that will hit an eternally poignant nerve for those familiar with the sound, time and place. And from there, the album evolved with the idea of “Goths at the pub” becoming the record’s stylistic north star — with 80s Australiana being acid-washed with the post-punk of Sisters Of MercyMagazine and the like. Throughout the album’s creative and recording process, they’d ask themselves “Would Goths like it? Could you have a beer to this?” If the answers were yes, it was thrust into the mix. 

Like much of their catalog, Terrestrials is a record of people and place, of exploring the identity of each, as well as where and how they intersect and interact. Thematically, the album touches upon extractive capitalism, power dynamics., inequality, Indigenous incarceration, eccentric outcasts, fire and water, diesel and dust, unity and division, blood and bauxite, unborn tomorrows and dead yesterdays. And as a result, the album’s material twitches with the desperation of people and their planet on the brink, but while betting on the beauty of both to prevail. 

The album will feature the recently released, album title track “Terrestrials,” he Sisters of Mercy-meets-Diesel and Dust-era Midnight Oil-like “Two Hands,” and the album’s third and latest single “Through The Heather.” Anchored around a chintzy and shimmering Casio keyboard-like synth melody and driving rhythms, Terrestrials‘ third single may arguably be the album’s most searching and achingly yearning tune.

“Through the Heather” was initially conceived while Pond toured Europe last year. Drummer/Keyboardist Gin kept himself entertained by conjuring musical experiments on Ableton; a few a day until something stood out. “Then him and [multi-instrumentalist + founding member] Gum worked on it more in a hotel room while watching Ice Road Truckers or something equally shit,” frontman Nicholas Allbrook explains.

“Sometimes rock and roll is a glamorous game baby, but mainly it isn’t. Funny that such a beautiful, melancholic, searching song was born surrounded by chip packets and track pants in a van full of filthy pigs,” Allbrook continues. “We had so much fun making the spring reverb thunderclaps, giving the spring a cheeky little pinch to make it go BOOM, looking out over the Indian ocean from our porch/studio in Seabird while MasterChef played silently in the corner. Let that be a lesson to all you young rockers ok? Can’t get too inspiring ya know. Gotta keep a lid on it. Chucking on the telly or making a samwich or having a nap should do it.”

Animated by Albert Pritchard, the accompanying video for “Through The Heather” is a mind-bending visual that features heather growing near a medieval-styled castle, a bat flying through a lightning storm, an army of marching red-eyed spiders and more.

New Audio: El Paso’s oKMark Shares Swooning “Sin Tu Permiso”

El Paso-based outfit OkMark crafts an analog synth-driven take on space rock and psych rock, anchored by their frontman Marco’s deeply personal lyricism.

Their latest single “Sin Tu Permiso” is a brooding bit of lo-fi-like psych pop that seemingly channels JOVM mainstays Tame Impala and Kainalu but anchored around a swooning, desperate heartache and unease. The song captures a narrator, who’s paralyzed by their own fear in the face of an unbelievably difficult situation.

The band’s frontman explains that he wrote the song for anyone, who has wanted to leave a relationship but couldn’t — not because of their partners but because of what they would be leaving behind.

“I started working on the music on a Shinkansen train in Japan using an OP-1, building upon minor chords that already carried that weight of melancholy,” he explains. “The production reflects this: a Moog bassline [sic] at 90 BPM, dense layers of dark synthesizers, and vocals that crack at the emotional peak. It is dark electronica infused with the intensity of the Mexican bolero.”

New Audio: Johan Hiro Shares Vibey and Trippy “the vacancy”

Jonah Hiro is a Boston-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer, who specializes in a brand of bedroom psych pop informed by his obsession with blown out sounds, trippy and hypnotic soundscapes, paired with dreamy vocals. 

Hiro released his debut EP, lost at sea earlier this year. The EP features the mesmerizing opening track “i gaze at mars” and “the vacancy.” Featuring twinkling keys, quivering synths, blown out beats paired with Hiro’s layered and dreamily delivered harmonies, “the vacancy” seemingly channels a mind-bending synthesis of Sgt. Pepper-era The Beatles, Dark Side of the Moon and Tame Impala to create a lo-fi, lysergic vibey tune.

New Video: Hush Shares Lysergic “Funhouse”

Montréal-based trio Hush — Paige Barlow (vocals) and multi-instrumentalists Miles Dupire-Gagnon and Gabriel Lambert — are part of a new wave of Montréal-based acts actively reshaping psych pop. Each member of the band is an accomplished member of the local scene with the band featuring members of Hippie HourrahElephant StoneAnemone, and The Besnard Lakes

Citing an eclectic array of influences that includes BroadcastThe Velvet UndergroundMelody’s Echo ChamberSteve LacyCocteau Twins and Ariel Pink, the Montréal-based psych pop trio create a sound that’s simultaneously nostalgic and forward-looking. Their music lives in the blurred light of perception — half memory, half hallucination — and is an invitation to lose yourself inside of their hall of mirrors-like dream world. 

The Montréal-based trio’s highly-anticipated full-length debut, Phasing is slated for a May 22, 2026 release through Simone Records. The album will include the previously released “The Mirrors Were Right,” the album’s opening and title track, “Phasing” and the final pre-release single, “Funhouse.”

“Funhouse” is a lush, shape-shifting tune with elements of dream pop, house music, trip-house and komische musik that’s mesmerizing, cinematic — and perfect for a deeply contemplative, neon-tinged, late night drive. The result is a song that features , hook-driven grooves with lysergic textures that seem to dissolve in front of your eyes and reassemble elsewhere while Paige Barlow’s ethereal vocal seems to coquettishly dance around and within the song’s groove.

Recorded largely live with various elements re-amplified through a Leslie speaker to create a swirling, three-dimensional feel, “Funhouse” sees the trio balancing mathematical precision with a spaced-out, almost blissy vibe.

Lyrically, the song probes the faith placed in systems meant to explain the world — romance, religion, identity — long after their answers begin to thin. As Barlow puts it, it’s a “theatrically messy interpretation of romance – a sequel of love learned.”

“It’s about the confidence people place in systems that promise meaning,” she adds. “They can start to feel like answers from a Magic 8-Ball—you shake it, wait for clarity, and sometimes the answer is just: try again later.”

Directed and filmed by the band’s Barlow, the accompanying video features looped lyrics projected onto footage of irises, further emphasizing the song’s and the album’s overall themes of perception and distortion.

New Video: POND Returns with Anthemic, Post Punk-Like “Two Hands”

Perth-based JOVM mainstays POND — currently, Nicholas Allbrook (lead vocals, guitar, keys, bass, flute, slide guitar and drums); singer/songwriter and producer Jay Watson (vocals, guitar, keys, drums, synths and bass), who’s also the creative mastermind of acclaimed JOVM mainstay outfit GUM and a touring member of acclaimed, Grammy Award-nominated JOVM mainstays Tame Impala; Joe Ryan (vocals, guitar, bass, 12 string guitar, slide guitar); Jamie Terry (keys, bass, synths, organs, guitar); and Jamie Ireland (drums, keys) — will be releasing their 11th album Terrestrials on June 19, 2026 through their newly-minted Mangovision/Secretly Distribution.

The writing and recording process for Terrestrials was subject to a simple set of rules: No fuzz pedal. No ballads. No “Pink Floyd shit.” Conceived from a place of deep reverence for a particular potent era of Oz rock, the JOVM mainstays’ 11th album reportedly mines the sound of open sky melancholia, heat haze sizzling on the plains and jangly pub backrooms that will hit an eternally poignant nerve for those familiar with the sound, time and place. And from there, the album evolved with the idea of “Goths at the pub” becoming the record’s stylistic north star — with 80s Australiana being acid-washed with the post-punk of Sisters Of Mercy, Magazine and the like. Throughout the album’s creative and recording process, they’d ask themselves “Would Goths like it? Could you have a beer to this?” If the answers were yes, it was thrust into the mix.

Like much of their catalog, Terrestrials is a record of people and place, of exploring the identity of each, as well as where and how they intersect and interact. Thematically, the album touches upon extractive capitalism, power dynamics., inequality, Indigenous incarceration, eccentric outcasts, fire and water, diesel and dust, unity and division, blood and bauxite, unborn tomorrows and dead yesterdays. And as a result, the album’s material twitches with the desperation of people and their planet on the brink, but while betting on the beauty of both to prevail.

The album will feature the recently released, album title track “Terrestrials” and its second and latest single, “Two Hands.” The Sisters of Mercy-meets-Diesel and Dust-era Midnight Oil-like “Two Hands” is slick, shimmering and downright anthemic tune, but it throbs and twitches with anger familiar anger and despair over a society that values money above all — including this planet and our lives.

“This song is about when mining company Rio Tinto blew up Juukun Gorge in the Hammersley Range in Western Australia. They destroyed sacred rock shelters that were of the highest archaeological, cultural and spiritual significance,” POND’s Nicholas Allbrook explains. “The rock shelters contained a cultural sequence spanning 46,000 years that had been taken care of by the local Indigenous communities. I was wondering how the commentators around this country would’ve reacted if the shoe was on the other foot and someone had demolished the Vatican or Notre Dame or St. Paul’s because it was in the way of their corporate expansion. Anyway, its a little word of encouragement that you’ve got every right to be very fucking angry about this injustice.”

Directed by Sam Kristofski and the JOVM mainstays, the accompanying video will remind Americans of The Dukes of Hazard but set in a post-apocalyptic hellscape that nods at Mad Max. Allbrook continues, “The video was made by us and Sam Kristofski (with heaps of help from Tess Thompson, Kate Green and Christian Dillon). We filmed it in York and the Beverley Offroad Motorsports Association on one of the hottest days of the summer. Az was tough enough to wear full leathers the whole time. Endless thanks to him and Ry for fully embodying the soul of this video with their enduring passion for dust, rust, black cans, circlework and fucked up old motorcars.”

New Audio: Boston’s Jonah Hiro Shares Dreamy, Lo-Fi “i gaze at mars”

Jonah Hiro is a Boston-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer, who specializes in a brand of bedroom psych pop informed by his obsession with blown out sounds, trippy and hypnotic soundscapes, paired with dreamy vocals.

Hiro released his debut EP, lost at sea earlier this year. The EP’s opening track “i gaze at mars” is a mind-bending and mesmerizing tune, featuring buzzing bass synths, blown out, skittering beats, twinkling keys as a lush, chilled-out bed for the Boston-based artist’s dreamy delivery. The result is a song that kind of reminds me of a lo-fi take on JOVM mainstays Tame Impala, GUM and POND while showcasing Hiro’s ability to craft a remarkably catchy hook.

New Video: POND Shares Rousingly Anthemic Yet Existential “Terrestrials”

Today, Perth-based JOVM mainstays POND — currently, Nicholas Allbrook (lead vocals, guitar, keys, bass, flute, slide guitar and drums); singer/songwriter and producer Jay Watson (vocals, guitar, keys, drums, synths and bass), who’s also the creative mastermind of acclaimed JOVM mainstay outfit GUM and a touring member of acclaimed, Grammy Award-nominated JOVM mainstays Tame Impala; Joe Ryan (vocals, guitar, bass, 12 string guitar, slide guitar); Jamie Terry (keys, bass, synths, organs, guitar); and Jamie Ireland (drums, keys) — have shared a new single, “Terrestrials,” the first bit o new material from the Aussie outfit since 2024’s Stung!

“Terrestrials” begins with a meditative and slow-burning intro, before quickly morphing into a bombastic rocker, anchored around fuzz and phased out guitars, glistening synths that showcases the band’s unerring knack for incredibly catchy hooks and rousingly anthemic choruses. Thematically, the song is a meditation on the great mystery and contradiction of humanity, a species capable of great love and great cruelty — often simultaneously.

“Gum wrote the music for this one and we recorded this in Mullumbimby with Julian Abbott at Nowave studio,” POND’s Nicholas Allbrook explains. “This song is about the weirdest of all the terrestrials, people. Hellbent on flying away from or killing our home soil, with a big appetite for destruction, guns, roses. We can love and connect and nurture and inflict unbearable cruelty. You all know this but, yeah, it’s kind of a great mystery isn’t it? It’s almost more supernatural than extraterrestrials. Which is probably why we wrote this song. There aren’t many of us who can forget for even a second about the unborn tomorrows and dead yesterdays but among them are, apparently, kids and people in love. My cousin Iz helped write this with our chats.” 

Directed by Jesse Taylor Smith, the accompanying video is a mix of live performance footage and trippy animation.

Along with the new single and video, POND announced that they will be opening for Djo — the musical project of producer, singer/songwriter, musician and actor, Joe Kerry, best known for his roles in Stranger Things and Fargo for a handful of East Coast dates, including a July 17, 2026 stop at Forest Hills Stadium. Tour dates are below. Tickets will go on sale Friday, March 20, 2026 at 10:00am local time.

New Audio: Lukka Shares Dreamy and Meditative “Fabric of the Cosmos”

New York-based indie trio LukkaBerlin-born, New York-based creative mastermind Franzi Syzmkowiak (guitar, vocals), Ashley Gonzalez (bass) and Simon “SiFi” Fishburn (drums) — have long operated at the crossroads of space rock, neo-psychedelia and synth-driven indie pop. The band’s sound is anchored around hypnotic grooves, immersive textures and melody-driven songwriting, frequently blending repetition with expansive, atmospheric arrangements featuring driving bass lines, propulsive rhythms, delay pedaled guitars and layered analogy synths, and equally atmospheric production.

Syzmkowiak has travelled across the globe, seeking a musical home that felt right. She had stints in Australia, New Zealand and Argentina before settling in New York. “New York City felt like the right place to meet like-minded people,” she says. “The reason I make music is that it serves as an escape from everyday reality and the problems of daily life. Songwriting helps me process what is happening around me. Music, and especially synthesizer sounds, takes me to another realm where I can feel at peace and experience emotions I have not felt elsewhere. Creating music almost feels like a religious act. Having a band and being an artist in this city has allowed me to meet so many other interesting people. Through these relationships, I feel that I am part of a larger creative community, which creates a strong and meaningful sense of connectedness.”

The trio’s third album, the Abe Seiferth-produced Wendekind is slated for a June 5, 2026 release. The band’s Syzmkowiak was born around the fall of the Berlin Wall. She explains that children, who were born in East Germany at that time were called wendekinder, a generation born into a new, free world. Her mom would always call her a wendekind. “It felt like the perfect title for the album,” she says.

Recorded at Brooklyn-based Transmitter Park Studios, Wendekind reportedly sees the band expanding upon the sound of 2022’s Something Human while pushing further into much more immersive, synth-driven territory.

Thematically, Wendekind sees the New York diving deeper into the metaphysical, tracing loss and memory, while questioning one’s place in an infinite and seemingly indifferent universe. For Syzmkowiak, the album is a deeply personal and reflective effort, moving between memories of the past, and hopes for the future while touring on space, time, chance and self-discovery.

“Over the past three years, a series of events pushed me to look inward and question what had been driving my choices and behavior,” Syzmkowiak says. “The album became a deeply personal and spiritual journey, leading me back to my roots and to memories of where I came from.”

Wendekind’s first single, “Fabric of the Cosmos” is a meditative slow-burn that features Syzmkowiak’s dreamily yearning delivery ethereally floating over glistening synths, boom bap-like drumming and phased out guitar. Seemingly channeling Pavo Pavo, the cinematic new single, as Syzmkowiak explains is “about trying to see beyond the three-dimensional world and being only able to-do that through e-motion (electric motion/vibrations), dreams or day visions. The song slips into the metaphysical world.”

New Video: GUM Returns with Meditative “In Life”

Over the course of his career, JOVM mainstay and acclaimed Aussie singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Jay Watson has developed a reputation as one of his homeland’s most prolific and exploratory artists, and as arguably one of the country’s busiest musicians: He currently splits his time between JOVM mainstay acts, Tame ImpalaPOND and his own project GUM

Watson recently signed to King Gizz‘s p(doom) records, who will be releasing his self-produced seventh album Blue Gum Way. The album’s title reference Australia’s blue gum eucalyptus trees, while subtly nodding to melancholy, place and atmosphere. 

The album, which dropped today follows his 2023 GUM effort Saturnia and his 2024 collaboration with King Gizz’s and The Murlocs‘ Ambrose Kenny-Smith, Ill Times

The JOVM mainstay’s seventh album marks a deliberate shift in approach. While his previous releases embraced restless experimentation and stylistic left turns, Blue Gum Way finds Watson focusing on a singular mood and sonic identity, allowing atmosphere, emotion and restraint to take center stage. 

The nine-song album inhabits a widescreen, jazz-influenced psychedelic soundscape, drawing from Talk Talk, John Martyn and Radiohead. Elegant, patient and quietly melancholy, the album showcases an artist comfortable with vulnerability and clarity of expression, unburdened by the desire to prove anything. Interestingly, the album emerged in complete contrast to his concurrent work with POND and his collaboration with Kenny-Smith, and sees him favoring harmonic density and unhurried ambience over immediacy or roots-driven simplicity. 

Written largely in insolation, the album allowed Watson to lean into deeply personal thoughts and emotions. Lyrics, which were one secondary in his creative process, now play a much more central role, exploring anxiety, adaptation and life’s pivotal moments with an impressionistic touch. 

Blue Gum Way includes the previously released “Expanding Blue” “Celluloid” and the album’s latest single “In Life.” “In Life” is a meditative tune featuring atmospheric synths, a supple bass line and arguably some of the most gorgeous and expressive guitar work Watson has recorded to date. And while mediative, it’s not sad. But it does carry a wizened sense of “well, what if x instead of y. Where would I be? Who would I be?”

“This song is about a fork in the road, a sliding doors moment where your life could have been completely different based on one decision,” Watson says.

Directed by Sam Eastcott, the accompanying idle for “In Life” features Watson as a stranded man, akin to Castaway in the brush. Desperately trying to survive and to keep himself entertained, he sets up a place to play music. Because I mean, of course.

New Video: Hush Returns with Shimmering and Woozy “Phasing”

Montréal-based trio Hush — Paige Barlow (vocals) and multi-instrumentalists Miles Dupire-Gagnon and Gabriel Lambert — are part of a new wave of Montréal-based acts actively reshaping psych pop. And each member is an accomplished member of the local scene, with the band featuring members of Hippie Houraah, Elephant Stone, Anemone, and The Besnard Lakes.

Citing an eclectic array of influences that includes BroadcastThe Velvet UndergroundMelody’s Echo ChamberSteve LacyCocteau Twins and Ariel Pink, the Montréal-based psych pop trio create a sound that’s simultaneously nostalgic and forward-looking. Their music lives in the blurred light of perception — half memory, half hallucination — and is an invitation to lose yourself inside of their hall of mirrors-like dream world. 

Late last year, I wrote about the Canadian trio’s debut single, the Bibi Club-like “The Mirrors Were Right,” which also serves as the first single from their full-length debut, slated for a 2026 release through Simone Records. Their debut album’s second and latest single, album opener “Phasing” is a shimmering and ethereal blend of 60s psych pop, trip-hop and dream pop with Barlow’s radiant delivery darting and dancing around the dreamy accompanying arrangement and production.

The song thematically explores the uneasy ebb, shift and flow of feeling and perception, at points questioning the reciprocity and durability of our relationships with a seemingly lived-in quality.

Conceived by the band’s Paige Barlow and Aabid Youssef further emphasizes the song’s woozy and mind-bending blur: We see blurry images of local scenes projected both behind and in front of the band. The band also blurs in and out throughout.