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lucid

http://www.music-news.com/review/UK/12141/Album/The-Lucid-Dream

‘All human beings are also dream beings. Dreaming ties all mankind together’ Jack Kerouac

Carlisle psych troupe-a-doors of perception The Lucid Dream weave (un)conscious premonitions via their third-eye magnum opus Compulsion Songs.

Last year’s eponymous long-player was critically (app)lauded, a feat in repeat already with this new collection. With added far-(enc)ou(n)ters of the fuzz-kind, get on board and soar. They are also the only band to annually play Liverpool’s Psych Festival (23 – 24 September), with higher billing each time. Hear we go …

Round certain parts of the North West of England a ‘bad Texan’ is a character ‘with high opinions of themselves’ and to be kept at arms’ length (c.f. beaut). (Segue alert!) Me, I think of George ‘Dubya’ Bush, that miscreant death-chair endorsing empathy-void oaf who epitomises the corrupt cesspit known as geo-democracy and backhanded backslapping. Nevertheless the song is a sprawling sonic holo-slaught that smashes through the fourth wall, perception demolished, you are we and me am I. Together as us. A rabbit hole lotta love.

Hauntology pervades ‘The Emptiest Place’, a ghostly lament in the vein of Joe Meek’s kitchen sync output. The tripping forecast of ‘Stormy Waters’ sees this four Tet offensive evoke those eight miles high-flying all-singing Byrds, harmonic reverbalising and turbulent tidal waves of aural flotsam stick in the craw(daddy). And stay there.

Eight-minute space-dub ‘I’m A Star In My Own Right’ concocts a Hawkwind meets Jah Wobble eff-echt with the vocals reminiscent of 1960s bubblegum pop-blowers Kasnetz Katz Singing Orchestral Circus’s ‘Quick Joey Small’. Proper Tippa Eerie, I tell thee.

Climaxing with the double-dipping-tripped-itch-tych of ‘Nadir/Epitaph’, a combined 18 minutes of blissed out noise FX and ace of bassing. The former an electro-pulsing sixth-sense building tease that bursts the psychic bubble. The latter’s hypnotic coda is a stark reminder of the Great Stone Roses Cock ‘n’ Bull Swindle and their turd-polishing Situationist prank-action: It says ‘you can have your past and stick it where the sun don’t shine. The present and future are there for the taking. Mine’.

Yet again these phantaseers proffer seven 24 carat nuggets to pebble-dash your mind’s landscape. Improving with every release this astral plane touches the orbit, tighten your Van Allen belt, set yourself adrift on memory muscle bliss, rev up and get your motor psyche in.

If the Society of the Spectacle erases personality then Compulsion Songs colours it back in. Dream big, dream lucidly.