I just got off the phone with the psychedelic friends network.

I’m still try­ing to come back around to Ghost’s In Stormy Nights. I have a hard time believ­ing that it’s been, what, three years since Hyp­not­ic Under­world com­plete­ly blew my mind and that I’m find­ing so lit­tle to hang on to with their lat­est record. Of course, as I draft­ed this, “Moth­er­ly Blus­ter” sound­ed more appeal­ing than it had on pre­vi­ous lis­tens, so this may be a 180 degree turnaround.

Nonethe­less I’m find­ing sus­te­nance else­where: Marathon­packs has a track from Haru­mi, a band that pret­ty obvi­ous­ly had some impact on Ghost’s spec­tral psy­che­delia. Eric thinks he’s hear­ing new Dun­gen in it, but Haru­mi is way too inter­est­ing for a direct com­par­i­son to Tio Bitar. There’s plen­ty of sec­ond-rate Swedish psych to com­pare it to any­way. If you can’t tell, the new Dun­gen record isn’t find­ing favor with me. I mean, I went to at least three shows where they debuted no new mate­r­i­al and were just re-pre­sent­ing Ta Det Lugnt in more ambi­tious, insane­ly well-rehearsed fash­ion and then — poof — there’s hard­ly any evi­dence of that patience and dis­ci­pline on Tio Bitar.

As far as new psych is con­cerned, I’ve been using Raven Sings the Blues and home away from home Paper Thin Walls as repos­i­to­ries for new stuff worth audi­tion­ing. Most recent­ly it was Black Moth Super Rain­bow, which final­ly showed up in the mail on Fri­day [after I bought a used copy the day before.] Check it out at Raven Sings…but I’ll be sure to have some thoughts post­ed here shortly.

[Dare I say that Pitch­fork’s Fork­cast has had a few nice tid­bits inter­spersed with the detri­tus that neces­si­tates auto­mat­ic cov­er­age? I mean, even I have an imeem.com account now!]