Here comes the sun! No, I’m not talking about The Beatles song. I’m talking about the literal appearance of the sun, which is out and shining where I am in the Nashville area as spring has sprung and the days grow longer.

This, of course, means it’s time for more summer and spring-esque psych jams, though this isn’t exactly what I’ve been listening to lately. I’m still digesting the awesomeness of the new Acid King record (which we covered here), but I’ve discovered some other stuff I’ll share with you this week.

In this week’s installment, we have heavy psych from Russia, ambient country from the Pacific Northwest, creepy desert folk from Texas, and more. Enjoy!

Psych Jams of the Week

Atlas by Apodemus

This first release comes to us from Russia, an instrumental heavy psych/stoner metal album for all you lovers of all things heavy. Apodemus is very much under the radar – there’s not much of anything out there about them on the interwebs, but they’re worth checking out, for sure.

Atlas was released on March 24, the band’s second LP and first new music since the Signal EP in 2020. Atlas contains only six songs but clocks in at nearly an hour, hitting peaks and valleys of heaviness with good doses of melodic guitar playing. The album is mostly your standard instrumental stoner fare, but a good one, nonetheless.

I don’t imagine Apodemus has many American fans, but maybe we can change that. Their song Signal was featured on the Fuzzy Cracklins Presents digital album Psychedelic Genocide Part B 2020 in March 2021, along with bands like Psychlona and other heavy underground heroes, so they’ve been in good company before. You can also purchase Apodemus’ entire discography for under seven U.S. dollar bills on Bandcamp, which is one hell of a deal, in my opinion.

By Morning by Ann Annie

We turn down the volume with this next one, a cosmic/ambient country release from 2022 from Ann Annie. He’s an electronic composer and live performer based in Oregon who grew up in the Pacific Northwest and has a surprisingly large following on Spotify.

I love ambient music as much as I like the heavier stuff, and I can’t seem to get enough of this type of tape music/electronic folky sound. Ann Annie has released a good bit of music since 2017 that you can sink your teeth into, including six full-length albums. This one – By Morning – is his latest LP, evoking dreamlike landscapes and is perfect for relaxation.

As explained by one music reviewer, Ann Annie’s YouTube channel has become very popular and a “safe haven from the Internet hellscape.” I’m also interested in ambient so much lately by the immense resurgence it has had in recent years, probably since the pandemic started, as detailed in a recent great piece on Pitchfork. More of us are spending more time alone, which is part of the ambient genre’s appeal, along with trying to get away from the noise and stress of everyday living in modern-day society, especially in large, crowded cities.

This is a big reason why the modular, organic, and electronic sounds of artists like Ann Annie have become so popular. With so many of us living inside and cut off from nature, for the most part, we’re bringing nature sounds to our ears instead of our other four senses. But I digress. Ann Annie, a jazz-trained artist, is an ambient composer to put on your radar, and you might as well start with her new record, By Morning.

Torii Gates by Jeffrey Silverstein

We keep the vibe soft and slow with this 2021 release from Jeffrey Silverstein, who’s also based in the Pacific Northwest (Portland). Silverstein is a guitar player and composer of this new-ish guitar-driven ambient country I’ve been loving so much lately, like the aforementioned Ann Annie. He crafts beautiful and richly textured songs that channel the natural grandeur of his part of the states.

Silverstein is very much at the center of the guitar instrumental/cosmic country movement with others I’ve written about, like Bobby Lee, Golden Brown, and William Tyler. Torii Gates is a splendid EP, great for a Sunday, and it includes the glorious sounds of the pedal-steel guitar from Barry Walker Jr.

Running, teaching, and meditation have been Silvertsien’s ways to understand himself and others further, and so has music, according to him. This EP from 2021 is “largely a celebration of the unknown, small joys, and learning to be comfortable with transition,” he says on Bandcamp. The players who joined him on the album allowed Jeffrey to “explore, question, and expand upon ideas that floated freely in (his) mind for quite some time.” He said, “it felt so nice to ground these ideas through music and collaboration.”

If you dig Torii Gates and Silverstein’s music, you won’t have to wait long for new tunes from him. His second full-length album, Western Sky Music, is due out in May 2023 and features guest appearances from William Tyler and others.

The ToTemist by Ak’chamel, The Divinatory Monkey, and the Sovereign Plumed Serpent

We take a turn into the heart of darkness with The Totemist, a 2020 release by the mysterious Ak’chamel from Houston. This record was dropped on March 20, 2020, right as COVID-19 reared its ugly head in the U.S. The strange timing could be coincidental, but maybe The Totemist spontaneously appeared as the darkness of quarantines came. After all, their Bandcamp bio reads, “If you are willing to bargain chunks of your soul, Ak’chamel will gladly take them and re-sell ’em at double market value.”

The Totemist was written and recorded in a West Texas ghost town, a place where the band says the dead outnumber the living. Some of the eerie sounds were captured in a historic cemetery, an ancient burial ground “filled with small grottoes and graves made of sticks and stones.”

The creepy factor of The Totemist is undeniable, a darkly psychedelic exploration that takes us to liminal places, and we commune with the dead. This is music for seances and forbidden things, like a soundtrack for a Lovecraftian story. Some of the songs, like The Funeral of a Woman Whose Soul is Trapped in the Sun, feature the rhythmic, ghostly chants of unknown voices. There are parts of the album that are even hard to listen to with their disturbing sounds.

You could call this desert folk exotica from a former death metal band (seriously) that, at turns, enchants and gives off a feeling of foreboding. Protected by the Ejaculation of Serpents is one song with a tuned-down vocal chant that, if you heard it while walking alone at night, would send chills down your spine.

The Middle Eastern vibe is here, too, along with world folk and psychedelia, all mixed together in a fascinating blend. Ak’chamel achieved the intended effects with this record, for sure. Play it loud to scare your neighbors, or save it for the spooky season after horror-movie marathons. If you dig it, there’s a follow-up album from Ak’chamel that was released earlier this year called A Mournful Kingdom of Sand that you may also enjoy.

Black Acid Soul by Lady Blackbird

Now, this one is an unusual pick for The Third Eye. Black Acid Soul is mostly a jazz album in the mold of Billie Holliday and Gladys Knight. LA-based Lady Blackbird has a gorgeous, emotionally intense voice, but if you don’t like jazz standards, you may not enjoy this. Nevertheless, there are touches here and there throughout the album of acid jazz and black psychedelia that I thought was enough to deserve a mention on this psych music website.

Black Acid Soul was released in September 2021. Most tracks have a minimal, classic jazz sound, such as It’ll Never Happen Again, a soft, slow number that shows off Lady Blackbird’s vocal chops. But then there’s the title track, Black Acid Soul, which slinks and slithers with a thrumming bass line and weirdo synthesizer, reminding me of acid-jazz-era Miles Davis.

I’ve been more interested in black and afro-psychedelia lately, especially the reaction to Lil Yatchy’s Let’s Start Here. It comes as such a surprise to most people that Lil Yachty would branch out into psychedelic soul (and the record is very good, in my opinion). But it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. Psychedelic music from African-American artists has a deep and rich history, from Hendrix to Funkadelic to Sly and the Family Stone.

But back to Black Acid Soul. Beware the Stranger is another great track, though not a very psychedelic one. This record may be mostly for jazz fans, but at least check out the short and sweet title track.

It’s Bandcamp Friday, so you know what that means – head to the site, support some of these hard-working artists, and spread the news!

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