Hey, everyone! Is it just me, or did July fly by? It’s been a hot-ass summer, and climate change is cooking the planet everywhere you go. At this rate, we may spend even more time indoors with each passing year.

Luckily, we have plenty of new psychedelic music to listen to monthly. July was no different, bringing us many great psych albums from all over our giant, burning globe. This month, we start in Africa and end up in Poland, but we make stops in Japan, California, Germany, and Ireland along the way.

If you like weird psychedelic music, you’re bound to enjoy a few of the albums on this list. We try to cover every corner of the psychedelic world each month, and if we leave out an album that deserves mention, please let us know!

Now, enough talk – let’s get to the list!

Best Psych Rock of July 2023

A Trip To Bolgatanga by African Head Charge

Release Date: July 7, 2023
Subgenre: Reggae/Dub
Bandcamp Link

Psychedelic reggae and dub music? This is a first for The Third Eye. We’ve written about the legendary dub musician and producer Lee “Scratch” Perry before, but that’s as far as we’ve talked about dub music. But there’s a first for everything, right?

African Head Charge is the long-running studio and live collaboration between master Jamaican percussionist Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah and English dub producer Adrian Sherwood that uses a revolving cast of guest players. The project uses a unique blend of polyrhythmic outernational sounds (whatever that means), but it’s all fascinating, groovy, and, yes, psychedelic.

A Trip to Bolgantanga is African Head Charge’s first new album in 12 years. The Bandcamp description says the album is “a musical journey to Bonjo’s current hometown in north Ghana” and a “psychedelic travelogue across the landscape featuring their trademark hand percussion and group chanting augmented with rumbling bass, mutated horns, dubbed-out effects, wild wah-wah” and more.

The Story of Blind Dead Timmy by Subtropical Daddy

Release Date: July 7, 2023
Subgenre: Acid Folk/Primitive Guitar
Bandcamp Link

Blind Dead Timmy is a Japanese bedroom musician known for his improvisational skills on stringed instruments like slide guitar, steel guitar, and tenor guitar, according to the label Perpetual Doom. He also performs under the alias Subtropical Daddy, where he draws inspiration from Okinawa’s distinctive natural features and subtropical climate.

The Story of Blind Dead Timmy was released before 2023, but the label Perpetual Doom re-released it in July, so I wanted to include it. You may not think of these sounds as exactly psychedelic, but the improvisational guitar playing has plenty of hints of acid folk. Plus, I love the so-called primitive guitar genre of players like Blind Dead Timmy, William Tyler, and Marisa Anderson and how it has seen a resurgence lately.

Blues for Archie Shepp by the Man from Atlantis with Camila Nebbia and Simo Laihonen

Release Date: July 7, 2023
Subgenre: Experimental/Spiritual Jazz
Bandcamp Link

The Man from Atlantis is a Melbourne, Australia-based musician using folk, country, blues, punk, American primitive guitar, Indian classical, psychedelic, and free jazz as a reference point to “traverse the sonic space-ways.” If that sounds like many styles mixed, wait until you hear this record.

The Man from Atlantis says he previously made “unpopular music” as a member of a Nineties art prog noise-based project Ray of Creation and krautrock duo Imperial Leatherman. To be honest, this record likely won’t be very popular, either, or break any sales records, but that’s not because it’s not good, engaging, and great music for readers of The Third Eye.

This is the type of music that’s experimental to the core. It’s five tracks that will take you on a strange, psychedelic journey featuring the help of Argentinian tenor saxophonist Camila Nebbia and Finnish percussionist Simo Laihonen. Record Crates United states, “If there was ever a record for the heads, it’s this one.” I tend to agree with that, and I think if you order the vinyl on Bandcamp, it should be delivered with a couple of joints.

Freeway Junkie Queen by Kareeta

Release Date: July 7, 2023
Subgenre: Cosmic Country
Bandcamp Link

Speaking of joints, the cover for Kareeta’s Freeway Junkie Queen features a country hippie blazin’ and drivin’, giving you a good sense of the album’s music. California-based Kareeta’s second album was recorded at a studio deep in the Northern California redwoods, and it’s a country-fried, psychedelic ride through the backroads of the Golden State.

“Ain’t No Hippies” is probably my favorite track on this fine album, but it’s hard to pick the best one – this may be my favorite record of the month. It’s interesting that these guys hail from California because their sound has a real Southern rock feel. However, there’s just enough weirdness and Grateful Dead vibes to make this jam-fest psychedelic enough to make this list.

ALL – remastered version by Colour Haze

Release Date: July 3, 2023
Subgenre: Stoner Rock
Bandcamp Link

Colour Haze needs little introduction in the stoner/heavy psych community. They’ve been making great tunes for a long time, having released a tremendous full-length album last year called Sacred. This release of All in July isn’t a new album – it’s a re-mastered version of a 2008 record. Nevertheless, I thought it deserved a place on this list.

All is a great Colour Haze album where the band has “enriched their musical universe with a sitar, delicate female backing vocals, and acoustic ballads.” If you’re new to Colour Haze, the band says this record is good for Led Zeppelin, Soundgarden, Cream, Queens of the Stone Age, Jimi Hendrix, and Mars Volta fans. Colour Haze has remastered a few of their albums, including 2006’s masterpiece, Temple, so this version of All is worth checking out, too.

Astral Blackout by Heavy Moon

Release Date: July 12, 2023
Subgenre: Space Rock/Progressive Rock
Bandcamp Link

Heavy Moon is the studio project of Candian multi-instrumentalist Jakob Rehlinger. He’s fueled by kosmische synths and psychedelic guitar work and uses Heavy Moon “as an astral bridge to take listeners to the outer reaches of space.” Far out!

On Astral Blackout, Heavy Moon says he “has returned from his sojourn on the astral plane to bring dire warnings hidden within the notes of the pentatonic blues scale.” The record contains six long tracks of bluesy instrumental jams that should appeal to listeners of bands like Sendelica and Black Sky Giant. You can’t find this one on Spotify, so head to Bandcamp to check it out.

What Fabric? By Space Shepherds

Release Date: July 20, 2023
Subgenre: Jam Band/Experimental
Bandcamp Link

Long live the jams! Ireland-based Space Shepherds are back and better than ever with What Fabric? – four tracks that contain more than an hour’s worth of relaxing yet inspiring psychedelic jams. What more could you ask for?

No two Space Shepherd improvisational jams are ever quite the same, and they prove this on the new album they dropped in July. All the songs are at least 13 minutes long, with one track (“Who Knows”) slightly longer than 27 minutes. If spacey jam bands are your thing, this album is pure heaven.

Moon Blood by Fraction

Release Date: July 14, 2023
Subgenre: Hard Rock/Classic Rock
Bandcamp Link

Fraction isn’t some new underground band you’ve never heard of – they are an L.A.-based group from the early Seventies whose Moon Blood LP from 1971 has developed a cult-like following over the years. RidingEasy Records has re-mastered and re-released this old gem for our listening pleasure.

Fraction was a ragged collection of working-class musicians, and this is a highly fascinating record that psychedelic fans should check out. The vocals conjure the spirit of Jim Morrison with the deep baritone and occasional howls. The fuzzed-out riffs also set a template for what’s known as stoner rock today. If you’re interested in psych rock history, you won’t want to miss this one.

Moon Blood was pressed in a run of a few hundred in the early Seventies and got little attention in its day. But now inferior bootlegs flood the market, and originals of this record command thousands of dollars. RidingEasy Records’ re-mastered version features three lost tracks, as well.

Daydream by Black Sand

Release Date: July 15, 2023
Subgenre: Lo-Fi/Shoegaze
Bandcamp Link

Black Sand is an Auckland, New Zealand-based project that creates fuzzed-out, reverb-drenched drone and psychedelic lullabies to lose yourself in. Daydream is “a series of pleasant thoughts that distract one’s attention from the present.”

Black Sand seems preoccupied with this distraction theme in his description of the six-track EP, and the music supports this. Compared to other records on this list, Daydream is chill, relaxing, and easy on the ears. The droning shoegaze sounds will calm you down and remind you of other shoegaze/dream-pop acts like Beach House and Slowdive.

Flower Power of the Witching Hour by Fairyport Convent

Release Date: July 8, 2023
Subgenre: Kraut Punk/Experimental
Bandcamp Link

Poland-based Fairyport Convent’s new record comes to us from The Swamp Records, and it’s one of the weirder albums on this list that’s “just in time for the hazy summer.” From what I gathered, this is a one-person band that plays improvised rock ‘n roll jams. The Bandcamp description says everything was recorded live with minimal overdubs like guitar solos or synths.

“‘Flying Object Alert’ is probably the closest on here I got to my dream sound, but also, the title track, and two ballads – Canvas and Our Turn to Try, the latter inspired by Psychedelic Moods of The Deep,” the band says. 

The music has a real extraterrestrial quality, so track titles like “Flying Object Alert” that conjure images of UFOs are pretty spot on. If you like your psychedelic music as strange as possible, you’ll enjoy this one.

That’s a wrap! Let us know if any albums deserve mention here that we may have left out – we’re always open to suggestions. And head over to Bandcamp to support some of these artists and these fantastic albums!

I have included a Spotify playlist if you want to “try before you buy” these albums. But note that many of the albums on the list aren’t on Spotify, so you may have to find them exclusively on Bandcamp.

Parting words: “In summer, the song sings itself.” – William Carlos Williams

If you like what you read, consider supporting The Third Eye on Patreon.

You can also sign up for The Third Eye’s email newsletter below: