August was a slow month for The Third Eye but a busy month for me. My wife and I traveled back home to Philly for a two-week visit and saw lots of family and old friends, which was excellent but a little exhausting. Especially when you do the trip by car over two days. I didn’t get much time to digest new releases, but god damn, my cursory review showed it was a great month for psychedelic music.

The eleven albums on this list range from instrumental space rock jams to traditional Pakistani folk and much more. The Stray Birds from the Far East finally landed internationally, OSEES released a new record, REZN and Vinnum Sabbathi gave us an excellent collaborative album, and many of our favorite labels continued to supply great new music.

Another note: I decided to expand the definition of this list from “Best Psychedelic Rock” to “Best Psychedelic Music.” There are a few records on here you might not label as rock, and they may even only be borderline psychedelic, but we enjoyed them enough to give them a spot.

So, dig into the list and get lost in the psychedelic sounds!

Best Psych Music of August 2023

Flowers & Dead Souls by Acid Rooster

Release Date: August 25, 2023
Subgenre: Krautrock/Space Rock
Bandcamp Link

Acid Rooster is an instrumental psych-rock band comprised of three childhood friends who’ve been jamming together for a long time. You can tell how close these guys are because their partially written and mostly improvised jams show them highly in sync with each other.

Flowers & Dead Souls is their third studio album and harkens back to the spirit of German kraut rock and early psychedelic pioneers. Acid Rooster has gained a reputation for their great live shows and inventive jams, and this new album is one you’ll want to check out.

Traveling a Higher Consciousness by Astral Construct

Release Date: August 25, 2023
Subgenre: Space Rock/Heavy Psych
Bandcamp Link

If you regularly read The Third Eye, you may be tired of hearing about Astral Construct’s new album, Traveling a Higher Consciousness. We’ve reviewed the album (here), premiered one of the singles (here), and interviewed the mastermind behind this solo project (here) all within the past month or so.

But bear with us this. Drew Patricks is the solo space traveler behind Astral Construct, and his sophomore album is a huge artistic leap into the outer realms of instrumental space rock. This is heavy psychedelic music to get lost in and expand your consciousness – and we at The Third Eye don’t care if we have to cover it a million more times to get the word out.

Silent Future by REZN & Vinnum Sabbathi

Release Date: August 11, 2023
Subgenre: Heavy Psych/Stoner Rock
Bandcamp Link

This is another album we’ve discussed a lot on The Third Eye recently and for a good reason. The collaborative album Silent Future from REZN and Vinnum Sabbathi is a prime example of great heavy psychedelic and stoner rock.

REZN’s atmospheric psych-doom meshes well with Vinnum Sabbathi’s cosmic rock and creates a “true union of heavy exploration.” Both bands worked to craft a highly artistic, lush, hypnotic album filled with heavy riffs and, as the bands say on Bandcamp, “megalithic ambiance.” Don’t miss this one.

Matthew’s Hidden Museum

Release Date: August 3, 2023
Subgenre: Heavy Psych
Bandcamp Link

Matthew’s Hidden Museum is the solo project of U.K.-based Josiah frontman Matthew Bethancourt, a bizarre trip into a blend of styles like alt-rock, occult rock, progressive, heavy psych, and stoner. Songs like “Golden” hit with a satanic jangling rhythm, and other tracks like “The Voyage of the Psyche” take us on a bleary-eyed, psychedelic trip through space.

There’s much to like on this album for the fan of weird psychedelic music, and Matthew’s Hidden Museum contains many wonders to be found. It’s ethereal, a bit sinister, and always entertaining. Finish the journey with the last track, “(Golden) Kiss Divine,” a mellow and melancholy psychedelic send-off.

Gardner’s of The Earth by White Canyon & The 5th Dimension

Release Date: August 4, 2023
Subgenre: Garage Rock/Shoegaze
Bandcamp Link

White Canyon & The 5th Dimension is a psychedelic group from Brazil that dropped their third studio album in August. They say Gardner’s of The Earth is packed with “tribal rhythms, spacey, and fuzzy guitars reverberated in a shimmering drone.” The vocals are immersive, transparent, and smooth.

The album’s central theme is our connection with the ancient and ancestral, giving the record a psychedelic-spiritual vibe. “When cosmic gardeners sowed their secret wisdom here,” the band says. “The search for our universal consciousness and mental improvement.”  I’m not sure if listening to the album enough will help you achieve enlightenment, but you’re damn near guaranteed to enjoy the trippy, heady, and transcendental-like music.

Garden of Flowers by Amir Hayat

Release Date: August 5, 2023
Subgenre: Experimental/Acid Folk
Bandcamp Link

This unique album is presented by Radio Khiyaban, an experimental sound platform that releases the music of traditional artists from Russia, Pakistan, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and beyond. Garden of Flowers was initially released digitally in 2022 and is now available on cassette.

The performer, Amir Khayat, is a teacher at an Ismaili school in Karimabad in northern Pakistan, where he writes poetry and songs in Burushaski in the traditional style. Amir performs the pieces to the accompaniment of the rubab, an instrument common in Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan. 

I wouldn’t say Garden of Flowers is very psychedelic, though that tag is used on the Bandcamp release. However, it could be psychedelic in a George-Harrison-experimenting-with-foreign-music way (but this is the real deal, of course). Nevertheless, it’s an interesting release worth checking out.

Intercepted Message by OSEES

Release Date: August 16, 2023
Subgenre: Psych-Punk/Garage Rock
Bandcamp Link

LA-based OSEES is a psych band that needs no introduction for many in the scene, and they returned in August with a new album of wild psych/punk, synth-heavy jams called Intercepted Message. Their Bandcamp reads: “Psych-punk warrior, ear worm-farmer, and possessor of many stamped passport pages John Dwyer does not let up.” After listening to this album, you’ll likely agree.

Intercepted Message is a crazy, eclectic album the band even tags as ‘80s prom slow jams, and it contains retro-futuristic tracks that would’ve been good for a tripped-out Bladerunner soundtrack. Fans of KGLW and Frankie and the Witch Fingers should eat this up, but they probably already know by now.

Ritual in Transfigured Time by Ivan The Tolerable

Release Date: August 4, 2023
Subgenre: Experimental/Drone
Bandcamp Link

Ivan The Tolerable is the solo work of Oli Hefferman (Year of Birds/King Champion Sounds/Detective Instinct/Shrug), who sometimes plays with a band and is “sometimes loud/sometimes quiet.” All his records are “the product of impatience and a restless mind.” I can relate to that.

He began recording the album during Christmas 2022, and the title comes from a Maya Deren film of the same name. It’s “seven evolving chunks of psychedelic repeato krautjazz,” and if that doesn’t pique your interest, I’m not sure what will. “Ritual in the Hall” is my favorite track, a bizarre ambient stomp that jams on for more than eight minutes and closes the album with a psychedelic flourish.

Time Goes By (Springtime Outtakes) by JB Paterson

Release Date: August 18, 2023
Subgenre: Folk/Cosmic Country
Bandcamp Link

JB Paterson is an Australian songwriter and producer working out of Cedar Creek, Qld, in a solar studio. Time Goes By is a four-track EP compiled by JB from his “treasure trove of outtakes” from the Springtime is Coming album sessions. The EP includes three unreleased original songs plus an alternative version of a favorite from the album, “If You Love Me.”

The EP is full of peaceful singer-songwriter, folky tunes with touches of “cosmic country” enough to make it onto this list. The strong vintage vibes remind us of late Sixties/early Seventies folkies. Songs like “Borderline” chime with beautiful acoustic guitar and melodies, soaked in a Flower-Power chill tempo that will make you want to relax in the country in the sunshine.

Be Quiet, The Spheres Are Talking by God of Delusions

Release Date: August 4, 2023
Subgenre: Folktronica/Neo-Psychedelia
Bandcamp Link

Ghosts of Dharma started as a solo project of the self-taught multi-instrumentalist Lucas Levy. Lucas uses the moniker God of Delusions for his more experimental music, which includes the recently released Be Quiet, The Spheres are Talking. 

The New York-based Lucas explains that the transition back to a full-time college student has been stressful. So, he’s been using music-making as an outlet through the rigors of schoolwork. The result was this album, a beautiful electronic and neo-psychedelic trip of ten relatively short and colorful tracks. All the songs have an electronic krautrock feel that’s calming and meditative.

Stray Birds From the Far East by Tō Yō

Release Date: August 18, 2023
Subgenre: Acid Rock/Stoner Rock
Bandcamp Link

Last but certainly not least on this list are the acid rock wizards from Japan, Tō Yō, who have unleashed the fury of their psychedelic madness upon the world with their debut album via King Volume Records. If you read The Third Eye regularly, you know how much we like this one.

The Tokyo-based psychedelic quartet’s dreamy, pop-infused concept album has a psychedelic sound that’s “at times violent and at times naive,” according to vocalist and guitarist Masami Makinom. If you haven’t listened to Stray Birds From the Far East yet, what are you waiting for? Fans of other international psych masters like Goat and Kikagaku Moyo will surely enjoy this.

That’s a wrap! Shoot us a message if you think we left out any albums that deserved a spot on this list – we’re always open to suggestions. Head to Bandcamp to support these hardworking artists and labels, as well.

I included a Spotify playlist below if you want to try before you buy these albums.

Parting words: “Some days in late August at home are like this, the air thin and eager like this, with something in it sad and nostalgic and familiar …” – William Faulkner, from The Sound and the Fury

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