The Third Eye

It’s that time of year, folks. The New Year is always a time for self-reflection and reviewing the year that has just passed. There were good times, bad times, and everything in between. It was an excellent year for The Third Eye, as the site grew beyond what I expected and hopefully brought people joy.

I know running The Third Eye has brought much joy into my life. Yes, I know I’ve mentioned a hiatus for the site, but I’m unsure what the future holds. A lot of what happens will depend on my full-time employment. I plan to keep doing this for as long as possible, though I need to devote more time to my career, family, self-care, and other good things in 2024. We’ll see.

The New Year is also a time for The Third Eye to reflect on all the tremendous psychedelic music from 2023. Creating a definitive list of the best psych albums for a year is tough. Who do I leave out? Who do I include?

I don’t have the time or energy to do a deep dive into all the great albums, but I have created a truly massive Spotify playlist with what I think are the best psychedelic records of 2023. My personal bias is reflected in the choices, and, as usual, my definition of psych music is broad and all-encompassing.

The list ranges from the punishing heavy psych/stoner of Acid King, Aiwass, and Deer Lord to the pleasant psych indie-pop of The Garment District and MITYA to the instrumental komische of Pure Land Stars and The Far Sound. Cosmic Country is represented on the list with Jack Tully & The Seers, The Bures Band, Kareeta, and others. You’ll find the Japanese world psych masters To Yo beside the Italian psych masterminds Giobia. You’ll also find the Zamrock legends WITCH alongside Melody Fields, White Canyon & The 5th Dimension, Oslo Tapes, The Royal Family, and Apex Ten.

When there’s so much great music, it’s hard to leave musicians and artists out. The playlist contains more than 45 hours of psychedelic sounds from 2023; I leave it to you to pick and choose your personal favorites.

I tried to narrow everything down to a Top 10 list, but the list kept getting longer. However, I was able to get it down to a Top 25. That’s 25 albums over 12 months that I feel were the best of the psychedelic genre and its many subgenres, ranging from heavy to light and everything in between.

Here’s my Top 25 included with the appropriate Bandcamp link.

1. Stray Birds From the Far East by Tō Yō
2. Trembling Under the Spectral Bodies by Pure Land Stars
3. Aashray by Apex Ten
4. Acid Disorder by GIÖBIA
5. Flowers Telegraphed to All Parts of The World by The Garment District
6. Staring at The Sun Before Goin’ Blind by Oslo Tapes
7. Birds Nest by The Bures Band
8. 1901 by Melody Fields
9. Gardners of the Earth by White Canyon & The 5th Dimension
10. A​ş​k by Altin Gün
11. Flowers & Dead Souls by Acid Rooster
12. The Far Sound
13. Sleep Walkers by Some Pills for Ayala
14. Freeway Junkie Queen by Kareeta
15. Solace by REZN
16. Zango by WITCH
17. Easy Portals by DWLVS
18. Medicine by Goat
19. The Royal Family
20. Diversions Vol. 2: Enter the Astral Plane by Kanaan
21. Traveling a Higher Consciousness by Astral Construct
22. Ether Dome by The Savage Blush
23. Wide Ranging Rider by Golden Brown
24. What Fabric? by Space Shepherds
25. Kukulkan by UAY

Be sure to support these hardworking bands and musicians on Bandcamp. Buy physical copies of these albums, whether CDs, cassettes, or vinyl. Buy their merch like t-shirts or whatever. Find out when they’re coming to your town and see them live. Hell, write them a personal note.

Spotify playlists or great, but as we all know, the royalties suck. The psychedelic underground has never been a lucrative field – and it never will be – but each buck you throw to one of these bands helps fund new music in most cases.

I’m unsure what 2024 has in store for me or The Third Eye, but cheers to a successful year for the blog and an excellent year for psychedelic music. Let’s make goals for the New Year and not call them resolutions because making New Year’s resolutions seems so cliche. Let’s carry the spirit of love and experimentation at the heart of great psychedelic music into 2024.

Thanks for all your support of the blog this past year and for reading all the reviews. Now, let’s toast to a year of new music ahead.

Check out the Best Psych of 2023 playlist below:

Parting words: “For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice.” – T.S. Eliot

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