Black Market Karma is a veteran psych group from London now residing on the South Coast of England. On July 21st, they will return with a new record, Wobble, a 12-track collection of “casette-ified” lo-fi psych-pop. It’s Black Market Karma’s eleventh studio record and their first on Fuzz Club.
The band leader and multi-instrumentalist Stanley Belton writes and produces all the group’s albums. They’ve collaborated with psych legends, such as Sonic Boom (Apacemen 3), The Telescopes, Tess Parks, Joakim Ahlund, and The Underground Youth, along with touring with The Black Angels and The Warlocks.
BMK’s prolific output has been self-released from Belton’s live-in Cocoon studio until now. The new LP pools influences from ‘60s pop and psychedelia, crunchy hip-hop beats, and lo-fi electronica. Wobble is the first of a two-part album series, with the second part coming soon.
The LP’s title references tape wobble and analog recording equipment’s subtle fluctuations in pitch characteristics. This was once seen as a limit by older generations of musicians but has recently evoked a welcome sense of nostalgia among newer generations. That nostalgia is what BMK sought to excavate on their latest record.
Belton said, “Sonically, I wanted the album to feel like a collection of discarded and worse-for-wear instruments came to life, refurbished themselves, and started to play. The sound attempts to give form to the often formless feeling of nostalgia. With songs attempting to crystallize a feeling known as ‘fernweh.’ A longing for a place and time you’ve never experienced, be it in this world or another.”
BMK has released three singles from Wobble thus far. “Stepping Loose” is a four-minute-plus instrumental that pairs jangly guitars with hip-hop breakbeats in a surprisingly satisfying way. The laid-back vibe and lo-fi production are punctuated by BMK’s knack for merging disparate genres into a cohesive whole.
“Puddle Eyed Sponger” doubles down on the hip-hop backbeat and mixes in a healthy dose of ‘60s-sounding psych-pop. “Oozer” is filled with interesting sounds and distant chimes, a song that touches heavily on nostalgia but acts as a bridge between generations of psychedelia.
If the singles are any indication, Wobble will be an excellent release. Whether you’re a classic psych or modern experimental music fan, BMK’s new music offers a little something for everyone. Nostalgia is hard to avoid in modern psychedelic music, and not everyone taps into it well. Black Market Karma is one of the few newer psychedelic bands that does.
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