From the days when he had a crystal eye and jacked tabs, Richard Norris has plumbed psyche for all it's worth... He's kept with it; straining to hear drumbeats and synth washes where they might have been or should have been in bargain basement, zero album, lost 7" garage bands from the 60s. Pitterpatter. Squelch. Zing. Swirl. A few clunks along the way which reminds me somehow of the disorientated lost soul of the Circle guitarist wrapping himself in bliss and cable during their performance at legendary Cloudboy hangout The Cube in Bristol. This music might be largely synthetic but it's paradoxically authentic as well, in that the (patchouli) smoke and the (convex) mirrors seem very real, or at least hyperdelic and hyperreal. This is nostalgia with knobs on and it glistens with the thoughts of what might have been. The glistening is important because it's not hauntological at all; it's almost the flipside - no sadness implied, it's nostalgia with zero tolerance for misty eyed beardy weirdies, nostalgia that doesn't breathe deeply at the thought that everything faded away into nothing. It glistens instead with the thought that nothing faded and everything still might be and as such it's beautifully at odds with the times, just like psyche ought to be.
Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve are the past zeroing into the present; Hawk winds and analogue simulations and sounds that manage to seem dug out rather than preset. Some of their stuff pulls back the curtains on the final few scenes of Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls - the mushroom madness, the P-Orridging, even the final apologetic coda with the bubbling streams...
Here's a DJ set from Manchester
Not sure about the name though, Richard...
