When people describe 21st century psychedelic music as “lo-fi,” are they talking about the ends of that music–what we hear–or the means that go into its creation? I think that most people use the term to signal a certain sound: the golden, degraded, passed-twenty-times-over-a-cassette-recorder aesthetic, minted by acts like Ariel Pink and The Skaters and forming a primary earmark of what David Keenan recently termed “hypnagogic pop.” But let us not forget that there are millenial psychedelic artists who employ equally “lo-fi” recording technologies without necessarily building a shrine to the crackle and warp of low-fidelity.
Mixed and recorded by front-man Leo Maymind in a makeshift bedroom studio off the Montrose stop on the L, the Spanish Prisoners‘ new single “Los Angeles Guitar Dream” strikes a refreshing crystal-clear note in a DIY landscape that has become almost over-saturated with, well…over-saturation. In addition to putting a little spring in your step, it might actually make you realize how much a little empty space can do for great song-writing. When Maymind does indulge in a little electronic denaturing–heavy reverb on the lead guitar, grainy mist on the female vocals–each sound makes a hyper-vivid and hyper-imagistic imprint on your ear drums, not unlike that unforgettable guitar riff on Radiohead’s “Talk Show Host” that made us stop drooling over Leonardo Dicaprio/Clare Danes for a moment and turn on to its almost tactile hallucination of the shores of Verona Beach.
Spanish Prisoners, “Los Angeles Guitar Dream” (“Los Angeles Guitar Dream” 7″ Single)
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Words: Emilie Friedlander
Tags: Ariel Pink, Clare Danes, David Keenan, Leo Maymind, Leonardo Dicaprio, Los Angeles Guitar Dream, Radiohead, Spanish Prisoners, Talk Show Host, The Skaters, Verona Beach
The ends/means distinction is a good one to make, I think. Nice track.