There are some artists whom have a profound, almost life-changing effect upon the music fan. For the casual listener, the significance of certain albums can be hard (almost impossible) to understand, and yet for the life-long music lover to return to that treasured piece is to feel once again the emotions of a moment and to relive the excitement and passion that flowed the moment the needle hit the groove. It seems that Venice Trip, the London-based psychedelic band and I share at least one such favoured album in the form of ‘Piper at the gates of dawn’ for, not content with having formed at Pink Floyd’s former university, Venice Trip have, miraculously, captured that glorious mix of invention, naivety and love for the R&B greats that came before that made the early Pink Floyd so beloved. As a result Venice Trip capture the feel of the Floyd without necessarily taking their sound wholesale, and other influences appear in the form of the Doors, and (perhaps more contentiously) in the form of Buffalo Springfield, whose honeyed vocals the band capture perfectly.
The band open this second effort (following on from the two-track single ‘Reign dance’), a three-track EP, with ‘look forward’, a wonderfully lysergic piece of music that combines the sun-kissed vocal harmonies of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and reams of Syd Barrett-esque reverb-drenched guitar only to set it against Joe Woods’ hyperactive drums and Nick GK’s endlessly probing bass. As the song drifts through the multi-coloured fields of the band’s imagination, lead guitarist Andres Alcover is given free rein to indulge himself, an opportunity he gleefully takes, and the guitar sizzles with new-found energy towards the song’s conclusion. The result is a piece of music that looks forward through the lens of past glories, offering a fresh take on the wonders of early-sixties London and finding it possible to be inspired without having to resort to plagiarism. ‘Oh Katy’ sees the band indulge in the loose-limbed R&B of the Doors with the more typically English reserve that you can imagine the likes of Nick Mason employing and the song ambles through bluesy pastures as Ben Camburn adds layers of tremolo keyboards and glorious harmonies to Andres’ rich vocals. The EP concludes with ‘father of the universe’, a darker trip that travels a grittier road as crushing piano chords and distorted guitars vie for space and only Andres’ voice serves as a beacon in the darkness, guiding us through and occasionally sliding into an echoing scream as he wards off some unseen danger in the vortex of whirling drums and frazzled guitar. It’s the perfect close to the EP and it underscores not only the versatility of the band, but also their desire to explore the wide realms of psychedelia to the full.
Venice trip are an imaginative, original band who take their cues from myriad artists and fashion their own unique sound from those venerable parts. Michael Smith, who produced the EP, has done a fantastic job of capturing the band’s raw spirit and rendering it cleanly but without the soulless digital feel of so much that is recorded in the modern era. The artwork (sadly uncredited – but please do drop us a line in the comments so we can rectify this) is wonderful and I can only hope a vinyl edition is planned for the future because this stunning cover deserves the space. In short, the ‘look forward’ EP is a piece of work in which I took unconditional pleasure reviewing and I cannot recommend it highly enough to those whose tastes run to the stoner, the progressive or the psychedelic. You can find out more about the band here: http://venicetripmusic.com
