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Jun 23, 2014 The Brian Jonestown Massacre/Magic Castles By Frank Valish

Sometime in the late 2000s, The Brian Jonestown Massacre frontman Anton Newcombe moved to Germany, built his own studio, and proceeded to continue doing basically whatever he wanted, this time farther away from the haters, the detractors, and the naysayers. Since the mid-‘90s, The Brian Jonestown Massacre has been synonymous with throwback psych/folk/rock and roll, from its Stones-referencing name to its ‘60s-referencing sound. But Newcombe’s esoteric nature and fellow-band-baiting always tended to sabotage whatever progress BJMass tended to make with the overall populace, thus keeping its music to the fringes, which is perhaps exactly where Newcombe wants it.

For Record Store Day, Newcombe’s “a” Recordings record label released a split 12” single with The Magic Castles, a band of Newcombe-approved psychedelics who are also signed to “a.” The BJMass side of the beautiful clear-with-white-splatter vinyl features “Goodbye (Butterfly),” the last track on BJMass’s recently released 14th album, Reflections, along with the non-album track “Lions Ride Free.”

“Goodbye (Butterfly)” is a fantastic slice of swirling melodic psych. It’s laid back, smooth, flute-driven cool. Newcombe has been cranking out tunes like these forever, but he’s clearly perfected his craft, adding nuance and layers to his anachronistic wonderland. The second track on Side A is “Lions Ride Free,” an instrumental that takes the ever-recognizable riff from The Beatles’ “I Am the Walrus” and sets an entire tune around it, three and a half minutes of a theme, with plucked electric guitar weaving in and out.

Magic Castles, a six-piece from Minneapolis, makes music right up Newcombe’s alley. “Rebecca’s World” is a slow bit of organ-led psych that sounds, to the song’s benefit, like it was recorded at 3 a.m. when the players were too tired to play much faster than a lazy crawl. “Trembling Hands” is much of the same, lulling the listener into a fugue state before the track disintegrates into noise and feedback at the track’s end. It’s a perfect complement to the tracks on Side A and makes one want more. (www.brianjonestownmassacre.com / www.facebook.com/themagiccastles)

Author rating: 7/10