Never understood why I sold my 2XLP of Agaetis Byrjun. I knew I would need it in reference one day. That day has come. Psychedelic Horseshit have signed to the venerable Fatcat Records UK. I've heard Laced -- and I can attest the superlatives I've given it (Kid A done by the Bomb Squad) are warranted. Matt Horseshit toiled away, cutting reel after reel after reel. Remixing and re-ducking back in the his perpetual drug den for inspiration -- paranoia taking hold only to increase the beats, the supersonic sound-collage, and the tender-loving, two-shy-of-"pretty," moments towards the spacey climax of this record. I'm thinking they've been blackballed by P4K, and ignored by Hipster Runoff (Matt Horseshit was Carles before Carles), because if any of these outlets had preview of Laced, it wouldn't matter if Psychedelic Horseshit dissed Ryan Schreiber's mother. As much as I enjoy Odd Future and the immense hype-load they've produced, Laced is something that could truly change perspectives.
Here's the official press release (via FatCat):
"Formed in Columbus, Ohio, in 2005, Psychedelic Horseshit were astoundingly prolific for their first five years, releasing cassettes, CDRs, and 7” singles on their own and on a variety of labels, with their debut full-length Magic Flowers Droned appearing in 2007. Their aesthetic at the time – which Vice described as “the most heart-poundingly great racket since that My Bloody Valentine covers record Comets On Fire never made”, and the London Times called “the sound of an angry Mark E Smith stripping wallpaper with a distortion pedal” – comprised a chaotic cocktail of protest folk, barbed garage punk, scrawny white dub, free noise, tin-can electronica, and shoegaze.
Forming a dense collage of trashed tones and in-the-red mixes, veering between challenging and genuinely catchy, and generally resembling the addled states of a full-blown drink and drug binge, Psychedelic Horseshit have been variously compared to The Fall, The Dead C, early Pavement, Royal Trux, Guided By Voices, Swell Maps, Sebadoh, Harry Pussy and Magik Markers, and located alongside the messy amp-blown brilliance of contemporaries The Hospitals, Tyvek, Eat Skull, and Sic Alps. Keeping a step ahead of the lo-fi scene they christened “shitgaze”, they've drawn on a broad range of influences instead of the xeroxed anorexia of many of their peers, have ruffled feathers by critically speaking out, and carved out caustic, humorous social commentary through snarky wordplay and witty titles.
Currently existing as the duo of Matt Horseshit (vocals/ guitars/ drum programming/ harmonica/ keyboards) and Ryan Jewell (drums/ percussion/ keyboards), Laced also features a guest appearance by Times New Viking's Beth Murphy, who sings on “Dead On Arrival”. Laced was recorded in Columbus throughout 2010 (with two tracks dating back to the previous year), in a variety of basements, practice spaces, living rooms, and bathrooms using almost no amplifiers and a beat-up 70's Teac reel-to-reel. No longer solely mining corrosive, lo-fi dysfunctionality in two-minute adrenaline hits, Laced is the first record that finds Psychedelic Horseshit consistently stretching things out and breaking new ground: losing the caked-in distortion and aggression, while retaining a drugged density and adventurousness, it is cleaner and far more electronic than previous efforts.
Sections of Jewell’s drumming are chopped, sampled, and re-sequenced, piling up rhythms and loops; the emphasis on rhythm and a spiraling mass of processed tones and melodies makes Laced, at timesx feel like a very fried, psychedelic dance record. Squelchy, fluid, and immersive, its huge blown-out swathes of blissfully reverberant FX, buried voices, smeared electronics, and melted-out guitar processing complement moments of blissed-out frequency mess to recall the most sublime moments of Growing or, alternately, Astral Social Club; there are shimmering loop-sections, places where the whole buckles in on itself.
At the center of the slurred, swirling chaos is Matt Horseshit’s gnarly, nasal vocal. In his words, Laced “has a vague concept about dreams and the hollowness of words…vibes of disdain for the music scene that's unfolded over the course of the last few years, and trying not to get crushed under waves of imposed identity in a sea of garbage. It's about experimenting, and win or fail getting back up to do it all again cause safe was never fun in the first place… The references that seem like drug references usually aren't, just like “I Hate The Beach” isn't really about the beach... I think the record is really about smokescreens and the interzone of a reality where everything is connected and simultaneously completely disconnected at once...and dealing with finding your face after its been pounded to a bloody pulp by digital pixel fragments. Or something like that.”
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