psychedelic garage Archives - Vinyl From The Vault

L.A. Witch “Octubre”

sfilzen — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 17:32:23 +0000

L.A. Witch “Octubre” 2019. Suicide Squeeze Records, limited edition Halloween black and orange vinyl. 5-track EP of psychedelic garage rock from Los Angeles. Spooky, lo-fi and trashy, perfect for the season. According to the blurb on Suicide Squeeze’s page:

There is no better season for these kinds of songs than the autumn when the promises of summer have abated and the nights of reckoning grow longer. L.A. Witch seized the moment by revisiting some of their early tracks and reshaping them into Octubre, a five-song EP that delves deeper into their darker side. “Because these are old songs—we don’t play them live anymore but still wanted them to be heard—this was the perfect opportunity to get experimental with sounds and textures,” Sanchez says of the EP. Despite this new studio adventurism, the songs on Octubre stay true to L.A. Witch’s vintage starkness.

Singer Sade Sanchez has a bluesy and sultry voice which is juxtaposed by her stark guitar work, but enhanced by the deep rhythms of drummer Ellie English and bassist/organist Irina Pai. My top track is “Sleep,” which has sort of a sinister rockabilly flavor and an excellent beat. “Heart of Darkness” has a bit of a bendy and creepy funhouse vibe while somehow still feeling sad and sweet and the final track, “Outro” is a brief sleepy hollow closer.

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Frankie and the Witch Fingers “Bonehead/i-Candy”

sfilzen — Wed, 07 May 2025 18:15:28 +0000

Frankie and the Witch Fingers “Bonehead/i-Candy” 2024. Limited edition white vinyl, The Reverberation Appreciation Society records. Hard psychedelic garage rock, double A-side single. Both tracks appear on their Live at KEXP record released in April 2025. “Bonehead” is buzzy and high energy, with shreds galore. The band says about the track (via the Levitation website) “We wanted to capture the chaotic energy of those unfiltered live moments. Recorded the basics in one take, warts and all. Thrashing around with a crowd of free spirits reminds us we can push back against the parasitic noise trying to keep us controlled—this is a little slice of that in recorded form.” “i-Candy” is a sassy bopper, with some Devo-esque synths and a swirly infectious danceable beat. “This was one of the first songs to emerge from the incubator of recent demos. ‘i-Candy’ is a female sex robot, she isn’t programmed for any man’s need; she’s out to clean up the streets and settle the score in blood.” So fun!

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Frankie Sunswept & The Silver Moons “Nostalgia”

sfilzen — Wed, 30 Apr 2025 17:34:32 +0000

Frankie Sunswept & The Silver Moons “Nostalgia” 2025, limited edition “Kaleidoscopic Sunset” vinyl, Romanus Records (sort of).* Dreamy psych garage: think King Gizzard but much lighter and brighter. Like tripping at the beach on a sunny day (vs late, dark nights under starry skies with the Lizard Wizards). Frankie Sunswept has a cazillion releases under various headings: solo under that moniker, under what I think is his real name (Frank Hoier) and then as part of the band Crushed Out, who were active from 2010 until 2018. The Silver Moons is his latest project, a six piece that formed in 2024 in New York. Their what I suppose can be called debut album, Nostalgia, seems to be a mix of previously released Sunswept solo material, including the title track “Nostalgia” originally released in 2019, both “Dream Eyes” (great psych-pop!) and “Melting Summer” from 2020 (1970s tropical/Mediterranean trippy), and “Dog Days” from 2021. Others seem to be newer material, like “Tears of a Crocodile” and my top pick, “Futureless” which is has a super kicked back cool hypnotic psych vibe.

*The Romanus label does not appear anywhere on the record, cover or lyric insert. However I got the LP directly from the Romanus label so I know they manufactured and distributed it. Not sure why Frankie didn’t include it as the label for this release; his previous solo release Turning from 2021 does sport the Romanus label.

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The Witches “A Haunted Person’s Guide To”

sfilzen — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 17:51:44 +0000

The Witches “A Haunted Person’s Guide To” 2011. Limited edition clear yellow (but looks orange) vinyl, Alive Records. Detroit psychedelic garage rock. A Haunted Person’s Guide is a comp of the band’s catalog from 1996 to 2007. It’s on the jangle end of garage, not much in the way of dark hypnotic sounds as some psych garage can be. There’s some strong blues inspiration, especially on one of my top tracks “Why Do U Make Me Feel Like That” which has some excellent slide guitar and an ass-meets-tambourine shaking beat. That track first appeared on The Witches’ 2002 album On Parade. The 60’s organ garage sound makes a little cameo on the fun and mildly funky “She Got Some Kinda Thing” (off the 2001 album Universal Mall). There’s some spooky shit, too, as both their name and the comp record’s title suggest like “The Haunted Regulars” (from the 2007 Thriller!) and the monster-mashy “Creepin’ Thru Yer Galaxy” which I think is unique to this comp.

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The Limiñanas “Faded”

sfilzen — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 19:14:32 +0000

The Limiñanas “Faded” 2025. Limited edition red vinyl, Berreto Music/Because Music Records. Sultry psychedelic garage rock from France, chock full of collaborations including two tracks with Jon Spencer. I must have been one of the very first people to preorder it as I also received a limited to 100 7″ single. Faded is something like their 10th release since their 2010 debut. The Limiñanas remain soooo cool and their latest LP does not disappoint: it’s slinky and shimmery plus the multitude of musicians brings an excellent variety to the album. Of course my top tracks are the two Spencer songs: the laser-tinged “Space Baby” (classic Spencer yelps, growls, “Yeahs!” and silliness: “I’m floating in that tin can…”) and “Degenerate Star.” I’m also a big fan of “Prisoner of Beauty” featuring Bobby Gillespie (The Jesus & Mary Chain, Primal Scream) and the jangly Bowie-esque “Shout” featuring Rove (aka Timothée Régnier). And while my rudimentary high school level French doesn’t help much with parsing the lyrics, I also really love the French-lyric’d collaborations: “J’adore le Monde” with French singer/composer Bertrand Belin and the sexy, whispery “Catherine” sung by French singer Anna Jean (whom Discogs tells me is daughter of Nobel-prize awarded author J.M.G. Le Clezio). The Limiñanas-only tracks are pretty damn good too, especially their rendition of the classic r&b song by Richard Berry, then garage rock song popularized by the Kingsmen “Louie Louie” (and apparently the world’s most recorded rock song) that The Limiñanas somehow made luxuriously seductive – singing it in French helped – as well as the hypnotically buzzy “Autour de Chez Moi” which features both Lionel and Marie Limiñana on back-and-forth conversational vocals (though I have no clue what they’re chatting about).

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King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard “Nonagon Infinity Live”

sfilzen — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 18:30:23 +0000

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard “Nonagon Infinity Live” 2024. Romanus Records, limited edition Scarlet Holographic splattered red vinyl. A collection of “official bootlegs” from live performances in 2016 and 2019, sourced from KGLW.net. Jammy (but with a punk attitude) psychedelic garage rock. Hypnotic, but brutally and loudly so (that said, I did sleep through an entire Gizzard show in 2018 so the hypnotic part won out). I’m not sure what the rationale for pulling these particular live tracks for this collection was, but it’s great. I particularly like “Gamma Knife” and the “Evil Death Roll/Invisible Face” mashup from the Levitation festival in 2016 (which technically was canceled due to storms but a bunch of the bands ended up playing clubs around Austin that weekend). Of personal interest are the two tracks recorded at the Riverside Theater in Milwaukee in 2019: “Wah Wah” and “Road Train” (not the show we were at but I heard it was pretty epic). That entire show can be found here.

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“Archie and the Bunkers”

sfilzen — Mon, 12 Feb 2024 18:36:43 +0000

Archie and the Bunkers s/t, 2015. Dirty Water Records. Cleveland-based, self-described “hi-fi organ punk.” I agree but add to that upbeat, messy garage-psych. This was another gift (along with the Cleveland Steamers) and another band I have no familiarity with. It’s great! Because of the organ and messy punk vibe it totally reminds me of early Murder City Devils, who I adore. Archie and the Bunkers are two-piece: brothers Emmett O’Conner on vocals and drums and Cullen O’Conner on vocals and organ. Archie and the Bunkers is the band’s second album, but could be counted as their debut as their first was self-released and has several of the same tracks as this LP on Dirty Water Records. Those do include a few of my top picks: “You’re the Victim,” “Different Track” and “I Wish I Could.” The song “I’m Not Really Sure What I’m Gonna Do” is also on both albums – it’s really good (not one of my faves) but happens to have an official video so that’s linked below. “Austria” is awesome – think head-banging, shredding organ. Also of note: Archie and the Bunkers was produced, engineered and mastered by Jim Diamond, who played bass for a bit with The Dirtbombs, Herman the German and Das Cowboy (which is of great interest to probably me and Joe only!) and also ran Ghetto Recorders, an analog recording studio in Detroit until 2015. He plays bass on the track “I Wish I Could.”

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Wine Lips “Mushroom Death Sex Bummer Party”

sfilzen — Thu, 02 Nov 2023 17:16:15 +0000

Wine Lips “Mushroom Death Sex Bummer Party” 2021. Stomp Records. This is one of the many many colored vinyl variants, I can’t figure out which one. Fiery lava maybe? Heavy, often thrashing garage psych out of Canada. Brilliant! We caught Wine Lips last month at the Miramar Theatre in Milwaukee opening for Frankie and the Witch Fingers and picked up this LP from the merch table after the show. They were fantastic and guitarist/vocalist Cam Hilborn has a spectacular mullet. The rest of the band excellent, too: Aurora Evans on drums, Jordan Sosensky on guitar and Charlie Weare on bass.

Mushroom Death Sex Bummer Party is Wine Lips’ third LP since forming in 2015; their s/t debut came out in 2017. It rocks hard from start to finish, with that modern psych-garage sound that takes lo-fi-ish vocals and backs them with the heaviest of beats and shreds. I love it! My top tracks are the killer opener “Eyes,” the super-short, punk’d “Get Your Money,” the proggy-layered (and really long) thrashing “Suffer the Joy,” and the bashed-up, funk’d up pop-explosion of “Lemonade.”

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Frankie and the Witch Fingers “Data Doom”

sfilzen — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 22:11:14 +0000

Frankie and the Witch Fingers “Data Doom” 2023. Limited edition colored vinyl, Dinked “Magma Opal” edition. The Reverberation Society/Greenway Records. Includes poster and bonus 7″ single flexi disc.

Last night we caught Frankie and the Witchfingers at the Miramar Theatre here in Milwaukee and it was a killer, ridiculously high energy sweatfest of searing psychedelic garage rock. They played a few songs from their latest release Data Doom including the blistering album opener “Empire,” the frenetically driving “Futurephobic,” “Mild Davis” and one of my top tracks from the LP “Electricide.” My other top picks from Data Doom are “Burn Me Down” and “Syster System.” Like their previous releases (and performances), their music is unwaveringly ass-shaking; Data Doom goes way darker, though, with under and overtones of doom + speed metal wrapped into trippy lightning speed swirls of sound.

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Hooveriii “Water for the Frogs”

sfilzen — Wed, 21 Sep 2022 16:56:41 +0000

Hooveriii “Water for the Frogs” 2021. Reverberation Appreciation Society, clear blue vinyl. Spacey psychedelic modern prog-rock. The vinyl looks weird in this photo because the shrink wrap is still on the jacket in order to save the sticker (there’s no other identifier on the jacket except the spine otherwise). I’m pretty sure Joe caught these guys – and bought this album – a couple of times about a month ago, once at Cactus Club and then again the following night at Promises. I didn’t go because I was tired that week, having just seen Jack White perform and also I was saving my energy to see Duran Duran on the weekend (worth it!). According to the handy setlist.fm website, Hooveriii (pronounced Hoover Three) played several of the tracks on Water for the Frogs (their second album) at the Cactus show: the opener “Cindy,” my top track “Control” (psychedelic garage rock and totally ass-shaking), “Hang Em’ High” and as their final encore, a super-trippy and mellow cover of Lou Reed’s “Shooting Star” (video of that encore at Cactus below). Other notable tracks are the bendy guitar meets 1970’s spaceage-style bleep-bloop keyboards instrumental “We’re Both Lawyers” that descends into cosmic chaos and the hypnotic rocker “Erasure.” Hopefully the next time Hooveriii comes through town it will be during a week when I don’t already have multiple shows on the calendar.

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