LP Review: Psychic Lemon - Live at the Smokehouse (2019)

As you might assume from the title of the LP this is live footage from Psychic Lemon's gig at The Smokehouse, Ipswich in August 2018; forty-two minutes of progressive, funky, psychedelic, and krauty Space Rock from a fantastic show in Suffolk. Cambridge-based trio Psychic Lemon played five of their greatest songs at this gig, and the outcome is an amazing experience of pure psychedelic energy.

The opening track "Interstellar Fuzz Star" offers a clear impression of what the audience has to expect during this journey: Psychic Lemon are a fuzz-driven funky rocket shooting for uncharted corners of far galaxies. With ease they travel along meteor showers, lost planets, glowing suns, and beautiful images. You better fasten your seatbelts since Psychic Lemon are rocketing through the sky with ludacris speed.

The driving drum patterns create both solid speed and variety which eventually receive every part of your body and haul you towards the stage. The bass meanwhile builds up a strong fundament of bluesy and funky landscapes which roll through the songs like a space-locomotive while the deep and warm sounds vibrate through every atom. On the next higher level there is the synthesizer sound that loops around every brain convolution and develops impressive pictures of outer space in your mind's eye. And then there is the guitar which meanders within each of these levels. It goes from supporting the rhythm with crunchy distorted hits, over fuzzy riffs looping over the massive soundscape, through to funky licks and soli hovering in impalpable atmospheres.

Psychic Lemon have set up a perfect Kraut/Space/Psychedelic Rock concert. It provides a solid and strong start as in leaving the earth's atmosphere. The following three tracks then mark off several big pictures as seen through a space rocket's window giving the impression of floating past the milky way. For the great finale then the captain goes full throttle on the overdrive: the track "White Light" races alongside multiple solar systems with its course set straight towards joy.

I am absolutely delighted by this record Psychic Lemon have made. This is a completely unique experience; progressive, krauty, psychedelic, funky Rock music in a way I have never heard before.