"Shanghai" - King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard comes out with new music at such a rapid pace that it can be difficult to keep up with them. Their debut album (2012's 12 Bar Bruise) came out less than 10 years ago and they've already released 18 albums. Their most recent is from June of this year: Butterfly 3000 and it includes the track I'm featuring in this post: "Shanghai."

As the name suggests the song has a distinctly eastern vibe to it. This song has more of a keyboard/synth vibe than a guitar vibe, that seems to be the direction King Gizzard is going, at least at the moment. They change directions quickly! I am not that good at dancing about architecture really, I guess that it doesn't make much sense for me to have a blog about music then, eh? But I just want people to know about these songs. Listen to the song! It's cool!  

Like many of their songs "Shanghai" has a cool psychedelic video available. Check it out:

"Shanghai" is one of several KG & TLW songs on 

this modern psychedelic rock playlist on Spotify

 although it's frequently updated so it might not still be featured by the time you're clicking over. if you don't have Spotify, check out this youtube psychedelic playlist instead, it also features King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. 

"Chemtrails" - Beck

Beck isn't often included in the list of modern psyche rock and I think that's because he has a rep for doing all kinds of music but at its heart most of his stuff is pretty darn trippy. 

"Chemtrails" from his 2008 album Modern Guilt is a highlight and one of his tracks that fits most comfortably into the psychedelic rock genre. 

Kevin Parker of Tame Impala fame mentioned it as one of his favorites and an influence on his drum sound. 

"Chemtrails" is included on this excellent Spotify playlist of modern psyche rock along with some tracks by the aforementioned Tame Impala. 

"Relative Obscurity" - Faster Circuits

"Relative Obscurity" is the first song by Faster Circuits I've heard (it's featured on this psychedelic rock playlist on Spotify) but I've since been listening to both of their albums (2013's Tunes of Glory which features "Relative Obscurity" and 2017's Apophenia) and there's really a lot of good stuff on them. "Relative Obscurity" is a pretty great title for a song from a band that does appear to be rather obscure based on the amount of Spotify plays they get but I'm hoping I can do something to change that by getting the good word out. This is really cool crafty psychedelic pop/rock and deserves a wider audience. 

Here's a live performance of "Relative Obscurity" from 2018:

"Vangelis Rides Again" - Marshmallow Coast

"Vangelis Rides Again" is the title track from Marshmallow Coast's 2015 album. A real tasty slice of modern psychedelic rock featuring a groovy bassline and lots of spaced out synths.

And because there's no video for this song, here's a music video for another song from this album: "Hills Are Alive"

"Feels Like We Only Go Backwards" - Tame Impala

I'm a Tame Impala fanatic, they're almost definitely my favorite band/artist with a debut album 2010 (Innerspeaker) or later. There are many songs I could go with my first Tame Impala feature but lately I've really been into "Feels Like We Only Go Backwards" a whole lot. This is one of their/his (Tame Impala is Kevin Parker, in the studio anyway) most popular songs and for very good reason. It's a stone cold classic. It doesn't get as tripped out as some of other songs on the brilliant 2012 album Lonerism but it is a delicious slice of catchy psychedelic pop/rock. 

Listen to the studio version on Spotify:

and check out this cool live version from Bonnaroo 2013:

Stream Spotify Playlist: 50 Tracks for Tame Impala Fans

2000-Now Modern Psyche Rock Playlist

"Sense" - King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard

You can't go wrong with starting off with King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard one of the best and definitely the most prolific modern psychedelic rock bands around. They do so many different styles and have released so many albums that it may be difficult to pick out just one tune to share but I've always loved "Sense" from the first time I heard it. Listen to the studio version on Spotify here

and this live version from 2019 in Dallas, Texas is pretty awesome too: 

Sharing My Favorite Modern Psychedelic Rock Songs

I've created this little blog to share some of my favorite modern psychedelic rock songs. By "modern" I mean anything released since 1990 but I'll be focusing on more recent stuff. My definitions of "psychedelic" and "rock" are also just as liberal as my definition of "modern." To me "psychedelic" is any music that has that kind of trippy vibe - I know it when I hear it - and "rock" isn't just big guitars, or any guitars for that matter. A decent example of where I'm coming from is I still consider Tame Impala's Currents to be a "psychedelic rock" album - even though it's quite pop and quite synthy. To get a feel for my taste check out this modern psychedelic rock playlist on Spotify.