Austin Psych Fest doesn’t really need much of a description. It is exactly what it sounds like: a festival with a lineup entirely consisting of psych rock, experimental, garage noise bands, which takes place in Austin, TX the weekend of April 27-29th. This is a festival for blurring the lines of reality with alternate planes of dark, hazy psych dreams and mind rides. As this kind of music is usually best experienced under the mysterious veil of the night, the schedule allows for sleeping in. On Friday, music starts around 5pm – 2am, Saturday 1pm – 2am, and Sunday 2pm – 12am. And these are still just approximate times. There will also be pre-parties around town starting on the Tuesday prior, with those details to be firmed up in the coming weeks. Here are five bands that can definitely be a conduit to those alternate planes:
Night Beats, a Seattle-based psych rock soul group who are likened to bands such as The 13th Floor Elevators and Golden Dawn. They definitely have that slightly spooky throwback sound, but they also sound somehow parallel with the present.
Spindrift, who toured with Black Angels (who are also on the festival bill) this past fall and killed it when they played Music Hall of Williamsburg over Halloween weekend. They may not have the makeup and costumes this time – or will they? A festival like this probably doesn’t get much more perfect for them.
Quilt, a band formed by visual art students at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston who had all bonded over their mutual love of weird, experimental jams and their classic music studies. They are a prime example of freak folk done right.
Prince Rama, the musical project of two sisters, who may be one of the more new-agey bands at the fest, but it’s the very fact that they are meandering down a more relatively less-traveled path that makes them interesting.
Woods, who are one of the best experimental psychedelic jam bands on the scene right now. We caught up with them when they played Bowery Ballroom, and they were a mind ride through time and space then.
With just these five bands APF 2012 might be a hard festival to come back to reality from, but since this is just the tip of the psych-berg…well, we can’t really take responsibility for any kind of extreme mind expanding you may experience. Did we mention that these picks are just from the 1st round of confirmed bands? The 2nd round is still to be announced at Noon CST on March 27th, but two teaser bands that have already been leaked are The Meat Puppets and Mind Spiders…this could get serious.
Weekend passes are currently on sale for $120 here, along with other festival merch, and festival updates and pre-party info gets posted up on their Twitter and Facebook.
