Since blossoming from its experimentalist roots in the mid 1960s, psychedelic culture has produced some of the most exciting sounds of each generation it has touched. These days the term “psych” operates more as a conceptual umbrella than a distinct genre, which means it gets applied to music that includes almost any artist who seeks more adventurous routes to sonic expression. But that said, psych as a genre is currently in the throes of a renaissance.
Levitation—known as Austin Psych Fest for the past seven years—is the convergence of all that is good in the vast realm of psychedelia, and an event that serves as a signifier of psych’s new awakening. Taking place each spring over the course of three reverb-drenched days in the hallowed birthing grounds and perpetual hotbed of the psychedelic movement that is Austin, Texas, the festival has developed from a humble showcase for a few bands to a highly curated celebration of mind-bending sounds.
Artists and fans from around the world gather at a small ranch tucked into a corner of the city’s outskirts for a weekend of glorious sonic expansion and psychedelic immersion. This is the place to catch performances by psych’s brightest lights, emerging upstarts, and fabled heroes, and the 2015 lineup was one for the ages—especially for guitar fans.
When it comes to festivals with a focus on guitar-driven and guitar-infused music, Levitation is without peer. Among the artists wielding the instrument with passion and creativity this year were revivalist garage-rockers, British-invasion inspired acid-janglers, crushing shoegaze bands, and sludge-metal droners. The weekend also offered rare reunion performances by legends of the psychedelic institution, including the first appearance in more than 50 years by one of the genre’s undisputed originators, the 13th Floor Elevators.
There was something for guitar fans around every corner at Levitation 2015, and PG was on hand to take in all the action. Here’s the lowdown on some of the most vibrant bands in the current psych movement.
White Fence
Tim Presley of White Fence wields his beautiful, yet confounding 6-string—a modified Fender Jazzmaster with a humbucker in the bridge position and a Jaguar single-coil at the neck. Photo by Andrew Vincent.
Featuring plunky guitar tones and far-away vocals, Presley’s recorded output generally has a lo-fi, straight-to-tape warble that could be easily sold as the long-lost demos of some mysterious, mid-’60s British group. However, White Fence’s live sound is a much brawnier affair than its records would have you believe.
White Fence provided the soundtrack to the setting sun of Levitation’s first day. As Presley bashed crunchy chords on a modified Fender Jazzmaster (it has a humbucker in the bridge position and a Jaguar single-coil at the neck), ace skinsman Nick Murray displayed such impressive Keith Moon-ish drumming that many expected the set to end in smashed guitars and punctured grille cloth.
Nothing
Photo by Andrew Vincent.
Nothing absolutely revels in monolithic guitar sounds that are delivered at obscene volumes and switch without notice between gargantuan blasts of distortion and twinkling washes of echo. The result is as dynamic as it is jarring and places the group on our shortlist of psych-tinged artists to pay close attention to.
Bathed in a disorienting light show, the band performed to a fervorous audience from a stage strewn with malfunctioning television sets. Nothing’s figurehead, Domenic Palermo, appeared with a well-worn Fender Strat that made an ideal conduit for the squalling feedback and decimating fuzz he laced into lead guitarist Brandon Setta’s lines. Though Palermo has a well-documented history of destroying guitars on the road and does not think of them as particularly precious, he confessed that the Skreddy Zero high-gain fuzz pedal is integral to his sound, and both he and Setta rely heavily on the TC Electronic Hall of Fame Reverb for the band’s expansive tones.
Chelsea Wolfe
Wolfe’s music is an extremely eclectic mix of fingerpicked guitar and adventurous, no wave-inspired guitar soundscapes that are pulled together by the singer/songwriter’s sublime, gossamer vocals. The final result is dark, ethereal, and unbelievably potent. Certainly an original, Wolfe makes intellectual music with a visceral energy that seems to appeal as much to staunch metal fans as it does to folkies.
Brandishing a sunburst Gibson ES-335, Wolfe appeared for her set from a thick cloud of fog. While a light show playfully danced across a swath of tall trees surrounding the stage, Wolfe’s recently appointed guitar foil, Aurielle Zeitler, worked her magic on a white, late-model Fender Stratocaster. Wolfe used her deft, fingerstyle technique as a foundation for Zeitler’s EBow and delay musings, all of which were punctuated by occasional bursts of harsh synth. With the help of a few EarthQuaker Devices pedals, the pair of guitar heroines wove tapestries of outlandish sounds and dramatic textures that ebbed and flowed languidly throughout the set.