#Haight-Ashbury #psychedelic rock #psychedelic folk #folk rock #acid folk #neo-psychedelia #flower power #retro-San Francisco sound #sunshine pop #Scottish #music video
Choosing such a loaded name is willful. Scottish trio Haight-Ashbury are going to be identified with psychedelic-era San Francisco whatever they do. Should they wish to extend their musical wings, diversions into drum and bass or metal aren’t going to be easily accommodated. It's just as well then that Haight-Ashbury are top-drawer practitioners of a terrifically attractive dark psychedelia. Their second album (released under the name Haight-Ashbury 2, but they still trade as Haight-Ashbury too) opens with hand percussion, a jangling sitar and a keening, modal vocal line. Rhythm is Mo Tucker simple and repetition hypnotises. The raw production emphasises Haight-Ashbury’s edginess. As does a leaning towards the moodiness of Mazzy Star and their obvious familiarity with The Jesus & Mary Chain and The Incredible String Band. This version of the psychedelic dream will make flowers wilt. Second track “Sophomore” describes giving the kiss of life. Haight-Ashbury are singing of those around them being close to death. Quoting Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” on the jangling and tuneful “Everything is Possible” brings some levity. There’s some hope for peace and love. This extraordinary album hasn't quite come from the blue. Theartsdesk saw Haight-Ashbury at the end of last year at France’s Trans Musicales festival and summed them up as “folk harmonies with a raga guitar and shoegazing dissonance”. The Ashburys does nothing to alter that, but it does confirm that Haight-Ashbury are very special. From: https://theartsdesk.com/node/35096/view
Of course Haight-Ashbury aren’t actually from San Francisco, but it’d be more than reasonable to assume that their second album opener, ‘Maastricht - A Treaty’, was recorded live amongst the longhairs in Golden Gate Park. Lifting the patchouli oil-drenched essence of far-out musical Hair, the song unfolds as a somewhat directionless exposition of tremulous sitar while, just in the corner of your vision, a kaftan-clad Dennis Hopper does the Watusi with George Harrison. If this whole album were similarly stoned and meandering, we might take umbrage; but mercifully it’s a one-off. In fact, as a lesson in vivid scene setting, it works a treat.
Coming from Scotland rather than California, Haight-Ashbury are Kirsty Reid, Jennifer Thompson and Kirsty’s brother Scott on drums. Haight-Ashbury 2: The Ashburys follows the trio’s 2010 debut, and though it might be heavily indebted to counter-cultural, tie-dyed grooves, this isn’t just a spun-out, swinging 60s tribute from some half-baked merry pranksters. ‘Sophomore’ brings to mind those other harmonising hippies of the moment, Haim; but like those So-Cal sisters, it adds a healthy, brusque dose of a gutsy power-pop into the bargain. Tough like Pat Benatar but heartfelt and absorbed with female experience like Stevie Nicks, its heavy guitars and heavenly vocals also recall graceful grunge virtuosos The Breeders and Veruca Salt. It is, quite frankly, a blinder of a song. These Glaswegians don’t spend the whole record stateside stargazing though. They skip the same, lavender-studded path as Smoke Fairies on the eerie 2nd Hand Rose, looking to British folk of the 1970s, of Fairport Convention, with ring-a-roses, Wicker Man vocals and a stomping glam-goth breakdown. From: https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/25pn/
