When hearing the word ‘psychedelic’, we automatically think about people with flowers in their hair, mind-expanding sitar solos, a certain Lucy in the sky… In short, everything sixties. But psychedelic music has evolved since then, thanks to a myriad of artists reinventing it with electronic experimentations, modern twists and influences coming from all over the world.
Takeshi’s Cashew from Austria, Derya Yıldırım from Germany, and AySay from Denmark, who explore the iconic sounds of Turkish psychedelic rock, are excellent examples of these cross-bordering music journeys, as are Yīn Yīn and Nusantara Beat from the Netherlands, delving into Southeast Asian trippy repertoire. Psychedelia can also be drawn directly from European traditional music, as shown by Antonis Antoniou’s interpretation of his Cypriot heritage, or KOSY’s take on Polish folklore, while Hungarian collective Freakin’ Disco brings us to another planet entirely with their hypnotic instrumental jam ‘Plant’.
All these bands and more are gathered in this new playlist, for a one-hour trip that makes one wonder: is European psychedelia actually living its golden age, renewed by artists wborn generations after that sixties heyday?
