In a season so densely packed with festivals, each exhaustingly touting an international act more unmissable and indiscernible from the last, there emerges – from those trippy squiggly lines that come off hot asphalt – a mini-festival humbly named Sydney Psych Fest.
This December, after two sold out dates last year, Sydney Psych Fest returns. And this time it’s focused on its own backyard, plucking the best independent Australian psych bands from five states of our increasingly tripped out nation.
Dave Couri, the founding member of Sydney Psych Fest looks exactly like you’d imagine the curator of a fledgling psychedelic music festival would. Like a page out of your estranged British dad’s yearbook, short of a quote about the immortal reign Jethro Tull, he really has this aesthetic nailed.
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“Without tracking the entire lineage, things like drone, repetition and beats are remnants that characterised and still permeate the music, and those elements that point back to some deeper levels.
“What we’re dealing with in Western culture today, psych rock, probably has it popular beginnings in the mid ‘60s with groups like 13th Floor Elevators. They popularised the style and have become a widely cited influence.
Twenty years past and groups like Spacemen 3 moved the dial again, with the late ‘90s breeding groups like Clinic, Dead Meadow, and Brian Jonestown Massacre to take it forward and back all at once.”
After a tangent which sees Couri illustrate an in depth family tree of the genre’s antipodean heritage, dropping names easier than if they were butter coated, he directs his attention to what is happening at home. He’s noticed international bands are intrigued by what is happening here, that Australian bands win the affections of overseas groups when they tour and then in turn those acts elect them as supports for Australasian tours.
“Musically, whilst our festival this year is featuring mostly what we’d crudely call ‘guitar’ bands, it’s definitely not limited to that. Psych probably has more to do with an approach to making music, rather than any one particular sound or genre.
“Looking at our bill I could point to a group like Dead China Doll who really embody that kind of a thing. Like many folks around town I’ve long respected them – seen them play everything from warehouse events to supports for bands like Om and Boris – to me they are a group who really can shift the sensibility of a room through their music, and you just have to admire that.”
Dead China Doll were one of the seven acts listed in Sydney Psych Fest’s second line-up announcement last week. Also revealed were Melbourne’s Immigrant Union, whose vocalist Brent DeBoer of The Dandy Warhols delayed flights back to the States to participate in the indie upstart.
Both bands are favourites to psych satellites but are tragically under-celebrated in Australia’s charts. And Couri, with the help of his elect line-up, is determined to bring the Australian Psych scene up from the underground.
“It was a deliberate decision to make 2014 an Australian showcase. Last year we felt like we had a good cross-section of local acts, but it was such a shame to leave so many off the bill.
“We have so many bands that are celebrated overseas – which is almost how this festival started. I’ve met so many bands on our travels to festivals in the US, and the conversation always became “why can’t we do this at home?”
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“Perhaps bands feel there is a greater appreciation in places like North America, Scandinavia, and Europe where we know that so many of our acts do really well. So to be able to gather people together and celebrate them here is a pretty special feeling.
“We were limited in the first year, and it’s been overwhelming the response we had this year of bands wanting to play this year, wanting to be involved. And there’s a mutual respect between the bands and with us.
“That’s one of the reasons it’s so important that we stay independent, to keep that comradery.”
Sydney Psych Fest, in name and design, was inspired by Couri’s annual pilgrimage to the United States for likeminded festivals. He speaks with delight of the potential for Australia to replicate the experience where thousands converge in a humble location – totally blowing out the site’s annual tourism figures – for a few days of musical and like-minded jubilance. The establishment of an annual Sydney Psych Fest seems something he wants as much for himself as the musicians he speaks so reverently of.
“For me, the Levitation Festival, formerly known as Austin Psych Fest, is still the mecca. Whilst we’re growing and cultivating something here, I’ll continue to attend that festival every year, it’s like Christmas morning every day for a week! They’ve done a wonderful job of uniting music makers with the community that surrounds them, and providing the platform to celebrate and showcase it in a truly meaningful way.
“They are the benchmark, and ideally that’s what we will seek to create here over the coming years.
“We have a truly unique and talent-rich pool here in Australia. Groups that make it overseas seem to be received and recognised very well. The internet is a great thing, but the reality of living on an island means that our groups do suffer the tyranny of distance, so by reaching to a common platform we’re hoping to help overcome that a little. We’ve established some nice relationships and reciprocal benefits with labels and events overseas.
We’ve been so encouraged by the support our little movement has gained so far, and we believe remaining independent allows us the latitude to continue to grow it organically.”
Sydney Psych Fest 2014
Factory Theatre, Sydney
13th December 2014
Line Up:
Immigrant Union
Glass Skies
Sunbeam Sound Machine
The Citradels
Magic America
Spirit Valley
Salvadarlings
The Dunes
Grease Arrester
Psychlops Eyepatch
Black Springs
Bad Valley
Sounds Like Sunset
Dead China Doll
The Dandelion
Dead Radio
Whipped Cream Chargers
Early bird tickets for $30 are available through The Factory Theatre or via the Sydney Psych Fest social media pages or website.
