Sex & Food

I think deep down my father really wanted to be a hippie. I think he longed for the perceived freedom of that life. I'm also pretty sure that the allure of sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll would have called to anyone in his situation.

My dad graduated high school in 1968, which if you know your American history was not a great year to be turning 18. The Vietnam draft was in full swing, and the escalation of the war after the Tet Offensive meant that more and more young men were being sent off to the jungles of Southeast Asia. My dad lucked out and was able to get into the National Guard because his father was blind and he was the only son in the family. But to stay out of Vietnam meant joining the Guard, and that also meant giving up the psychedelic dream that he was holding on to.

The only thing he was able to keep of that dream was psychedelic rock, in particular a band called Iron Butterfly. They had one hit, the seventeen minute "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" (that was even parodied on the Simpsons), and my dad had all their records. It's some of the only records that survived at our house until I was old enough to want vinyl, and I always thought it was strange that he like psychedelic rock, as he didn't keep listening to it. But times had changed, his tastes had changed, and as is almost always the case, what was cool once becomes cool again.

I'd heard the name Unknown Mortal Orchestra before, but never knew any of their material. I'm not sure why I'd heard the name of a psychedelic rock band from New Zealand before, but I probably shazamed one of their songs or something; honestly I feel like I hear things that sound like they should be band names and lo and behold they really are bands. 

Regardless of how this all came to be, it's interesting to know this vein of rock is still alive and well and no longer only American. Unknown Mortal Orchestra just released their fourth studio album entitled Sex & Food, and it truly feels like what a 2018 psychedelic rock album should sound like. It's equal parts "just crawled out of the Sixties" combined with "I'm a twenty-first century kid with technology."

The album starts off with the kind of overly compressed, flanged out guitar riff rock that any album from the late Sixties would drool over. This is what I heard that led me to check the entire album out, and if you only hear one example of this on the album it's got to be "American Guilt." Kind of a spoiler: that song is already on my list for possible song of the year. Yet there's a lot of counter point to that on the album: there are tracks that sound like they could be Stevie Wonder in the Seventies style tracks, there are tracks that edge pretty close to a trippy kind of EDM, there's the requisite acoustic style ballad, and one track that, without looking, would have bet was by Elliott Smith.

I'll admit now that in general, psychedelic rock isn't for me. This album is far from bad, though, so if you're looking for something different, maybe something that cooks but also has a funkier, dancier side, this is something worth checking out.

Recommended tracks: "American Guilt," "Major League Chemicals," "Chronos Feasts On His Children," "This Doomsday"