Psychic Ills, Mirror Eye
New York psych-rockers tap into the heart of darkness through pure sound
When Psychic Ills arrived in 2006, the New York City-based outfit wrapped itself in noisy-yet-structured sheets of guitar. The Ills weren't quite as posable as psychedelic drug-rock action figures the Black Angels or the Warlocks, but debut album Dins still appealed to fans of Spacemen 3 or harsh-sounding shoegaze acts. With follow-up Mirror Eye, all paths toward alt-guitar heroics are abandoned in favor of a pilgrimage to Middle Eastern-tinged experimentalism. If anything, Psychic Ills 'latest recalls the muezzin-call drone of Brooklyn's Religious Knives, the Thurston Moore-endorsed cabal of players from Mouthus and Double Leopards.
Mirror Eye hinges on two long (both in the 10-minute range) jams: The opening "Mantis" builds from speaker-panning didgeridoo sounds to a tribal bass-and-percussion pattern spangled with sitar and traces of heavily reverbed voices. Later, "I Take You As My Wife Again" begins with what sounds like Huey helicopter blades hovering over a swamp in the Mekong Delta. As trancelike and wordless as they may be, both tracks tell distinct stories, tripping through desert or swamp or someplace more imaginary. Between these quasi-narrative pillars are shorter sonic journeys such as "Sub Synth," seemingly a recreation of an airplane as it taxis on the runway, its turbine engines whirring higher and higher pitches. Psychic Ills certainly aren't the first to journey toward this hypnotic destination; Brian Jones, William S. Burroughs and Ornette Coleman were all famously snake-charmed by the effects of Moroccan drone music while dancing around the fire. But perhaps the four members of Psychic Ills are more finely attuned to author Paul Bowles, whose novels (Let It Come Down, The Sheltering Sky) portrayed the intersection between North Africa's surreal beauty and imminent danger. Through pure sound and hallucinogenic vision, Mirror Eye arrives at the same alluring heart of darkness.
