Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Never let anyone tell you otherwise, but to sit back in silence and reflect upon life, upon a suitable answer, is not a waste of time, it is not unproductive and it is certainly a finer use of time than shooting from the hip and causing destruction, upset and even conflict. Reflection, taking time out to see beyond your own view point is the antipathies to the idealist, it requires restraint and not the knee jerk reaction, it ask for definition, not a slogan and it is one that Amsterdam band My Baby extol in their album Prehistoric Rhythm.
It is always a pleasure to be put under for a while, to let the sound of the Psychedelic grow in spirit around you and take your mind out for the wander it so richly deserves and that which the body craves. It is with a sense of gratification that the Dutch/New Zealand threesome make the very best of the genre and only ask that the listener drinks it in, that they sip at the edges with the delight normally reserved for a 40 year old malt whisky, letting the atmosphere of the occasion dwell long in the senses before adding a long mulled over expression of enjoyment or perhaps criticism to the hundred billion words uttered everyday in the world.
It is the pace of the album, the weight of Sheik’s, Cato van Dyck’s and Daniel Johnston’s mojo that makes each track alluring, a sense of delight in another wise bleak world and one that cannot be contained by the frame of the Psychedelic, one that deserves more than the knee jerk reaction of the slogan wearer.
The theatrical and poetic are very much in evidence as the album progresses, the slogan wearer left very much in their own ideology and the open minded become excited about the feeling of electricity running through them. It is in this that Psychedelic infuses with the feeling of reflection. In tracks such as Ancient Tribe, Haunt Me, Sunroof Diesel and Cosmic Radio, the temptation to make an immediate statement is dismissed, for to wallow in something that fascinates is paramount, it truly asks nothing more than reflection.
Prehistoric Rhythm, the sense that at one time we, as a species could think through a situation and debate properly without having slogans shoved in our faces, may be long gone, however it is always worth letting the music do its magic and taking in the silence that surrounds the patterned beat.
Ian D. Hall