Tag Archives: psychedelic

Movies

Director Christopher Bickel on Pater Noster and the Mission of Light

Pater Noster and the Mission of Light directed by Christopher Bickel movie still
Pater Noster and the Mission of Light (2024) directed by Christopher Bickel

Earlier this year, while scrolling through Night Flight (the only streamer worth a paid subscription), I stumbled across a movie called Pater Noster and the Mission of Light. A horror movie about the hunt for a possibly cursed record made by a cult in the ‘70s, it was full of vinyl nerd in-jokes, references to the Source Family, the Merry Pranksters and Whipped Cream and Other Delights. I was smitten with it. 

Directed by Christopher Bickel, Pater Noster is a wild ride through dusty record bins and into the strange, terrifying world of a fictional psychedelic cult. The film, made with a budget of just $21,000, is also an exercise in resourcefulness. “We do these movies on such a low budget, so when I go to write it, I have to write to things that I have access to,” says Bickel on a recent video call, “things that I think would elevate the production value, to make it look like we spent money on this thing or that thing.”

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Interview

Jesika Von Rabbit Welcomes Listeners Into Bunnywood Babylon

Jesika Von Rabbit and bassist Lee Joseph press photo for Bunnywood Babylon by Aydra Swan
Jessika Von Rabbit and bassist Lee Joseph (Photo: Aydra Swan)

“Go Back to L.A.” started out as a joke. Jesika Von Rabbit and a friend were noodling around in her Joshua Tree home studio when she came up with the tune and the catchy, garage rock song stuck. Now, it’s the latest single from the singer’s recently released album, Bunnywood Babylon. “Hopefully, I don’t get too many people upset with me,” Von Rabbit says on a video call. 

The song’s title stems from bumper stickers that have been popping up in the Joshua Tree area following an influx of new residents and tourists from Los Angeles. “Some of the people who grew up out here maybe don’t want some of the more of the hip, fancy stuff that’s coming to town,” Von Rabbit says. “Sometimes that’s out of fear too. People are afraid of what they don’t understand.”

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Interview

Edward Ka-Spel on How AI Inspired New Legendary Pink Dots Album, So Lonely in Heaven

Illustration of Legendary Pink Dots by Simon Paul
Illustration of Legendary Pink Dots by Simon Paul


On So Lonely in Heaven, the latest album from Legendary Pink Dots, the long-running psychedelic band leads listeners deeper into a tech dystopian landscape that doesn’t quite feel like fiction. A deleted file leads to disaster where all you can do is “pray to the server, pray to the cloud” on “The Sound of the Bell.”  A persona lives on after the body dies and the organs have been donated in “Pass the Accident.” It’s all very much within the universe that singer and lyricist Edward Ka-Spel has been building across the band’s vast catalog for the past 45 years, where scenarios that blur the line between sci-fi, fantasy and reality are told with a good dose of dark humor. 

Where the band’s 2022 album, The Museum of Human Happiness, essentially documented the COVID-19 pandemic, this time around, Ka-Spel drew inspiration from AI. “My experience of artificial intelligence isn’t all that great,” he admits on a recent call from his home outside of London. 

However, Ka-Spel had caught wind of AI-generated lyrics produced in the style of his own. “It was passable in that it was eloquent,” he says. “It was, I guess, coherent.”

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New Music

Tropa Magica Cover The Doors “People Are Strange” on New Album

Tropa Magica Para Bailar y Tripiar album cover

There is no shortage of “People Are Strange” covers in the world, but “Todos Son Raros,” a Spanish rendition by Tropa Magica, is 100% worth your attention. The L.A.-based band reimagines the Doors classic as a groovy cumbia with some surfy reverb and an expanded guitar solo that ventures into Middle Eastern psychedelia. It’s wild and lives up to the title of Tropa Magica’s latest album, Para Bailar y Tripiar. 

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New Music

L.A. Witch Explores Psychedelic Post-Punk on Doggod

L.A. Witch Doggod album cover

L.A. Witch is back with their first full-length since the pandemic. For Doggod, released on April 4 via Suicide Squeeze Records, the local three-piece headed to Paris, where they recorded at Motorbass, the studio founded by late producer Philippe Zdar (Cassius) where Phoenix recorded Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. 

Even though the album was made in a studio with a French indie pop pedigree, the sound of Doggod is very L.A. Specifically, the album makes me think of the city’s 1980s post-punk scenes. At that time, you had deathrock, which became goth, and included bands like Kommunity FK, Christian Death and 45 Grave. There was a scene known as the Paisley Underground, which was ‘80s psyche and spawned bands like The Bangles and Opal, who evolved into Mazzy Star. Then, you had a band like the Gun Club, that was really its own vibe, playing dark Americana. Doggod sounds like the point where those three tangents intersect. My point being, you can take the band out of L.A., but you can’t take L.A. out of the band, especially when the city is in their name. 

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