The Magpie Rhyme
Welsh artists Ian Holloway is the man after this project, a darkish series of variegated soundscapes whose influences range from Nurse With Wound and Contrastate to abstract electronica. PSI moves in an oneiric dimension where every kind of source reveals itself as a passage towards uncharted territories; pulsations and nightmares are levigated by a haze of narcotic effects transforming the sounds into a nice mess of almost naive sensations. If certain tricks - slowed down voices and deformed laughter - sound a little worn out by now, there are genial touches across the tracks, the nicest being a warped quacking duck moving around like a supernatural joke. The most excellent moments come from looping spirals keeping the heartbeat at a calm pace; those more "sober" parts could constitute the foundation for interesting future developments. - Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes
'The Magpie Rhyme' is the latest release by Psychic Space Invasion, and, again according to the information, sees a return to 'the more abstracted ambient territories that characterized previous releases'. Holloway uses here guitar, harmonica and melody horn, along with a box of broken glass. Here the music is also lurking in ambient corners, but is throughout more musical and less based on drone music. Strange percussive sounds and guitar feedback set against a wall of ambient sounds, making this is a more massive release, filled with sound from every corner. - FDW, Vital
From Wales, United Kingdom, Psychic Space Invasion is Ian Holloway and The Magpie Rhyme is his fifth album. DANNNNSH (7:20) - Pre-recorded vocals? A training tape? Drones, effected out slowed down drum machine. It's starting to make sense, the slowed down vocal mixed with drones and slowed down drums somehow fits together and now I'm slowed down. WHERE THE PRETTY BIRDS SING (8:12) - Clicking with effects, and more clicking, then spacey gurgle howl along with clicken and then some heavy overdrive growl. Some nice panning (going from one speaker to another). But what does it all mean? Who are these Pretty Birds? Are these Pretty Sounds really the Pretty Birds and if so what are they trying to tell us? More and more crazy sounds. Demented, laughing, zippin' around Star Wars sounds. This is pretty cool music. Definitely psychedelic! (whatever that means) 50 PENCE FOR BUDDHA (11:34) - Intense layered drones, glass clankin', nice sound, more effective panning. Oh my, the glass is breaking. I seem to be losing my mind again. Is this weird music just for the sake of making weird music or is it art, that's the question. BIGGER TIME MIND (9:25) - Starts with big cool sound, a squalling squall, and more and more of it. At 3:24 it changes pace. Slow percussion, then some static and stuff... then some Big Band records? Oh my, what's it all mean?. Ian can ride the awesome drone. A LOVE, A WIND (9:01) - Electronic train goin' down the experimental tracks. Dark, moody, unidentifiable sounds. Demented laughing, or a duck barking? Demonic Donald Duck? Changes gears, more goin' down the train tracks, squealing and squalling vocal effects. MADE FROM ASH (10:34) - Slow, moody effects, nice feel, but in some ways this CD could be more engaging if there was less sameness. More to set it apart from other CD's of this genre. More nice squalls of sound. ON A WHISPERING SOUTH WIND (8:17) - Dog whistles? Gloomin drum machine, more dreamy dronage... the answer is Yes, it might just be weird music for sake of making weird music, but it's art! - Carlton Crutcher, Aural Innovations
Sometimes it’s NICE to receive unexpected packages in the mail (unless, of course, you work in an animal vivisection lab), so I was quite overjoyed to get an unsolicited parcel containing four CDs from Swansea’s Elvis Coffee Records. I’d read reviews of their stuff before, without ever actually HEARING any of it. I expected noise. Crazy, shouty nutters ranting and raving about dark nights of the arsehole. Well, Psychic Space Invasion don’t sound like THAT at ALL. In fact, they inhabit a far more dreamy, ambient landscape. Their ‘The Magpie Rhyme’ release begins hauntingly quietly. A sombre-sounding man speaks over low drones. Sounds like a slowed-down sample from a ‘learn another language’ record. This proved to be an eerie accompaniment to the funeral of George Best, which was playing silently on television when I listened to it. Next track, ‘Where the Pretty Birds Sing’, conjures up images of a child playing with clackers on a post-industrial wasteland in a howling radioactive wind. On ‘50 Pence for Buddha’, glass shatters, wind-chimes chime, electronic noise swathes everything in a cloak of red velvet. The coffin lid closes. It feels like there’s no way out.. But WAIT! Here comes ‘Bigger Time Mind’, offering the spinning blades of helicopters, the angry hiss of locusts, a youth of sonic maelstrom which softens into a hymn to the natural, inevitable laws of decay. There are actually some BEATS on ‘A Love, A Wind’, although they appear to follow a rhythm all of their own, quite unlike anything you could ever possibly describe as ‘conventional’. Distant stabs of percussive echo fade in and out of the, now familiar, Orwellian drone, before giving up the ghost and disappearing altogether. ‘Made from Ash’ is VERY gentle. Something to soothe the troubled brow and ease the transition into a better world. There MUST be a better world than THIS! SURELY? Final track, ‘On a Whispering South Wind’ continues the injection into this peaceful vein, although spooky harmonica and ‘Jaws’-esque strings make you wonder just WHAT kind of planet these Psychic Space Invaders have traveled from. - Mark Ritchie, Sniper Glue
