01 April 2024

TRAUM – Hold The Line / Sunshine Song (2024, 7” Hypnotic Bridge)

RELEASE INFO:

Label: Hypnotic Bridge

Format: 7-inch vinyl, 500 copies

Release Date: 14 Feb 2024

Here’s a new promising and quite exciting German band, called Traum though their first release comes from the euphoric land of California! Traum is a Psych power trio and Hypnotic Bridge Records in Sierra Madre (California) is responsible for Traum’s debut 7-inch vinyl Single! Stu – Mind Head Of Hypnotic Bridge – told me that both songs of the Single have already started blowing the minds of quite a few denizens of the L.A. psych scene… Interesting… Here’s some useful info taken from Traum’s Bandcamp page:

“With a classic power trio line-up and stone solid dedication to the cream of 1960s British psych-pop sounds, Traum (German for Dream) draw their inspiration from the bands that originally defined the psychedelic aesthetic, including July, Tintern Abbey, The Beatles, The Pretty Things, and The Smoke. Using vintage instruments, gear, and effects complemented by classic production techniques, Traum bring analog tape echo, delays, and spring reverb to the mix, with truly mind-blowing results.

Launching their first-ever song, “Hold The Line,” with a piercing riff that pays homage to The Smoke and other masters of UK psych circa ’67, Traum presents an ode to the mystified daze of a Technicolor dream. Supercharged by vintage tape echoes and bursts of fuzz guitar, it’s made to spiral deep into the double-helix matrix of multi-mirrored minds.

“Sunshine Song” counters the mistaken notion that ignorance is bliss with a message of universal appeal: a brilliantly illuminated path of enlightenment can take us all beyond the boundaries of Earth to the farthest reaches of the universe, both within and without (all whilst immersed in an infinite ocean of fuzz-laden vibration, of course)”…

The first side of the Single is occupied by “Hold The Line” (of course nothing to do with Toto’s song), an amazing 3-minute reverberated tune with killer bass, fuzzy guitar, and powerful drum beat, drenched into the Swinging Sixties, a 3-min psych missile that took off from North Yorkshire in 1967 and landed in 2024 in Germany, spraying the whole atmosphere with huge doses of British Freakbeat! A fantastic Beat-Stomper! An instant radio hit! On side ‘B’ there’s “Sunshine Song”, a vibrated mid-tempo lovely tune with a cool-as-fuck melody, and a vocal style deeply influenced/inspired by the wondrous Swinging London! An astonishing track with the remarkable ability to whet your appetite for sex! So… Tonight, let’s all make Love in London! Well, it seems that the first “sample” by Traum is quite impressive and addictive. An outstanding 7-inch… and I will desperately be waiting for their full-length LP album while checking my friend Jack eating sugar lumps… Invest! TimeLord Michalis