13 July 2024

HANFORD FLYOVER – Garden Of Earthly Delights (2024, 7” Fruits de Mer Records)

RELEASE INFO:

Label: Fruits de Mer Records

Format: 7” Vinyl, 45rpm, Black Vinyl, 300 copies

Release Date: mid June 2024

Describing their music as Folktronica mixing Psychedelic and Prog Rock creating a unique sound, Hanford Flyover is a relatively new UK duo drawing inspiration from bands like early Floyd, The Doors, Air, Zero 7, Portishead, and The Beta Band. “Their music is evocative and soulful in a time of soundbites, short attention spans and disposable living, offering you lush tunes, insightful lyrics and deep grooves” (Bandcamp).

Hanford Flyover is a ”totally connected” band with Fruits de Mer Records as all of their physical releases (2 albums, and 3 7-inch singles) are released through that majestic label that Keith Jones runs by himself! Anyway, their latest Single is a huge die into the magnificent psychedelic era of the 60s as the band “executes” 2 fantastic pieces of electronically flavored Psychedelia from 1968’s album “The United States Of America” by that intelligent persona of Joseph Byrd along with Dorothy Moskowitz and their band, The United States Of America. But firstly, let’s have a look at the label’s press release:

“Hanford Flyover aka Josh and Holly Bowler, have already released two albums of seriously classy downtempo/folktronica via Fruits de Mer, but this is the first time they’ve dipped into the world of covers, and specifically 60s psychedelia.

Josh explains…

“The United States of America were a unique late ‘60s band, sort of an American version of White Noise in our minds, we’ve always loved how they went about creating music using tape loops, overdubs and early forms of synthesizers; we wanted to pay homage by covering a couple of their slightly more ‘song like’ songs; our’ Garden of Earthly Delights’ is fairly similar to their album; ‘Never Come Down’ was also on that album, but there is also a pretty mad version of it on the Joe Byrd and the Field Hippies album, ‘The American Metaphysical Circus’ – ours is a bit of a mix of both”

“The Garden Of Earthly Delights” is on side “A” and “You Can Never Come Down” on side “B”. That “haunted” 1968 melody is there, the spacey bubbling effects are there, the female voice is there, and the admiration, love, and respect are taken for granted, so how is it possible for this Neo-Psychedelic recipe not to be dressed with absolute success? Two reinterpretations dressed with absolute coolness, two 60s classic Psychedelic tunes, acting here as food-for-though for the younger generations, to start digging/discovering/exploring that magical neverending era of the past! Both songs are filled with excitement, energy, and a fantastic groove-a-delic refreshing Psych aura! Grab it, Now! TimeLord Michalis