13 July 2024

TRABANTS – Mantra / Surfers On Acid (2024, 7” Hypnotic Bridge)

RELEASE INFO:

Label: Hypnotic Bridge

Format: 7” Vinyl, 45rpm, 500 copies

Release Date: 30 May 2024

Well, it seems that Hypnotic Bridge keeps on feeding all of us -Psych-Heads – with High Quality and Total Psych Energy 7-inch Singles, and also surprisingly keeps on “opening our borders” with interesting bands that for sure need further exploration from that one Single… So, number 43 of Hypnotic Bridge’s catalog is a fascinating superb 7-incher by a band called Trabants, originally formed in Boston, the band is by now headquartered in Portland, Oregon. Led by composer/guitarist Eric Penna and named after the diminutive and once-ubiquitous Eastern European automobile, Trabants play an instrumental mix of vintage-inspired surf, garage, and psych with a cinematic twist that has found broad use in film, television, and advertising… Let’s have a look at the label’s press release:

“The result of a years-long process to distill the ultimate hybrid of instrumental surf and psychedelic bliss, “Mantra” and “Surfers On Acid” was conceived as the definitive psych-surf single and timeless summer soundtrack.

“Mantra” picks up where Trabants’ 2015 album on Lolipop Records, FREAKOUT, left off, inspired by the psychedelic sounds of the ‘60s while chasing and embracing the era’s righteously primitive fuzz effects. The result is a perfect audible accompaniment to your own psychedelic trip, however you may wish to bring it on. “Mantra” is the temple. It is personal. It is pure. It is love distilled into its simplest form. We all have a mantra within, and if we are willing to listen deeply, we may find a wiser version of ourselves reflecting back in the mirror of the eternal Now.

An aural ride through the tumultuous, exotic waves of an alien terrain, “Surfers On Acid” is an idea brought to fruition via vintage sounds and methods, fusing surf and psychedelia into one symbiotic piece of music. Trabants leader Eric Penna explains: “Being a true chaser of authentic sounds, I spent years trying to find a unique and rare specimen in the pantheon of guitar effects to bring this song to life the way I heard it in my mind. My acquisition of an original Tychobrahe Octavia played through a classic and pristine blonde Fender Showman (borrowed from none other than the modern instrumental band Satan’s Pilgrims) brought the sound out of my mind and into the physical realm.

Rhythmic, reverb-drenched and brimming with layers of (forwards and) backwards guitar, these mind-and-body focused songs are also a response to the enigmatic mention of surf music in the lyrics of Jimi Hendrix’s “Third Stone From The Sun”, which Hendrix apparently was transmitting to fellow left-handed guitar hero and surf music legend Dick Dale: “And you’ll never hear surf music again (that sounds like a lie to me).”

“Mantra” (side A) is a deeply ’60s Psychedelic-inspired tune, with a torturously slow fuzzy sound, a little Middle-Eastern flirting, a fantastic piece of Modern Neo-Psychedelia, totally mind-bending that leaves the listener with that Great feeling of a late 60s Laurel Canyon Psych echo-remnant! “Surfers On Acid” (side B) is another super phantasmagoric MIND BLOWING piece of instrumental music that in just 3 minutes successfully blends Psychedelia, Surf, and Acid, under a huge Middle Eastern colorful prism, a dynamite song that makes you wonder how Dick Dale could have sounded under the influence of LSD if he was making a guest appearance at the fantastic-a-delic Kennelmus’ “Folkstone Prism” album… Wow! The only disappointing thing here is that the track lasts only 3 minutes, and not 30! So, make yourself a happier person, fill your brains with Acid Surf, and go grab the 45er right now! TimeLord Michalis