25 January 2025

ELF FREEDOM – Solstice (2024, Cassette, Self Released)

RELEASE INFO:

Label: Self Released

Format: Cassette, Album, Limited Edition (handmade)

Release Date: 11 Oct 2024

Elf Freedom is a relatively new Psych collective band hailing from Los Angeles, California. They have released several albums digitally through their Bandcamp page (most of them are Live) and “Solstice” is their latest self-released cassette album. On “Solstice”, the band consists of Nora Keyes (Lead Vocals, Vocal Mixing), Bee Appleseed (Backing Vocals, Rhythm Guitar, Bass Guitar (using A Little Thunder pickup), Guitar Organ, Midi Harmonica, Dub Siren, Percussion, Recording, Mixing), Rocco Mirage (Lead Guitar, Synth, Flutes, Percussion, Mixing, Mastering), Jacky Ryder (Drums, Percussion), and Paul Kaufman (Rub Board, Space Harmonica). “Solstice” contains just 5 tracks and you can tell by the very first second of the opener “Treasure Underground” that you have struck a vein of gold! Psychedelic gold, of course, hehe… A trippy, hallucinogenic, and deeply lysergic musical soundscape unfolds before you, your mind instantly goes to “Time We Left This World Today” by The Masters (of the Universe, hehe), and slowly and progressively the track becomes a tremendous hippie-like psychedelic jam, a quite mesmerizing track creating a spacey acidly drenched amalgam of modern Hippie-Jam improvisational Psychedelia! Wow!!! The improvised Hippie-Jam attitude continues on “Invisible Communication” too, but this time with a more let-loose trippy atmosphere with Bluesy influences and stoned female hypnotic vocals… On “Whispering Light” the band shows a more experimental mood, there are numerous Jungle-ish sound effects (voices and noises), and an intense Kraut flirt, resulting in a piece of improvised experimental acid Kozmique Psychedelia, this could easily be a very let-loose and stoned early 70s Hawkwind track! With “Our Souls The Same” the band is landing back to the ground. This is “earthly” Psychedelia, trippy and hypnotically acid, deeply mind-blowing, a superb track that reminds me of bands such as Dire Wolves, The Third Mind, Jeffrey Alexander & The Heavy Lidders… The album ends with the short electric outro “Solstice”, a totally influenced/inspired track by the early 70s electronic Krautrock scene… So, Elf Freedom delivered a fine psychedelically mystical mind-expanding album that managed to climb to position No.12 among my Top50 Best albums of 2024 (check the list here)! Open the door and let Elf Freedom whelm your Psychedelic human radar… TimeLord Michalis