Phoo Action 🔞🥋💊🏳️‍🌈

🧵 “How about the Jesus and Mary Chain?” “They always seemed...” “They always seemed what? They always seemed really great is what they always seemed. They picked up where your precious Echo left off, and you're sitting around complaining about no more Echo albums. I can't believe you don't own this fucking record. That's insane. Jesus” It’s a great pitch from High Fidelity’s Barry, hawking Psychocandy like a true vinyl pusher. But, he is right, everyone should own this masterpiece. A feedback drenched fever dream, fusing Spector and scuzz, Stooges and Shangri-Las into a revolutionary record, conjured as if by dark magic. Self produced by the band, it took just seventeen grand and six weeks in a small London studio to make. No arduous layering, no endless tinkering. They just plug in and play, shaping distortion into melodic force with sonic sorcery, Bubblegum Pop you can choke on. It’s an album praised for its use of feedback, yet that praise doesn’t go far enough, for no band wields this power quite like them. It’s towering sound; Jim Reid’s laconic croon, the controlled chaos of brother William’s frantic guitar, Bobby Gillespie’s primitive drums beating like the bastard child of Hal Blaine and Mo Tucker, Douglas Hart’s bass a masterclass in minimalist menace, is the sound that launched a hundred sonic ships. But while others channel Psychocandy’s dynamic distortion into shimmering soundscapes or pulverising juggernauts of noise to much acclaim, its as dense as any of them, a mesmerising onslaught of sound, raw and untamed, striking a perfect balance of fury and melody. Indebted as much to The Beach Boys and Ronettes as the VU and Einstürzende Neubauten, this is distortion as hook, feedback as harmony, visceral, infectious songs that slip you a barbed wire kiss before knocking you out with a Glasgow one. Get yourself down Championship Vinyl and ask Barry for a copy.