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THE PSYCHIC PARAMOUNT

Psychedelic/Space Rock • United States


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The Psychic Paramount picture
The Psychic Paramount biography
The Psychic Paramount are a New York psychedelic power house trio (the best way to describe them). After the demise of Laddio Bolocko, guitarist Drew St. Ivany and bassist Ben Armstrong booked an European tour the only problem was that they were missing a drummer so they quickly went on a scavenger hunt. Tatsuya Nakatani was their choice and with him they toured France and Italy. The result of this tour was their live album, "CD Live 2002: The Franco-Italian Tour". Tatsuya Nakatani left the band shortly after, but they found Jeff Conaway, member of Saber, to replace Tatsuya. With this new line-up the band recorded their first studio album, "Gamelan Into the Mink Supernatural" in 2005 which was a live recording in their studio.

The Psychich Paramount's sound is raw and loud. Even though they are only a 3 man band they can still pack a powerful punch. Maniac drumming and overly distorted guitar is their modus operandi. They can be as fast and aggressive as any punk band or as loud as, well... noise. A harsh psychedelic flavor that will make your ears bleed, your mouth sour and your body wanting for more. Think you can handle it?


- Ruben Dario (Chamberry) -



Why this artist must be listed in www.progarchives.com :
Approved by the Psychedelic Prog Team



Discography:
Gamelan Into the Mink Supernatural, studio album (2005)
Live 2002: The Franco-Italian Tour, live (2005)
Origins and Primitives Vol. 1 & 2, compilation (2006)

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THE PSYCHIC PARAMOUNT discography


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THE PSYCHIC PARAMOUNT top albums (CD, LP, MC, SACD, DVD-A, Digital Media Download)

3.95 | 10 ratings
Gamelan Into the Mink Supernatural
2005
3.34 | 4 ratings
II
2011

THE PSYCHIC PARAMOUNT Live Albums (CD, LP, MC, SACD, DVD-A, Digital Media Download)

3.33 | 2 ratings
Live 2002: The Franco-Italian Tour
2005

THE PSYCHIC PARAMOUNT Videos (DVD, Blu-ray, VHS etc)

THE PSYCHIC PARAMOUNT Boxset & Compilations (CD, LP, MC, SACD, DVD-A, Digital Media Download)

0.00 | 0 ratings
Origins & Primitives Vol.1+2
2006

THE PSYCHIC PARAMOUNT Official Singles, EPs, Fan Club & Promo (CD, EP/LP, MC, Digital Media Download)

THE PSYCHIC PARAMOUNT Reviews


Showing last 10 reviews only
 II by PSYCHIC PARAMOUNT, THE album cover Studio Album, 2011
3.34 | 4 ratings

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II
The Psychic Paramount Psychedelic/Space Rock

Review by CassandraLeo

4 stars Six years passed in between the Psychic Paramount's first full-length and their second, simply titled II. The band's tricks displayed on their first album are still completely present here, although it's slightly less distorted. This is for the best; while distortion is of course an intrinsic part of noise-rock, the band pushed it to an extreme limit on their first album. It's still by no means mastered particularly well, but it's also not in the pantheon of "loudest albums I've ever heard".

Musically, this is an obvious sequel to the band's first album, and it's unlikely that the band's fans would have wanted anything less. The band's songs are still catchy, melodic, full of complex instrumental interplay, and often lengthy; they still take you on a journey through space at light speed. If anything, a strong case could be made that this album is more enjoyable than their first, due to the improved production.

This is not in any sense of the word an album for the faint of heart, but for those attuned to its wavelength, it will be a rewarding listen.

 Live 2002: The Franco-Italian Tour by PSYCHIC PARAMOUNT, THE album cover Live, 2005
3.33 | 2 ratings

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Live 2002: The Franco-Italian Tour
The Psychic Paramount Psychedelic/Space Rock

Review by CassandraLeo

4 stars Live 2002: The Franco-Italian Tour is the debut album by New York City-based psychedelic/noise-rock trio the Psychic Paramount, recorded, as its title might suggest, during a 2002 tour of Europe. Much of the material on this release was later reworked for the band's debut album Gamelan into the Mink Supernatural, but if possible it's even more energetic live, making this far from a pointless cash-in. Like their debut, it's harsh and distorted throughout, though it's actually slightly less noisy than the studio album. The melodic elements and complexity present on the studio releases are still present here, but it's still noisier than nearly everything else not classified as "noise-rock", and not for the faint of heart in the slightest. And don't turn your volume up too high; you'll blow out your speakers/headphones and end up with tinnitus. If you like their full-lengths, you'll probably like this, and if you don't like this, you probably won't like their full-lengths.
  Gamelan Into the Mink Supernatural by PSYCHIC PARAMOUNT, THE album cover Studio Album, 2005
3.95 | 10 ratings

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Gamelan Into the Mink Supernatural
The Psychic Paramount Psychedelic/Space Rock

Review by CassandraLeo

4 stars This is quite likely the loudest album in my collection this side of some of Merzbow's mid-'90s output, when the man seemed to want to push the harshness of digital sound to its maximum feasible limit. Perhaps unsurprisingly, The Psychic Paramount is highly based in noise-rock. Their sound is unpleasant and distorted, but that's of course the whole point. It's supposed to be an unrelenting wall of noise.

If you can get past the production, this is highly energetic and surprisingly catchy stuff. I'd even go so far as to say it's melodic. The band actually has pretty credible prog credentials; their lengthy instrumental compositions stretch out at length, with all the twists and turns you'd expect from the best prog rock, and they use unorthodox time signatures and bizarre composition techniques you'd expect from the genre. It's probably best described as a mixture of noise-rock, prog, psychedelic/space rock, and post-rock. I don't really know of many other acts that sound like them, though to be fair, I haven't explored the genre too much. It's probably worth also mentioning the works of spiritual predecessor Laddio Bolocko, which contained two of the same members but was prone to stretching out even more than the Psychic Paramount do and was rooted somewhat more in avant-garde jazz. If you like TPP, you'll probably like LB as well.

This band's other works aren't mastered quite as loudly as this one, and II is probably every bit as fun as this one, so it's probably a better starting place. I was introduced here, though, and I find there to be something special about it. I have to knock off a star for the production, though. I get what they were going for, but there's a point where even something that's supposed to be loud is still too loud. If the production were a shade less harsh, this would get an enthusiastic five stars.

 II by PSYCHIC PARAMOUNT, THE album cover Studio Album, 2011
3.34 | 4 ratings

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II
The Psychic Paramount Psychedelic/Space Rock

Review by Rivertree
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator / Band Submissions

3 stars THE PSYCHIC PARAMOUNT are a candidate for a rather avant-garde mix of space, kraut and post rock, mostly wild, agressive, but surely provided with melodic and melancholic parts as well. Hereby they often produce violent sound walls - repetitve or rolling up and down - however with intent, though not lacking of technical skills as you may notice immediately. Well, you've been warned now - this album is obviously not a treat for everyone's taste.

Intro gets along with repetitive bass, monotonous drum playing where DBB simply shows the band acting like furies. Drew's crashing high-pitched guitars are leading everywhere. The hypnotic workout RW is my favourite - a wonderful combination of dynamics and melancholy - tribal drums, some playful bass lines in between, multiple sparkling, spreading and soaring guitars. Never heard something like that before!

Woaaarrrr - the asskicking N6 will shoot you into the orbit at the latest. Don't forget to care for an ambulance before coming back. The closing NS Coda finally has more of an industrial kraut flavour in the vein of Faust and Cluster. Ambitious - another album by this threesome featuring a huge portion of experimental approach. Dedicated to fans of SubArachnoid Space, Escapade, Oneida and similar. Strange - as for my taste too much of a good thing overall, the crashing sound demands a great deal from you.

  Gamelan Into the Mink Supernatural by PSYCHIC PARAMOUNT, THE album cover Studio Album, 2005
3.95 | 10 ratings

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Gamelan Into the Mink Supernatural
The Psychic Paramount Psychedelic/Space Rock

Review by VanVanVan
Prog Reviewer

4 stars I didn't know what to expect from this album; I bought it on a whim after being intrigued by the title (you know it's prog when there's a phrase like "Mink Supernatural" in the title). Well, needless to say I was pleasantly surprised.

When I think "space rock," I tend to think of compositions like Pink Floyd's "Shine on You Crazy Diamond," where the melodies float around in a sea of pleasant ambience. That is not what this is. This is space rock, alright, but these guys are not gently floating, they are hurtling through at light speed, crashing into asteroids.

Silly metaphors aside, this is really a great album. "Megatherion" and "Para5" are almost noise rock, with very little proper melody to speak of but a lot of really cool and crazy sounds coming from the band's instruments. "Echoh Air," is a bit more structured, but not much, and the jamming has a very sixties kind of feel, to my ears anyway. The best point of reference I can give would be some early Pink Floyd like "Careful With That Axe, Eugene," but that' an admittedly imperfect comparison. There's probably some Krautrock that would be a better reference point, but my range of knowledge in that genre is pretty limited so I can't give a perfect example. "X-Visitations" I would almost describe as a dark ambient track, with a lot of scary sounding noises and effects. "Gamelan," reminds me quite a bit of Can's "Halleluhwah," where a fairly consistent drum beat is held steady while the sounds around it get crazier and crazier. Again, that's an imperfect comparison, but it's a similar sort of song, and with this kind of music it's hard to find good comparisons.

Overall, this all-instrumental album is a very good one, but certainly not for the faint of heart. Personally I think I'm a bit lucky this wasn't the floaty space rock i was envisioning, because I can't imagine that would have been anywhere near as interesting to listen to.

4/5

 Live 2002: The Franco-Italian Tour by PSYCHIC PARAMOUNT, THE album cover Live, 2005
3.33 | 2 ratings

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Live 2002: The Franco-Italian Tour
The Psychic Paramount Psychedelic/Space Rock

Review by Chris H
Prog Reviewer

3 stars Wild screeching, tapes running backwards, maniacal drumming, random explosions of feedback mixed together with off-key bass eruptions and bits of silence?

No, that is not an excerpt from the recipe to making an Alfred Hitchcock movie score, it is a description of a few of the many different experiences one may encounter on this incredibly strange, yet unorthodoxly delightful musical extravaganza. From the cover until the end of the last track, this is one big giant freak out party.

The opening track, "Lyon" is a shocking mix of feedback and screeching guitars that almost sound like nails sliding down a chalkboard, but somehow I get the strange feeling that it was meant to be that way. This screeching atmosphere continues into "Paris Pt. One" and halfway into "Paris Pt. Two" before our madman behind the kit, Tatsuya Nakatani starts bringing some major skill into the picture. The band actually starts to jam with a fixed beat and only limited guitar wanderings and Nakatani drives the whole show home before erupting into a drum solo of monstrous proportions with about 1:30 left in the track. "Napoli/Perpignan Pt. One" starts out with an almost haunting mixture of rhythmic backgrounds and spinning sound effects that sound vaguely like screams in the darkness. Silence comes around 4:00 in, and then a fixed rhythmic jam starts, and this is actually quite relaxing compared to the unstructured romping of the previous tracks. "Perpignan Pt. One" is one of my favorite live snippets of all time, mainly due to the fact that the band finally tames a little bit and kicks the structure up a notch. The bass and drums match beats for the first time on the album and the guitar actually has a sense of direction that it lacked for the first few tracks. "Ex-Visitations" brings that show to a close, and this is not a good way to end it. Repetitive chords with random percussion smashing? Doesn't work for me, sorry.

All in all, I guess this is one of those shows that you need to experience live, right before your eyes. I'm sure all of the guitar wandering and drum pounding is much more appealing when you can actually take a visual glimpse of the skill of the musicians, but on CD, it just doesn't transfer to something that is listener friendly.

A great attempt to fuse psychedelia and avant-garde, but let's keep adventures like these for a live crowd only.

3 stars, go see these guys live instead.

  Gamelan Into the Mink Supernatural by PSYCHIC PARAMOUNT, THE album cover Studio Album, 2005
3.95 | 10 ratings

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Gamelan Into the Mink Supernatural
The Psychic Paramount Psychedelic/Space Rock

Review by chamberry
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator

3 stars A Psychedelic Noise Rock band (literally!)

The Psychic Paramount may be just a trio, but man can they pack a punch! This guys play their music with the volume up to 11 and no less than 11. This can be slight of a problem for people with sensitive ears or don't want their speakers to be severely damaged by the sheer power of this band. You've been warned...

Now to their music. This is jam band often echoing Guru Guru circa UFO, but dirtier and rawer than them. The first song is the intro and it's pretty much made up of pure noise and nothing more. It may annoy you or you may enjoy it, but whatever it does to you it will keep your blood pumping and it will stay that way for the rest of the album. The album is pretty versatile in their own context of sound. From trippy noise passages to aggressive jamming from the three members. All of their sound is revolved around their over-distorted sound. This may put off many people at first, but after repeated listens their sound becomes more tolerable and enjoyable. Luckily, by the end of the album their sound isn't as harsh as the rest of the album. The last song, "Paramount", is probably the more trance inducing tune in the album with its repetitive theme echoing into nothingness for almost 7 minutes. It's a well needed brake for all of the slaughter your ears experienced in the previous songs.

So by the end of the album your ears will be ringing badly and you will probably need to buy some new speakers. This band is definitely not for everyone, but if you can tolerate high amounts of distortion and white noise this band will be greatly enjoyable. My only complaint is that the album is criminally short. Only 35 minutes! It leaves you wanting for more, but we'll have to wait for later this year for new material.

Not for the faint of heart.

3.7

  Gamelan Into the Mink Supernatural by PSYCHIC PARAMOUNT, THE album cover Studio Album, 2005
3.95 | 10 ratings

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Gamelan Into the Mink Supernatural
The Psychic Paramount Psychedelic/Space Rock

Review by Eetu Pellonpaa
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator

5 stars This album holds a very strong dose of archaic power, really ripping of the ears and brains of the listener. As the name of the release suggests, one can find here interesting gamelan polyrhythms, which have also been studied by post-1970 King Crimson line-ups, not however with such ferocity as this instrumental trio does. There are also some noise ambiences which enriches the surreal destructive force of the album. I really have to take hats off for the drummer of this group, who creates the most powerful punch to their sound. The compositions are quite primitive in structure, but the players manage to create immense tension from them, songs being cut violently and changed to another with a pace underlining the state of hysteria, and the concept of basic instrumental rock trio is used in the most efficient way, bringing lots to listen and much to experience. A must have for fans of oppressing heavy psych music, I would claim.
Thanks to chamberry for the artist addition. and to Fitzcarraldo for the last updates

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