This is so
cool………………………stripping Garage/Psych back to its fundamental core of primitive
beats and fuzzed out guitar Wild Raccoon (French multi-instrumentalist Raton
Sauvage) brings a D.I.Y. ethic to the whole thing and performs as a one-man
Garage band. With an impressive degree of co-ordination, Raton plays the drums
with his feet, stomping on drum pedals for a solid snare and bass drum backbeat
while playing fuzz ‘n’ reverb soaked guitar and singing……………………check the
various Wild Raccoon videos on YouTube, it’s quite a sight. Following last year’s
debut, Mount Break, Wild Raccoon return with a second album on Howlin’ Banana Records……….Half Pine Cone is a collection of new songs about heartbreak, love,
hitch-hiking, woods and…….err…… squirrels that reduces the records of Ty Segall
and Thee Oh Sees down their essential base elements. This is a very impressive
record with a great deal of inventiveness and flair from Raton Sauvage that
elevates this from yer usual Neanderthal Garage/Punk grooves………the use of loops
(for example Tablas on ‘Hitch-Hike Syndrom’) and swirling Acid Rock guitar puts
Wild Raccoon way ahead of the Punk/Thrash pack and subtle use of space takes
many of the tracks into the areas usually reserved for Kosmik Soundz and
dreamlike Psychedelia. The stand-out tracks here have to be the stripped down
and twisted cover of the Jefferson Airplane Psychedelic classic ‘How Do You
Feel’ and the tripped out ‘Question Mark Mountain’ amongst a whole host of
other great tunes. Beautiful and brutal in equal measures…………..well worth a
listen.
Out now,
Half Pine Cone is available on vinyl from the Howlin’ Banana Records Bandcamp
page here https://howlinbananarecords.bandcamp.com/album/half-pine-cone
with a digital download available from Wild Raccoon https://wildraccoon.bandcamp.com/.
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