Reviews of 'Wandermoon'

brfm.co.uk

A must buy new album by Welsh Psych folk pioneers

Being familiar with the work of the Soft Hearted Scientists having acquired their previous three albums, I thought I knew what to expect but Wandermoon takes psych folk to a new level. On a path laid by Gorky's and SFAand originally Syd Barrett, Nathan Hall and company decorate the tracks not with Pixies and mushrooms but more mundane and realistic ideals; 'Kitchen Sink Psychedelia' may be grittier but still has a beautiful otherworldly feel to it.

Mountain Delight has a sixties 'Traffic' vibe about it, 'Hyperventilation helps me see in the dark'. Single The Trees Don't Seem To Know That It's September has a ludicrously catchy melody with shades of Vaudeville courtesy of Dylan Line's Keyboards and Paul Jones' Banjo. Tornadoes In Birmingham is a warning against climate change with its refrain of 'the weather is altogether stranger than it used to be', and the chilling voiceover about Cardiff residents either growing gills or moving to Cader Idris.

Arrival Song was the first track that I played on air, an Elizabethan leitmotif which is strangely uplifting. Road To Rhayader documents a dreamlike journey to the quieter parts of Wales. The album concludes with the prog epic Westward Leading which is a succession of intricate soundscapes merging to form a complete piece.

. . . . This album heard through quality headphones is a voyage to Nirvana that you owe it yourself to take. The production on this album is as lavish as the accompanying artwork, forget downloads and purchase the CD and transport yourself via the Soft Hearted Scientists to the wonder of the Beacons. Website

-- Chris Phillips

musicOMH.com

Trippy melodies meet tales of everyday troubles

Soft Hearted Scientists are part of a relatively small population currently channelling their musical creativity into psychedelica-tinged folk. Their sound is bedded in heady '60s and '70s flower power, but Wandermoon's appealing eccentricity lies in where the trippy melodies meet tales of everyday troubles, to maintain its grip on reality.

. . . . The Cardiff-based four-piece must've drank water from the same Welsh spring as Super Furry Animals or Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, because Wandermoon has that same fanciful, wide-eyed wonder. And some of The Beatles' more psychedelic offerings - The White Album and Sgt Pepper to name but two - have also made their impact in the simple harmonies and matter of fact tales, not to mention Nathan Hall's Paul McCartney-esque vocals.

Describing their music as 'kitchen sink psychedelica', Hall recently alluded to the madness afoot in Wandermoon. "It occurred to me that mountains might have a consciousness... that was one straaaange day," he said. And listing a handful of sights across Wales and Derbyshire from which he sourced inspiration, Hall explained it is these beautiful places that are the slices of escapism that embody Wandermoon.

On that basis, quite how the evident subject matter for Tornadoes In Birmingham got the songwriting juices flowing is anyone's guess, but airy plucked guitars and sailing keyboard notes transport the song straight to the scene. Exasperation at Britain's climate spills over with Hall's acerbic wit, as he threatens, with a touch of Jarvis Cocker about him, to up sticks and live on Cader Idris or Scafell Pike in a log cabin. Arrival Song has an even more acute distaste for this shore's climate, but a Lemon Jelly stuttering beat peeks through the fog to brighten the outlook.

Even from the start Wandermoon feels distinctly trippy. Mountain Delight's first listen creates deja vu with its repeat curtain calls. This offbeat creativity is helped along by the woozy line, "Oh brother there's a world to see, it's overflowing in its mystery, and when I gaze into infinity I melt away." A penchant for the left of field also floats in via the track's music box intro, played in time to washboard scrapes, elastic band twangs and notes hummed by blowing bubbles in soapy water. Road to Rhyador does the same, describing sights without need for sight via sound effects, descriptions and layered vocal melodies that add atmosphere.

The Beatles storytelling simplicity is captured in The Trees Don't Seem To Know That It's September, harking back to When I'm 64's strummed guitars and innocent vocals that couldn't comprehend such a thing as Auto-Tune. Its endearing phrase, "The trees don't seem to know that it's September, please don't tip them off they'll lose their leaves," begins a beguiling tale of summer romance, where banjos meet very British seaside organs.

Westward Leaning is a somewhat epic and bold closing statement at 10 minutes long. The strange and the peculiar collide, with ghostly keyboards and quaking cymbals that shrink at the vastness of the landscape they evoke. Hallmark quirks and beats of The Flaming Lips jostle nicely with fantastical acid descriptions like "Mutating skies cascading the magic dust of an optimist," before Wandermoon is repeated over and over, like the soundtrack of something that should've introduced a '70s cartoon.

All this aside, it simply can't shield the fact that Wandermoon is built on a premise that's really rather depressing; the need for escapism to cope with humdrum reality. But cleverly, it balances the ordinary with the extraordinary, creating a trippy placebo to reveal the whimsy in day-to-day life. Fleeting it may be, but Wandermoon's effect is still quite enchanting. Website

-- Ruth Davies

Sparkling psychedelic whimsy

Soft Hearted Scientists come across like 'Andorra'-era Caribou doing mushrooms with Syd Barrett in the Super Furries' overgrown back garden -- sparkling psychedelic whimsy. Website

-- derry, Resident record shop, Brighton

Subba Cultcha

Cardiff 4-piece update the Syd Barrett songbook. Music for the modern day psychedelically adventurous. 7/10

It's one thing to pay stylistic homage to your heroes, if done well enough you can acknowledge your influences and also put in something of yourself as a signpost of where your music may be heading. There is a danger however of being too derivative, slavishly copping the chord progressions, instrumentation and vocal phrasing. One of the lesser plundered songbooks is that penned by Syd Barrett, perhaps due to the idiosyncratic nature of the material. It's a brave band then to use such psychedelic whimsy as their primary influence. Soft Hearted Scientists are that band.

Album opener "Mountain Delight" is probably the guiltiest track here though it's done very well, and does have their own stamp on the Barrett template. It manages to sound utterly contemporary and is hugely enjoyable. It's closely followed by the jaunty music hall feel of "The Trees Don't Seem To Know That It's September", which highlights concerns over global warming with humour as opposed to dour preaching, as does the folksy "Tornadoes In Birmingham".

The band are not a million miles away (stylistically and geographically) from fellow Welsh psych-merchants Super Furry Animals. The album closes with the suitably epic and trippy "Westward Leading" perhaps the stand-out track here. It's all done with a sense of wonder and amazement at the world around us, seeing the fantastic in the mundane and everyday, like Blake's world in a grain of sand. As the sleeve-notes advise - nocturnal listening recommended. Have a nice trip! Website

--Duncan Fletcher

Q magazine

Cardiff-based Soft Hearted Scientists christened their fourth album with their own word for escape from the drudgery of modern life. A wide-eyed trip through the valleys of South Wales, Wandermoon is often reminiscent of those other Welsh psychedelicists Super Furry Animals at their most whimsical.

While the swirling climate change lullaby Tornadoes in Birmingham is gorgeously simplistic, it's Road to Rhayader, with its martial percussion and allusions to "flowers floating in the air," that really evokes the green green grass of home. Website

-- Robin Turner

Uncut Magazine

Welsh outfit set the controls for Syd-era Floyd

At Soft Hearted Scientists Cardiff HQ, the calendar sits forever at 1967 and Syd Barrett is house deity. Although the multi track "Mountain Delight" is far from the only track here to pay unashamed homage to the lysergic whimsy of early Pink Floyd, these six songs, ranging from two minutes to ten, enjoy a roving brief. The woodsmoked strum of "Arrival Song" recalls Traffic, while other moments evoke The Who at their most trippy. If Wandermoon often sails perilously close to outright mimickry, its obvious sincerity and dedication to beauty do much to redeem it. Website

The Independent

Whimsical psychedelia must be like mother's milk to the Welsh.

Soft Hearted Scientists are yet another band spiritually indebted to Syd Barrett, dedicated to making music with a sense of wonder akin to "the sound of stars flying off the end of a wand". Opener "Mountain Delight" fulfills that remit perfectly, finding them gazing into infinity over a bed of glockenspiel, acoustic and slide guitar. "The Trees Don't Seem To Know That It's September" is jocular British music-hall psych-pop, like long hair curling beneath a straw boater, while "Tornadoes In Birmingham" muses amusingly on how "the weather is altogether stranger than it used to be". But no stranger, surely, than the multi-sectioned "Westward Leading", an epic expedition evoking the "magic dust of an octomyth". Website

-- Andy Gill

I Heart AU

Like a semi-precious nugget of pure Sixties psychedelia, Soft Hearted Scientists boast all the freshness of new kids on the block. In fact, Wandermoon is their fourth album and it's clear the Cardiff-based four piece have spent their 10-year lifespan honing the sort of sweet-natured trippy pop that made Gorky's Zygotic Mynci the darlings of the same scene more than a decade ago.

Taking the delicious, off-the-wall parts of Barrett-era Pink Floyd - think 'See Emily Play' in glorious technicolour - there's a warmth, heart and almost folkiness to the album.

The reassuring familiarity to Soft Hearted Scientists' strangeness on opener 'Mountain Delight', wherein mountains have a consciousness, is unusual but comforting in its oddity. Website

-- Kirstie May

Drowned In Sound

While 2009's stripped down Scarecrow Smile -- a collection of 16 demos rather than a proper record -- emanated a more down to earth sound than the Welsh quartet Soft Hearted Scientists' usual psychedelic whimsy, Wandermoon is a gravitating pull back to the strange, a record that both stays grounded and rockets off.

Since debut Take Time to Wonder in a Whirling Wind, the inhabitants of singer Nathan Hall's head have always been a curiosity rotating past the Arctic Monkeys to Syd Barret, Hall's ability to tackle topics true to home with an abstract sparkle is his strongest trait. Written to protest against the drudgery of normal life, Wandermoon is Hall's trigger word escapism against all things 'coalition government, Jeremy Kyle and Clarkson.'

'Tornadoes in Birmingham' is the most obvious piece of such commentary as Hall narrates: "London and Cardiff will become the new Atlantis' / Better mutate and grow gills or move to a log cabin." Admittedly it crashes when compared to the catchy sing-a-long charm of: "The trees don't seem to know that it's September / Please don't tick them off they'll lose their leaves / Then summer's emerald kingdom will be crumbling / Then loneliness will be back to haunt my dreams" on 'The Trees Don't Seem to Know It's September', which flares with the same kaleidoscopic charms as Gorki's Zygotic Mynci. Theramin-like expansions dazzle into a glaring warble of alien organ whilst the contrasting lilt of 'Arrival Song' and mystical 'Road to Rhayadar' add a welcome pastoral charm.

Wandermoon is rich and illuminated in a stellar and quaint personality which ultimately makes the record, and it's hard not to be lifted into Soft Hearted Scientists' world with them. Though a little over indulgent and farfetched at times, it's decent escapism. Website

-- Alex Yau

Record Collector

Trust the Welsh to do good Psychedelia.

Soft Hearted Scientists have clearly been drinking at the well of Syd Barrett and very good they are too. 4 stars. Website

New Sound Wales

Much delayed new release from one of Wales' finest bands who set their stall by stating that "psychedelia may be the greatest cultural achievement of humanity". That's up for debate, however, there is no doubting that this band are progressing organically and in the process producing some truly wonderful music. Gentle melodies, rich vocals and intriguing lyrics. There is always a danger that musicians who are obsessed with '60s psychedelia will simply emulate their heroes and end up sounding like a pale imitation. However, with this album, The Soft Hearted Scientists demonstrate that such inspiration can work wonders by taking the elements from a bygone age and gradually evolving their own sound which is instantly recognisable and enchanting. I sincerely doubt you will hear a more magical track than "Tornadoes in Birmingham" or a more beguiling one than the title track "Wandermoon" this year. Website