Neo-psychedelic music
| Neo-psychedelia | |
|---|---|
| Stylistic origins | |
| Cultural origins | Late 1970s, United States and United Kingdom |
| Derivative forms | |
| Subgenres | |
| Local scenes | |
| Other topics | |
Neo-psychedelia (also called "acid punk") is a diverse style of music that originated in the 1970s as an outgrowth of the British post-punk scene. Its practitioners drew from the unusual sounds of 1960s psychedelic music, either updating or copying the approaches from that era. After post-punk, neo-psychedelia flourished into a more widespread and international movement of artists who applied the spirit of psychedelic rock to new sounds and techniques. Neo-psychedelia may also include forays into psychedelic pop, jangly guitar rock, heavily distorted free-form jams, or recording experiments. A wave of British alternative rock in the early 1990s spawned the subgenres dream pop and shoegazing.
Neo-psychedelic acts borrowed a variety of elements from 1960s psychedelic music. Some emulated the psychedelic pop of bands like the Beatles and early Pink Floyd, others adopted Byrds-influenced guitar rock, or distorted free-form jams and sonic experimentalism of the 1960s. Some neo-psychedelia has been explicitly focused on drug use and experiences, and like acid house of the same age, projects transitory, ephemeral, and trance-like experiences. Other bands have used neo-psychedelia to accompany surreal or political lyrics.
In the view of author Erik Morse: "The distinctions between British and American neo-psychedelia were best described as the differences between primitivism and primalism. The sounds of American neo-psychedelia emphasized the cryptic margins of avant-rock, incorporating evanescent textures over an immutable bassline, producing a 'heavy' metallic ambience, contra-distinct to the sing-song filigree of British psychedelia".
Psychedelic rock declined towards the end of the 1960s, as bands broke up or moved into new forms of music, including heavy metal music and progressive rock. Like the psychedelic developments of the late 1960s, punk rock and new wave in the 1970s challenged the rock music establishment. At the time, "new wave" was a term used interchangeably with the nascent punk rock explosion. In 1978, journalist Greg Shaw categorized a subset of new wave music as "neo-psychedelia", citing Devo, "to an extent ... [its] first major indication ... [they are] the new darling of the new wave press and opion-makers, yet nothing about it is remotely 'punk'". Shaw wrote that in England, neo-psychedelia was known as "acid punk", noting "self-advertised 'psychedelic punk' band, the Soft Boys, [are] being hotly pursued by several major labels."
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