Psychic Ills
Mirror Eye

There are albums that require a dissociation of the listening self, or rather, since I have no idea what I just wrote, targeted listening tied to specific and contingent "mental states". The new and second album by Psychic Ills (whose debut "Dins" was one of the best examples of all-encompassing psychedelia of 2006), rightly belongs to this category.

"Mirror Eye" is a typical take-it-or-leave-it album, which can comfortably induce narcolepsy and irritation, as much as leave you bewildered and drooling on the couch as if you were inside the foggiest Indochinese opium den. In almost two months of listening, I have understood a couple of things:

1. It should NOT, under ANY circumstances, be listened to in the car 
2. It must be listened to at exaggerated volumes, like the Ministry, and strictly on headphones, preferably in states of trance more or less induced 
3. Those at Pitchfork really don’t know a damn thing.

For the explanation of point 3, just click on the review published by the aforementioned musical opinion makers site to understand. The problem is not a low rating. The problem is the reasoning given, like "now that Animal Collective is veering towards listenability, you make an improvised record?" By the same logic, if my neighbor likes cleaning their backside with garden brambles, should I do the same? Might as well pay them for a session of psychoanalysis.

The other two points are easily explainable: considering the rhythmic stasis on which the entire album rests, crisscrossed by gusts of variously shaped and sounding analog gadgets, it could seriously and insidiously distract you from driving, with the consequent running over of an octogenarian pedestrian on the crosswalk. But if you carve out some time for it, and relax a bit with these haunting lullabies in your headphones, you’ll discover a world made of Indian caves with muffled sounds ("Mantis"), where air currents seem like planes taking off ("Sub Synth") with those zoned out Silver Apples at the controls ("Eyes Closed") that, between mental air pockets ("I Take You As My Wife Again"), and cerebral turbulence ("Fingernail Tea"), will take you where no (sane) man has gone before ("The Way Of").

An album that's hard to judge, but would surely have pleased that old psychonaut Lapassade.