Psychonauts
Songs For Creatures

I made a mistake.

Quite unforgivable for someone who has been into music for over two decades, buys music (a lot of music), and is supposed to have moved beyond the phase of innocence (to be honest, it didn't happen even when I was a newbie at my first purchase).

What did I do? I bought one record for another.

Unforgivable.

In my mind, I had the latest work by the Cosmic Dead, intrigued by a debaserian review I read a few days ago. I wanted to make "Psychonauts" (the latest studio work of the Scottish combo) my own, and instead, I bought THE Psychonauts, confusing the album's name I wanted to purchase with the name of a band completely unknown to me. This is called senility, but the problem is something else: what the hell did I buy?

I later discover that the Psychonauts are a duo of English DJs, Paul Mogg and Pablo Clements, who curated the remixes for the 1998 celebratory compilation of the Mo' Wax label.

"Songs for Creatures," their first official full-length, was released in 2003 and brings with it three decades of exquisitely British smokiness: here, the acid-house of London's trendiest clubs blends with soul music, funky-breaks, trip-hop, and the psychedelia of the seventies (with evident nods to artists produced by Mo' Wax: DJ Shadows and Air foremost). In short, you might think it's quite a melting pot, and if we're not facing the infinite, absolute, expanded, and hallucinogenic space rock I was drooling over, a moniker like Psychonauts doesn't completely betray expectations. After all, things went well for me, fate wasn't entirely adverse, and "Songs for Creatures" can really make the mind travel, even if it can't carry it too far. The Psychonauts, after all, are prepared professionals, but maybe they overthink: their spoken language is an analog electronics that can't renounce the sung piece as much as the rock arrangement, a blend of elements that, rather than aiming for a stunning effect, heads towards the creation of dusk and changeable atmospheres that become sublime when listened to in a car, perhaps alone, perhaps at night.

It doesn't start well, though: the opening track "Circles" fully incorporates a classic by soulman Donny Hathaway, wrapping it in a somewhat fake and scratched electronics that doesn't fit well with blues reverberations and a guitar riff so overused it becomes tiresome even before it starts to repeat throughout the piece. It's clear right away that the intent is to be cool at all costs (and maybe they are, considering their background), but things get markedly better when the broken beats and minimal textures of "Life's Swift Charger" burst in without interruption (great restart!), an introspection written four-handedly with Chancer, a virtually unknown vocalist with a velvety and caressing voice. Things further improve with "Empty Love": sustained rhythms, prominent bass lines, sampled/looped voices that recall the Chemical Brothers. From a technical point of view, nothing can be faulted with Mogg and Clements: their skill behind the console, combined with an unbridled love for the most engaging club-dance, often compensates for the undeniable lack of originality in a product that certainly doesn't make you scream a miracle (during listening, at least seventy artists from the most disparate backgrounds might come to mind), but it is a pleasure to listen to. And in the end, that's always what counts.

With "Hips for Scotland," it's time to relax again and have a limp cigarette in the mouth; in this case, our heroes dive, without straying from themselves, into the universe of singer-songwriter style, packaging — without disdain for acoustic guitar and slide languors — a cosmic folk-ballad graced by the shadowy voice of another guest unknown to me, James Yorkson. But as was said, "Songs for Creatures" flows beautifully, and the alternation of atmospheres — always exquisitely vintage — is definitely the winning element: with "Hot Blood," the syncopated rhythms, funky basslines, and sampled voices return, all accompanied by synthesized brass and psychedelic effects (the track then shifts in the finale — as often happens in the lively dynamism underlying the modus operandi of the two virtuoso DJs — fading into the uneasy notes of a very "alanparsonian" rock). The driving "Fear is Real" (featuring Siobhan Fahey) starts by pilfering Moroder, then flows into the previously explored territories of the most atmospheric and pounding disco music. This scenario continues — now the engines are running at full throttle — with "Magnetic" (featuring Ghost), which rediscovers the guitars, while "Distance between Dreams" is a bombastic interlude of just over a minute that perpetuates the heist from the Chemical Brothers.

In the eight minutes of "Dream Chaser," our Psychonauts have the opportunity to express all their love for progressive music, first meditating on environmental explorations where the most "disciplined" Fripp (soundscapes directly inspired by early '80s King Crimson) and the most languid Gilmour (a ghost that — along with that of his Pink Floyd, from the phase "The Dark Side of the Moon" to "Animals" — will hover over the entire duration of the album) seem to peacefully coexist, then abandoning themselves to the swell of a hefty four-four, a solid stage for spectacular flights of liquid lead guitar.

Time for farewells finally, the farewell belongs to the two most unabashedly crowd-pleasing tracks: "World Keeps Turning" is a nice electro-pop interlude with a shamelessly "depechemodian" vibe (we're in "Violator" territory) where a jaunty Jason Rowe performs his task honestly over the ever-excellent electronic scores set up by Mogg and Clements, while in "Take Control" (this time with the sensual Sam Lynham behind the microphone), they explore jazz-noir environments, with a crescendo of percussion, just so nothing is missing.

In conclusion: a work as enjoyable as it is insignificant (if you don't like wasting time with excessively derivative products) and, mine, a substantially useless review, but providential if you turn to the de-archive in case you mistakenly come across this album. It's listenable, for God's sake, it is listenable...