Northern California psychedelic sorcerers Carlton Melton are brain surfers, mind trippers, … “psychlists,” if you prefer. The band will take your head for a ride, occasionally rushing at superluminal speeds through a wormhole or gliding softly on a gentle breeze in a leafy glade. Sometimes your brain needs to rage, and sometimes it needs to repose.

For a decade and a half, the band has yo-yo’ed, almost schizophrenically, between these two modes: walloping space jams with furious guitar solos in one hemisphere of the brain and ethereal, feather-light splashdowns in the other. Not to mention a track here and there that builds from the latter into the former.

But with two new releases in 2023, the band has evolved. Whether psych rock or ambient trance, their sound remains driving, organic, and flowing. With the addition of Anthony Taibi (White Manna, DDT), however, the group’s metal freak-outs are Hawkwindier and their droning kraut trances are Spacemen 3-er. In January, the quartet released the playfully spacey Resemble Ensemble, recorded in Taibi’s home studio 3D Light. October now sees the band Turn To Earth, a work with scents of Autumn, a season of death and transition. The cover art evokes a vine-covered, electric crucifix. The sound is, well, earthy but also gritty and striving towards change. The album was recorded in Fall 2022 and now harvested in Fall 2023.

Phil Becker (Terry Gross, Pins Of Light) contributed drums and percussion to a few tracks on Turn To Earth, recording the album at El Studio in San Francisco. With Becker at the helm, the synths have become more prominent (“Cosmicity,” “Roboflow,” “Migration”) and the tone heavier on the doom (“Cloudstorming,” “Unlock The Land,” title track): several moments could even serve as background music for epic dark fantasy films like Conan the Barbarian, Fire and Ice, or Heavy Metal.

As exquisite as Turn To Earth is, Melton are best appreciated as a live act: their recordings as well as their gigs are largely improvised – not so much composed as birthed. And yet their most recent tour ended abruptly and perilously. The group had to cancel its final three shows once members were admitted to Arnhem hospital in the Netherlands. Five years later, reinforcements have strengthened the band and restocked its arsenal of great tracks.

After the rockus interruptus of that 2018 tour and the tantric tease of the intervening Covid lockdown, Melton have some unfinished business. An October 2023 tour is poised to set the freshly minted quartet back onto the stages of Europe and within the cerebral folds of its fans.

Turn To Earth, sure … but keep your head in outer space.

TRACK LISTING

01. Turn To Earth
02. Cloudstorming
03. Vanquished
04. Cosmicity
05. Canned Head
06. Sundering
07. Unlock The Land
08. Roboflow
09. Last Times
10. Migration
11. Mutiny 

Third album from Allentown/PA three-piece Catatonic Suns: their self-released sophomore LP “Saudade” from early '22 was a feat of sonic guitar haze and grunged out pop.

The new album is a step forward in sound for the band, it sees them blend the underground psychedelia of the late 80s / early 90s Pacific Northwest with the shimmering shoegazery of Britain from the same time. Heavy and soft guitars, songs that soar, these new recordings verge on the epic.

For fans of Screaming Trees, Nirvana, The Verve (early), Loop, Slowdive, and Ride.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Wow wow wow! I've no idea how the Catatonic Suns have suddenly developed into this incredible shoegazing grunge noise beast hybrid, but they've blown our minds with their self-titled third album.
Pitched somewhere between the blissed out shoegaze of Ride & Slowdive and the grungy melodic power of Nirvana, it's one huge sonic monster of an album.
Infact this is so good, it's already a certainty for our End Of Year top 10!

TRACK LISTING

1. Deadzone
2. Slack
3. Failsafe
4. Inside Out (Original Sins Cover)
5. Sublunary
6. Fell Off
7. Be As One
8. No Stranger

Strap yourself in people, we have here the debut full length from Philly’s Laurel Canyon; after some online EP releases, and a (now) sold out 7” with Savage Pencil, Agitated Records is excited to announce the release of their s/t album! Guitars are drenched in an Asheton worshipping haze and pummel, melded alongside a Velvets chug and mid-to-late 80s Pacific Northwest guttural / primal howl... this is American primitive music at its most powerful.

Pigeonholers beware, this album takes its cues from all the most potent places… Funhouse, Loaded, Green River, early Sub Pop, all providing valid reference points. In amongst this over-amped harmonious murk are 10 visceral and catchy pop songs practically screaming for attention, the core members of Serg, Nick, and Dylan have created a beast of a record. Some tracks were recorded with Steve Albini, some with Bryce Goggin and all were mastered by Howie Weinberg.

TRACK LISTING

01. Drop Out
02. A Man About Town
03. Madame Hit The Wire
04. Eczema
05. Victim
06. Daddy's Honey
07. Tangiers
08. Shove
09. Take Your Cut
10. Sade

Carlton Melton, from Northern California, are now a practising fourpiece in the arts of melted-minds psychedelia. With the added kraut-oomph and sike-flutter of fellow Californian Anthony Taibi (whom you may know as being a member of White Manna, and also DDT with Andy) Rich Millman, Andy Duvall, and Clint Golden have now embellished the Carlton Melton sound. Pushing forward as a fourpiece, the band recorded Resemble Ensemble in July 2021 (just before Andy moved back over East!) at Anthony’s home studio, 3D Light in Freshwater, CA. Anthony did all the recording and mixing. The Melton Magick Karpet settled, and our favourite contemporary sikedelic warlods plugged in, amped up and let it flow.. and flow it does. .from the krautrock fuelled pszych-raga of Prescribed Skies, the fluid dronescape of Elsewhere that welcomes you into its arms with a warming tone, almost a missing Spacemen 3 demo at the feast here… So The Story Grows has the drone scraping through a murk of dazzling feedback and pummel, with the fuller sounding Melton giving the genre a proper wobble, hold on to your brains people… High Alert.. whas this? Synth and guitar interplay jambusting, this is the Melton wigging out and almost interweaving 70s high table rock with some odd and downright perverse synthfunkpunk rhythms.. get weird.. or get wired..or both.. easily done here.. Closing out the album with Route Thirteen is the road trip home.. they’ve been, they’ve massaged and mangled your synapses, plug in the satnav and take the higher-route home.. if you get our drift.. Carlton Melton, starting 2023 in a better place than most, soaring high on their synaptic-dazzling magick karpet…

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: San Franciscan trio Carlton Melton have always, and will always be mind melters. Their unique brand of floating psychedelia has both moments of tension and grit as well as soaring, lysergic looseness. Soaring, beautifully rendered and perfectly measured as ever. Classic CM.

TRACK LISTING

1. Prescribed Skies
2. Elsewhere (Need To Be)
3. So The Story Grows
4. High Alert
5. Route Thirteen

The debut album from pre-grunge crunch merchants oldboy:

oldboy formed as a past-time - like golf or knitting - between old friends with a love of having a loud good time. created by Max and Chris in an industrial estate rehearsal room back in 2019, get togethers were few and far between but something was popping - it felt like fun.

Since then, practises were again few and far between but after recruiting an old friend - Ryan - on bass (they didn't want to be a two piece - lightning bolt have that covered) they decided to try a little bit harder and as the world went into reverse they somehow wrote what you have here - their debut album 'bloody'.

Recorded at the Total Refreshment Centre in three days with Jonah Falco (fucked up, chubby and the gang, the chisel) and then mixed in three hours in the basement of rough trade west you get exactly where oldboy are at. it's fast and relentless. it swings in places. It's super raw and the sound of three people having a high ol' time.

Mucho influenced by the prime / premiere cuts of the late 80s / early 90s Chicago / US noise, as once released by Touch and Go, Amphetamine Reptile and Sub Pop.. pummelled home with a British post punk thWACK... it’s pop music, it’s just nasty pop music.

For fans of: Tar, Shellac, Precious Wax Droppings, Helmet, Scratch Acid, Tad....

Play loud…
…and often

TRACK LISTING

1. Proper Son
2. Big Balls
3. Soft To The Touch
4. Fux Been Given
5. Wow
6. Slap On The Wrist
7. Pedestal
8. Brace Yerself
9. Underwater Bats

"The Stylist", Kelley Stoltz's 17th album finds him following up the Third Man Records reissue of his 2001 "Antique Glow", with a collection of 10 new songs. The album was recorded early in 2021, and has been languishing in the vinyl pressing log jam ever since - but luckily Stoltz writes timeless songs, the kind that might've appeared on the fringes of the late 60's or mid 80's. Acoustic guitars, synthesizers, drum machines and strong melodies abound. As with his other classic records "Below the Branches", "Double Exposure" and "Ah! (etc)" Stoltz plays most of the instruments himself and records in his home studio in San Francisco. Kelley says, "I chose the title 'the Stylist' because musically I guess that's what I am... because of the way I write, at my leisure over a period of months at home, I kinda flit around between styles. It's all in the pop-rock vein, but there's usually a wide range of sounds and inspiration from song to song. It sort of fits together in a mix tape kind of way, rather than an exploration of one particular mood. That's always been the case with my albums."

The chorus-y guitar jangle of "Your Name Escapes Me" somehow name checks the New Bomb Turks, while reflecting on familiar if forgotten faces from Stoltz's past. On "My Island" insistent piano and saxophone solos take the listener on a tropical trip to the soft rock radio dial. Stoltz played rhythm guitar in Echo & the Bunnymen for a few years, and "We Grew So Far Apart" clangs like a lost Liverpool 80's classic. Stoltz says, "There's a touch more piano on this record... going back to my Sub Pop days, when I was writing more Beatle-y bits... Harry Nilsson... that kind of thing." Indeed, the piano led "It's a Cold World" plays like a holy union of Todd Rundgren and the Zombies where Stoltz declares, "it's a cold world at times, but I'm not ready to give up the fight."

Thankfully, after 23 years the beat goes on... and no matter what style Stoltz chooses, "The Stylist" is another platter of tuneful delight in the impressive catalog of one of the great songwriters of our time.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Change
We Grew So Far Apart
You Had To Be There
My Wildest Dream
Its A Cold World
Side B
Is There Anything That's Better Than This , Babe?
Your Name Escapes Me
In The Night
Wrong Number
My Island

“I was guzzling wine at my favorite bar in San Francisco, the Rite Spot, and the entertainment that night was some local opera singers singing along with a big video screen showing a collage of various operatic moments with subtitles. One particular subtitle, ‘Ah!-(etc)’ made me laugh, I thought it was a perfect description of life - the joy of existence against the etcetera of it all, the struggle. With a heavy head of rose’ it seemed like ecstatic poetry! I scribbled it on a napkin and thought it might make a good title for something” And so the mystery behind the title of Kelley Stoltz new record is solved. Less of a mystery is the quality contained therein… after 12 self-titled releases and a several more under pseudonyms, Stoltz is the word for “one-man-band-home-recording-pop-songs of idiosyncratic character.” A quick follow up to his more power pop and pub rock LP only “Hard Feelings” offering in the summer, “Ah-(etc)” finds Stoltz returning to his sweet spot, writing songs that never were, but should have been in the 60’s and 80’s.

As with other LPs Stoltz makes virtually every noise on the album which was written and recorded in 2019 at his Electric Duck Studio in. San Francisco. A few friends popped in to play along… Stoltz former bandmate, Echo & the Bunnymen’s Will Sergeant adds electric guitar to “The Quiet Ones” a sort of Scott Walker lyrical take on strangers and neighbors. Karina Denike formerly of Dance Hall Crashers adds gorgeous vocals on the bossanova groover “Moon Shy”, where Sergeant pops up again in a spoken word role on the outro. Allyson Baker of SF’s Dirty Ghosts sings on “She Like Noise”, a song Stoltz wrote for her in celebration of her love of seeing live bands.

The album was mastered by Mikey Young in Australia, Tour dates scheduled for summer 2021.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Kelley Stoltz returns for his newest 'Ah! etc', brimming with the clever riffs and latent sunshine psychedelia we've come to expect. It's a refreshing and beautifully accomplished LP, and will certainly go on to reveal many layers with each subsequent listen. Gorgeous.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Team Earth
2. The Quiet Ones
3. Never Change Enough
4. Dodged A Bullet
5. Cold

SIDE B
6. She Likes Noise
7. Some Other Time
8. Moon Shy
9. Darkness Too
10. Chasing The Light
11. Tomorrow
12. Having Fun

Dinked Edition Bonus 12” EP
A:
Gift Of Days
Peace Together
B:
Pictures Of Me
Casio Life

Agitated is more than pleased to announce the long over-due return to wax (and CD) by Carlton Melton, the new album from San Franciscan / Northern Californian space-trippers is here, and its ready to tune you out and turn you on.

Nestled deep in the forests of Mendocino County in Northern California, huddled under the protective shade of towering redwoods and within earshot of frothy waves crashing against the Pacific coastline, squats a geodesic dome that has served as crucible for the experimental genius of Carlton Melton. Nature and Man operate under different logics. But here, Carlton Melton wholly entrusts this idyllic environment with the task of inspiring and guiding their musical improvisations.

The Dome has been the ideal setting to facilitate their creativity. Without forcing a specific dynamic or theme, the band inhabits its womb-like confines to improvise, explore, dream. Their music draws on psychedelia, stoner metal, krautrock, and ambient atmospherics to convey, above all else, a mood.

A prickly guitar melody will float lazily, a wall of dissonant feedback will resolve into a hypnotic drone, or a colossal riff will exhume the soul of Jimi Hendrix. One hears Hawkwind or Spacemen 3 jamming with Pink Floyd at Pompeii.

Indeed, Carlton Melton have one foot in the ancient world and one tentacle in deep space. They are both the pack of proto-humans drumming with femurs in Kubrick’s 2001 and the film’s inscrutable monolith hinting at the universe’s mysteries. The “Stoned Ape” theory holds that early hominids ingested psychedelic mushrooms that provided an evolutionary boost to their brains, helping them blossom into Homo Sapiens. Imagine such cavemen trippin’ balls, their nightmarish visions sending them into feverish bouts of rage and then gentle moments of introspection. They very well could have heard the music of Carlton Melton rattling inside their skulls, first driving our ancestors mad then upward into a higher realm.

Andy Duvall (drums, guitar), Clint Golden (bass), and Rich Millman (guitar, synths) have yet to play Pompeii, but they have already wowed crowds at European festivals such as the Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia, Roadburn, and Desertfest Antwerp. Live, they are jaw-dropping. On record, mind-altering.

In fact, with each album, Carlton Melton adds a subtle new element, synapses firing new neural connections. In 2020, they release new full-length Where This Leads, marking ten years of the band’s working relationship with their UK label Agitated Records and five years of recording with Phil Manley in his El Studio in San Francisco. With Where This Leads, the band rewires the listener’s mind. “Smoke Drip Revisited” is a ticklish acid flashback, “Porch Dreams” a dabbling in country psych, and “Closer” a driving, freak-out of guitar heroics.

One senses that the group is conveying a message that cannot be expressed verbally but only suggested through synth sighs, walloping rhythms, and soaring solos. Would Carlton Melton therefore be a group of stoned apes dizzily grasping for meaning or telepathic futurists communicating to us through crude man-made instrumentation?

Well, lower the stylus to find out.
- Eric Bensel, Paris July 2020

TRACK LISTING

1. The Stars Are Dying
2. Butchery
3. Waylay
4. Dezebelle
5. Smoke Drip Revisited
6. Crown Shyness
7. Three Zero Two
8. Porch Dreams
9. Closer