RISING – Psychic Dancehall

The internet has done it again. It’s good to be a fan of music in this digital age. We followed a Twitter feed from Dirty Beaches that read "check out my buddy Chuck’s new project w/his fiance" and that’s how we discovered Psychic Dancehall. There’s not much info available, but their name presumably comes from The Fall‘s ‘Psykick Dancehall’ off the Dragnet album. One sure thing is that Psychic Dancehall consists of San Diego’s Dorian Wartime and London’s Sylvia Innocent.

Yesterday the duo delivered their debut A Love That Kills/Long Lost Lover via Art Fag Recordings, the label that gave Dum Dum Girls, Crocodiles and Best Coast their start, so you know it’ll be a good time. The A-Side ‘A Love That Kills’ is an awesomely begrimed lo-fi and bittersweet pop song, with lots of ’70s West Coast romanticism. According to their label it’s drenched in a tucked-away love that Serge Gainsbourg might dig.We dig it, too. Smooth drum beats, pulsing keyboards and the omnipresent whispered lyrics characterize the duo’s gritty style, and you gotta love the casiotone keyboard sounds! The flip side ‘Long Lost Lover’; is a cover of the track by roots reggae group Love Joys. Sung by Sylvia Innocent, this is perfect music to have a smoke to.

We don’t want to judge too early, but after their first two tracks it looks like Psychic Dancehall are going to be making some waves. We know for sure that they’re really, really cool. Their sound could have come from any era, year, or decade, but you can make out traces of Suicide, Arthur Russell and Scott Walker – it’s music that translates feeling into sound and feels timelessly emotional. Try it yourself below.

Published June 03, 2011.