Title: Intuition
Artist: Horrible Present
Release Date: 2014 June 9
Genre: Psychedelic Pop
License: CC BY-NC-SA
Label: We Were Never Being Boring

Introduction

It might be best to read the notes for this release on the We Were Never Being Boring website. Seriously, read them now. So, the magic intuition in the Horrible Present comes from years of traveling the world, misunderstandings by others, and a fascination with the past. Well alright, let’s go digging into the intuition of Horrible Present.

Magic Intuition In The Horrible Present

It’s a wonderfully fascinating dichotomy Horrible Present presents in this release. To quote the website notes:

I’m positive. Future is gonna be glorious. And repetitive. And trippy.

This is after he has stated:

I’m extremely fascinated by the past. The psychedelia in the 60s.

in other words: the psychedelia of the 60’s is the way to the future. It’s looking backwards acknowledging the past to find the future. It’s using samples of the 20’s through the 40’s, building and layering loops. Making highly repetitive modern pop music that has all the trappings of the past.

Within the past decade or two there have been a lot of acts that have returned to the 60’s and 70’s as inspiration for the music. It’s been more of an homage to the past, than it has been a matter of making modern music. The last time I heard anyone trying to make authentically new music using old analog equipment would have been The Brian Jonestown Massacre back in the early 1990’s.

However, where BJM takes a more modern approach to recording, Horrible Present maintains a much more of authentic sound. The attention to the recording process makes these songs sound like they actually come from the 60’s and could have been actually on a Velvet Underground or Rolling Stones release.

A couple of real standout tracks for me: The opening track ‘All Things Will Shine’ with it’s backward tracked guitars and half-slurred vocals being swallowed up by highly fuzzed out guitars set the mood. ‘The Girl Who Found the World’ has an immediate California vibe that just grooves nicely. The opening guitar lines of ‘April 1944’ giving way to breezy psychedelic trip is one of those moments where you want to just drift away. Finally on ‘Golden Shot’ I would swear that the vocals are a blend of John Lennon and George Harrison, without imitating either of them, that leaves you with a sense of longing and desire.

Conclusion

The magic intuition of Horrible Present is found in every single track on this release. He has a way of building and blending styles, samples and ideas of the past in ways that transform them into new music. This isn’t just an homage to the psychedelia of the 60’s, Horrible Present is an artist that is searching for the future by building on the past.