Carlton Melton Mind Minerals

This is the new Carlton Melton album, the first full length release since 2015’s widely-lauded Out To Sea, itself a languid drifting of drones and psychedically-enhanced riffmongering. Admittedly, there has been some long EP releases since: Hidden Lights in 2017 (featuring the immeasurable drone-sike-float on “Rememory”) and Aground in 2016 (a companion, the Desert Island weather beaten psych-flow follow up to Out To Sea). Now its time to soak up Mind Minerals.

This album finds the band in fine fettle: all the songs were recorded and engineered at El Studio in San Francisco by Phil Manley over two days (except “Untimely”), with the studio suiting them—a logical progression from previous weekend recordings out at the Dome. Under Manly’s watchful ear / eye, the band have created a futurescape soundtrack, a 3001 Space Odyssey. The drums are more pounding and direct than ever, the constantly re-assuring bass creates a helping hand of propulsion through the clouds of static and shards of electrifying guitar dazzling the horizon. Synths help soothe the sharp edges and lull one into an out of body experience, while the orchestrated calamitous scree brings one back. This is a breathless, yet deep breathing album.

The core trio of Andy Duvall (drums/guitar), Clint Golden (bass guitar), and Rich Millman ( guitar/synth) have some alchemical bond that’s helped them create a post –rock / psychedelic / freeform organic slab of American Primitivism / space drift, unashamed head-music from the melting pot of Northern California. Five decades ago this album would have been released on the ESP Disk Label or even Apple. Carlton Melton provides the aural microdose to reset your mind and psyche!