Seeds
Vampire/butterfly Child
The Seeds remain amongst the most beloved and iconographic of the original 1960s garage-psych avatars. To many, their edgy dissonant sounds and relentless fuzz-fuelled drive, tinged with flights of psychedelic fancy, makes The Seeds the quintessential exponent of the genre, as heard on such classics-for-the-ages as 'Pushin' Too Hard,' 'Can't Seem To Make You Mine' and 'Mr Farmer.' Their eponymous 1966 debut album has long been recognized as a minimalist rock'n'roll masterpiece, while its sequels, the pop-art 'A Web Of Sound' and florid 'Future', have also grown more influential as time goes on. For decades, the name The Seeds was most closely identified with the activities of their eccentric vocalist, the late Sky Saxon, but the first, path-finding line-up was always a collaboration, the musical director of which was, without a doubt, keyboard whiz Daryl Hooper. Now, in the 2020s, as the only surviving original Seed, Daryl has reclaimed his birthright with a new and powerful set of Seeds personnel: band historian Alec Palao on bass, singer/frontman extraordinaire Paul Kopf, and Sky Saxon alumni Mark Bellgraph on guitar and Justin Smith on drums. Careful to undertake writing and recording of new material with the same spirit that made the original Seeds discs so evocative, 'Vampire' and 'Butterfly Child' aspire to inspire rather than revive. Having worked extensively on the Seeds' back catalogue as well as writing/producing the recent rockumentary 'The Seeds: Pushin' Too Hard,' Palao oversaw the new single at SGV Studios in Alhambra using the same methods that had worked for the original band in their heyday, recording live to analog tape with only a minimum of overdubs, in order to preserve the dynamics so often lacking from modern productions. The guitars fizz and throb, the drums grind and groove, and Daryl's piano and organ parts remain as spookily compelling as ever. And Kopf delivers a performance one hundred percent in keeping with the energy and verve that is The Seeds' signature.