One label has remained steadfast with their mission to open eyes, open ears, and blow minds with music that delves into the Gothic, the heady, and frizzle-fried psych freakouts. Library of the Occult and it’s proprietor/head spell binder Tom McDowell has been laying out otherworldly records since 2019. Artists reimagining the eerie and hazy sights and sounds of late night creature features, dice-rolling memories with D&D, and the haunted literature that lived rent-free in our hearts and minds for decades. Vintage synths coalescing with fuzz-drenched guitars and funky drumbeats come together in a swirl of psychedelia and 60s-heavy garage rock.
Tom is a top notch curator of sound(besides being a hell of a musician/writer in his own right), so every release from LOTO feels like a singular volume in a long-running library of sound. Thanks to some health issues I got behind on my new music listening, but thanks to better living through chemistry I’ve risen from the brink like Frankenstein’s Monster and am getting caught up on what’s what in my music-listening world.
One I’ve landed on today is the fantastic Fortune Teller and their album The Empress, which dropped 6/12 on Library of the Occult. If you’re familiar with LOTO, then this record is going to trip your psychedelic trigger. This one drops firmly in the psych rock category. If you’re a fan of The Psychic Circle, Dream Division, Traffik Island’s Ghost Notes, and The Hologram People then you will most certainly dig the vibe Fortune Teller is cookin’ up.
The band consists of Paul Elliott & Paul Osborne. The “Pauls” as we like to refer to them here at Complex Distractions headquarters, have cooked up a psyched-out stew of buzzing guitars, classic synth sounds, and drum beats that will possess you to shake yer booty.
“Blood Money” opens things with groovy percussion touches and Farfisa organ that sounds like the opening salvo of some early 70s cop flick that takes place in San Francisco. The drums and congas give you no choice but to shake your head. “Hell or High Water” brings in the eerie vibes while still laying down one hell of a drum groove. It sounds like the Luke Cage S/T, but if the series was about Luke Cage fighting the undead in some Scottish haunted castle. “The Fool’s Ritual” is the theme music for that demonic possession western I haven’t yet seen.
It’s all good here. No fast forwards. From the groove heavy “Fortune Teller” to the spooky fairy tale charm of “Sweet Nightmares” to the funky bass guitar of album closer “Chasing The Sunlight” The Empress is firing on all cylinders.
It’s good to catch up with old friends…and in this case it’s Library of the Occult. Fortune Teller’s The Empress is a spooky jam from start to finish.
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