Temples’ Sun Structures, released earlier this year, was a melodic psych-fest that deserved more plaudits than it received. Notwithstanding its Top 10 chart placing, it was damned with all manner of faint praise when really its brilliance should have been screamed from the rafters.
Now there is an opportunity to reassess it as Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve – aka DJs Erol Alkan and Richard Norris – offer their “re-animation” of the record. They take five tracks (Sand Dance, Shelter Song, A Question Isn’t Answered, Golden Throne and Move With The Season) and use them as the launchpad for a 42-minute musical odyssey (and oracle). Some of it sounds like Flaming Lips, pure cosmic Americana; other parts like 60s Brit psych remixed by 80s acid housers. There is even a foray into space-age bachelor pad psych-muzak: Bacharach to the future.
All echo, delay and reverb, Alkan and Norris use psych signifiers even more liberally than Temples themselves, but the coda – where they alight on a musical phrase and stretch it out – is utterly gorgeous. The original album was better because the songs were already psych enough, but this is a kaleidoscopic reimagining of what will surely be the psych album of the year./o:p