Shrapnel: Alasitas | 4ZZZ Brisbane 102.1FM

- If you need a pleasant escape from the moment, but are after something a little more complex than the opportunity to “get on the beers”, the new Shrapnel record Alasitas may be what you’re after. A tricked out trip into the psych of the ‘60s, there’s more under the hood than on any Shrapnel record in the past, but it’s never too much. It plays with all the components that made the overwrought prog of the ‘70s, but never forgets its roots in simple, sweet, psych-pop.

This is a very different record for former Day Ravies guy Sam Wilkinson, abandoning the often quite abrasive, proto-punk jangle that characterised previous Shrapnel records, like 2018’s Wax World 5. There’s different reasons for that, perhaps the most obvious being the re-introduction of former Day Ravies Caroline de Dear on clarinet and Lani Crooks on flute. Their contributions along with the synth offerings by Toby Baldwin are enough to push us on into St. Peppers era Beatles if not all the way into Jethro Tull. I mean, on this expansive record, those things are definitely here and you’ll get snatches all the way through, but these are tangents from the main game. With an eye to your mental wellbeing, Alasitas nearly always returns to its happy place, maintaining a sunny connection to more easygoing psych-pop sounds, like the gentle jangle of The Byrds or the early, weird pastorals of Syd Barrett.

For all that Alasitas has a very particular connection to the mid-’60s, it’s not overly concerned with authenticity. I think you’d struggle to find examples of synths being used the way they’re used here, back in the day. Wilkinson and friends have, instead, given themselves a wide array of options as they close in on a sound, a mindset, a feeling.

It’s an approach that you can actually hear throughout the back catalogue of bands that Sam Wilkinson has been involved with. There are moments of a Day Ravies record like Liminal Zones which sound a lot like what you’ll hear here, even if the sound is more generally skewed to the dreamy propulsion of Stereolab. It’s a matter of emphasis as much as anything else. I mean, the production alone changes so much here: if you were to amp up the fidelity on Wax World a lot of that savage proto-punk would sound much more like what Shrapnel are doing now. There’s an oddly pleasing feeling of puzzle pieces clicking into place, when you take the zig-zagging of that back-catalogue and imagine it as the same musical imagination taking little excursions into different moments in the history of rock’n’roll; wherever they wanted to go on any given day.

The best part of a decade ago I reflected that the psych-rock revival championed by bands like King Gizz really only captured the roaring, mind-bendingly complex proggy bits: about half of what psych was. It’s taken a while, but musically adventurous souls have been seeking out the rest of it. In the tremendous pressure of the present, there’s no better time to escape on a sunny a trip with Shrapnel, remembering the easy tunefulness, the simple folk and pleasant warmth of long ago.

- Chris Cobcroft.
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