Shrunken Elvis - Shrunken Elvis (Western Vinyl)

Shrunken Elvis are Spencer Cullum, Sean Thompson and Rich Ruth - something of a Nashville outsider dream team, and individually, Ruth especially, no strangers to TSMM's pages and playlists.

Cullum is an acid-folk inclined pedal steel guitarist originally from East London, so probably more at home in Nashville than Stratford, Thompson is a local boy and grew up in the city's DIY scene rather than with its more polished country crooners, and Ruth, who I believe is also from there, is a bit trippier and improvisation inclined, having recently explored more jazz and kosmische avenues to stunning effect, hitching a ride with Third Man Records in the process.

With form like that it was highly unlikely new album was ever going to be troubling the Billboard Top 100, and true to form the lads have set off on a kosmische voyage that should appeal to all sorts of trippers, dreamers and outsiders.

Easing us in, "That There's a Strategy" floats through the speakers to politely open all doors of perception within earshot, the gentle guitar refrain providing some minimal style propulsion for the zero gravity synths and orbiting slide guitar. Next up those dreamy pads and slide are back, before an excited metronome hits the ground running encouraged by a sparser guitar refrain that keeps pace, making you wonder whether to snooze or sprint, a matter soon decided by the second half psyche wig out - a dream dash it is. "Mu Receptors" then ploughs similar territory, it's largely ambient minimal heartbeat given a shot of late stage 80s psyche rock adrenalin to roller coaster effect.

Next up is the chugging house meets lysergic nostalgia of the aptly named, "K-House", and by now you're probably tuning into the vibe. This is the trio in a flow state, channelling the spirits of their mostly departed twentieth century heroes, eschewing commercial considerations and ego in favour of spiritually enriching, inner gazing, star mapping, hive mind imagination rioting; the boys culturally regressing to achieve present day enlightenment, whilst charting a cosmic course for our troubled times ahead using the musical tools at their disposal.

Whether it's the journey to the heart of the sun sounds of, "Eggs on Plastic", the undulating lysergic energy of, "An Old Outlet", the vintage Balearic trip of "Sun Pillar", the cosmic jazz cowboy soundtrack, "Every Faint Rustle" or the THC saturated ambient Americana of the album's final attempt to widen your reality tunnel, "A Broken Cat" this album will satiate the outsider demands of old heads and provide a gateway to the counter cultural sounds of fifty or sixty years ago for a new generation. And although humanity rarely learns from its past, some moments in counter cultural time should always be celebrated and never forgotten.

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Playlist Companion

Find Shrunken Elvis in the Slow Psyche Playlist: