Snakes Don’t Belong in Alaska and Little Illusion Machine at Dulcimer Manchester - Gig Review 16 Oct

The Liverpool Psychedelic Society braces out to a few places that aren’t Liverpool, this time their hallucinogenic lighting show and psych choice of bands are at Dulcimer in Chorlton Manchester.

First up are Little Illusion Machine. They are an Indie Psych band with huge 60s surf influences that seem to roll up out of nowhere. Inventive, tight, some great lead guitar moments with creative bass playing and pin sharp drums backing them up and let flourish. For a band that have taken their name from an Artic Monkeys song they seem distant from that source, the indie sound is there but they’ve hit a stride down the 60s with a sound that owes as much to British beat groups on the cusp of becoming psychedelic and strong references to garage surf sounds. Quite possibly they are on their way to becoming a 13th Floor Elevators for today.

The Snakes, I’ll make no secret of this, I played alongside them in a gig in Chelmsford almost four years ago and was incredibly impressed by them. I’ve gotten my fix by buying couple of their albums so I’m already looking forward to their set. It’s drums and bass that propels the Snakes forward, these instruments simply but expertly played keep the sonic disturbances moving. They build up on repeated motifs with drums and bass locking tight and guitar and keyboards adding psych flourishes and real power when required. Its zone out stuff, easy to close your eyes and let it all wash over you type psych. The guitars and keys add texture to the spaced out moments and bring in shifting melodies before turning full on and joining the bass and drums in powerful repeated simple dark sounding riffs until suddenly their set is over. Hopefully not another four years before seeing these again.