Los Angeles-based neo-psych sorcerer Morgan Delt first appeared in early 2013 with a limited-edition
demo-length cassette release titled Psychic Death Hole. The six songs on this bite-sized album brought to light all the demonic psychedelic force of early Pink Floyd and the druggy jangle of any number of '60s acid-tripping jangle rock bands meeting with the more jagged edges of Thee Oh Sees' most brutal home-recorded rock tracks.
The limited 7" Barbarian Kings b/w Black Tuna Gang followed the cassette release, and in early 2014,
Delt released a self-titled album for Trouble in Mind. He then signed with Sub Pop and retreated to his home studio to begin work on album number two. Recorded entirely by Delt himself, then mastered by the very busy J.J. Golden, the even more trippy, more psyched-up Phase Zero was released in August of 2016.
The invocation of classic west coast psychedelia that permeates Morgan Delt’s Sub Pop debut LP feels
like a continuous sunrise, never concealing its influences yet perfectly putting its songs through a gauzy lens that blurs and obscures.
Is such a thing even possible after witnessing umpteen reverb-jockeys creating their own take on the
genre?
Can anything truly different be done in the realm of being both original and reverent, wearing favorite records and artists’ moves on one’s sleeve? Definitely the case with our man here.
After releasing a 6-song cassette in 2013 followed by a full length for the Trouble In Mind label, the
California native now fine-tunes his sound world outwardly rather than honing in on a specific trajectory, allowing all of said influences to coexist together in a unique yet undoubtedly Californian vision.
MORGAN DELT - MORGAN DELT 2014
By all accounts, Morgan Delt is a normal enough guy, living in Los Angeles probably with a cat and the same need to pay the bills as the rest of us. Still, if one were to judge by the sound of his debut self-
titled album released in 2014 by the fine folks at Trouble in Mind, it might seem like Mr. Delt was flash-frozen in 1967 while in the process of making his own version of "Strawberry Fields Forever" or "My White Bicycle," then only recently thawed out. It has all the trippy elegance of the former and all the phased hookiness of the latter, while adding a bedroom-crafted intimacy that is the only aspect of the record that dates it as a modern production.
While the album sounds like a note-perfect take on psych pop from start to finish that was crafted by
someone who owns at least a wall full of Nuggets, Pebbles, and Rubble compilations, it also benefits from Delt's knack for catchy songwriting.
A lot of people have done the same kind of excavation and restoration work he has, but few have done
it as memorably. Almost no one has done it with songs as good as these. Tracks like the undulating "Mr. Carbon Copy," the rampaging "Chakra Sharks," and the sunny with a chance of weirdness "Obstacle Eyes" sound amazing with their period finery, but would be just as nice stripped down and done in a more sedate fashion.
Best of them all are the songs that could be slotted in on a late-'60s psych comp and not only fit in, but
be highlights. Songs like the seriously melted with a giant chorus "Barbarian Kings" and the brilliantly arranged "Make My Grey Brain Green" would make the Pretty Things' brains green with envy and would make almost any fan of this kind of music incredibly happy.
Delt may be a normal guy; he may have traveled through time with a stop to steal Faine Jade's (look
him up!) soul. Regardless of how he came to make Morgan Delt, it was all worth it because this is timeless psychedelic music of the highest quality imaginable.
Morgan Delt – Morgan Delt
Label: Trouble In Mind – TIM064
Format: CD, Album
Country: US
Released: 2014
Genre: Rock
Style: Psychedelic Rock
TRAXS
01. Make My Grey Brain Green 2:51
02. Barbarian Kings 3:52
03. Beneath The Black And Purple 3:10
04. Mr. Carbon Copy 2:53
05. Obstacle Eyes 3:28
06. Little Zombies 3:14
07. Chakra Sharks 1:38
08. Sad Sad Trip 3:57
09. Backwards Bird Inc. 3:39
10. Tropicana 2:09
11. Main Title Sequence 2:02
BONUS TRACK (From the Psychic Death Hole EP 2012)
12. Gatactic Grids 7:13
Flac Size: 286 MB
MORGAN DELT - PHASE ZERO 2016
The resulting 10-song collection, performed entirely by Delt, recorded in his Topanga Canyon studio
and then mastered by JJ Golden, is a home-fi construction with a more subtle, braintickling character than its predecessor, and somewhat reflects a realist take on the flower power fantasy of 1967.
Doused in echo and haze, slow chords lap in like Pacific waves, flanked by gentle whispers of multi-
tracked, cooing vox, phased guitars and fuzz that calmly surrounds the listener’s head less than it jabs at the cortex. Opener “I Don’t Wanna See What’s Happening Outside” is almost the sharpest-sounding number on the record with jittery, choogling guitar that makes its dry solo run upfront, appearing mid-song out of a fog.
The sense of home experimentation amidst the lo-fidelity and oozy layers of vocals almost brings to
mind Christine McVie’s lush pacification of Lindsey Buckingham’s deliberate New Wave pot-stirring on Tusk, but unlike that record, Delt’s futurism fog can’t help but nod to Sunset acid of days of yore.
One doesn’t need to listen close to extract healthy doses of Notorious Byrd Brothers, Curt Boettcher,
Terry Riley, and Buffalo Springfield in the stew with a solid line of fluttery electronics that fizzle in and out of the floaty arrangements. “Sun Powers” hits the deck like a lift-off from a ‘70s UK sci-fi TV show, sunny tremolo zipping in circles around warm Zombies-like vocals coming out of some kinda cave, lovely melodies and words overriding any turbulence or background FX.
It takes a creative mind to hone in on a song like “Escape Capsule” without wearing out well-trodden
use of tablas and electric drones. More often than not it all traditionally can fall into Beatles or Spacemen 3 terrain, but on this song Delt can transport what would normally be a dark-n-druggy blanket into a much more optimistic and friendly listening experience.
Despite his voice being channelled through hallucinatory effects, it’s warm and inviting, projecting a
sense of hope (particularly in “Some Sunsick Day,” which evokes the hopeful “We’ll Meet Again” as the world explodes at the end of Dr. Strangelove, later covered by the Byrds). It’s more or less just an invite to watch the sun rise too.
Morgan Delt – Phase Zero
Label: Sub Pop – SP 1135
Format: CD, Album, Stereo
Country: US
Released: Aug 26, 2016
Genre: Rock
Style: Psychedelic Rock
TRAXS
01. I Don't Wanna See What's Happening Outside 4:13
02. The System Of 1000 Lies 2:48
03. Another Person 3:00
04. Sun Powers 3:46
05. The Age Of The Birdman 3:31
06. Mssr. Monster 3:53
07. A Gun Appears 3:11
08. The Lowest of the Low 4:31
09. Escape Capsule 5:16
10. Some Sunsick Day 5:11
