#psych-pop

#psych-pop

Melody Prochet took the title for her new Melody's Echo Chamber album, Unclouded, from a Hayao Miyazaki quote about achieving equilibrium and clearing away hate to create space for acceptance. The follow-up to 2018's Bon Voyage is a showcase for suitably unburdened and dreamy psych-pop with rolling basslines and reverb-cloaked vocals, resulting in music that's more floral wisps than paisley curls. Even the song titles themselves invoke a trippy 1970s film: Eyes Closed, The House That Doesn't Exist, Flowers Turn Into Gold.

On a bright afternoon in late August, I met Kevin Parker, the polymath behind the psych-pop project Tame Impala, at a hotel bar in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. Parker was dressed in baggy pants, flip-flops, and sunglasses. His hair is the kind of shaggy that suggests abject neglect more than overpriced Hollywood coiffure. We ordered a round of mezcal cocktails, which, when they arrived, were conspicuously pink and garnished with tiny orchids.