PLANKTON WAT
Future Times THRILL JOCKEY
Synth-enhanced instrumental psych confronts the American Nightmare.
Plankton Wat is the solo project of Dewey Mahood, guitarist with US heavy psych mainstays Eternal Tapestry. While that group tend towards exploratory maximalism, Mahood strips things back on Future Times – there’s still plenty of heady fuzz action here, but it’s counterpointed by the chromium sheen of old-style electronica. The album often sounds like the lost soundtrack to some 1970s eco awareness sci-fi movie, though the events that inspired it – pitched battles on the streets while forest fires rage out of control – are all too real. That’s not to say the music is entirely apocalyptic –its beating heart is still Mahood’s take on chiming, psychedelic Americana, epitomised by tracks such as Nightfall and Wind Mountain. But more interesting is what creeps in at the edges of his sounds.