It would be too easy to use the tired description "Wall of Sound" for the music of The Psychic Paramount. It's more like several Fort Knox style Walls of Sound. Combining their frenetic and fierce playing style with the "In the Red" (more like beyond the red) recording and mastering job, the music on Gamelan Into the Mink Supernatural sonically loses depth and becomes one dimensional. One dimensional, in a very good way. Existing somewhere in the sound world of This Heat (grooving rhythms and angular guitar), My Bloody Valentine (thickly processed bass and guitar), and Acid Mothers Temple (pure psychedelic freak-out-ness), The Psychic Paramount make use of repetition and intensity to induce a trance state in the listener (no psychedelics required). The CD is enhanced with a great Super 8 video of the band performing live on their 2004 tour.

Recorded August 2004 at The Seaside Lounge Recording Studios, Brooklyn, NY by Charles Burst.

Personnel: Drew St. Ivany-guitar / Ben Armstrong-bass / Jeff Conaway-drums

One might say that it's highly unusual for a group's second album to consist of solo recordings by one member made prior to their first album and their formation. Such is the strange workings of The Psychic Paramount and their new album, Origins and Primitives Vol. 1 + 2. Recorded between 1996 and 2002 in Brooklyn and France, Origins and Primitives first comes off as a solo improv record by Drew St. Ivany, the guitarist and founding member of The Psychic Paramount. This would, of course, not be a bad thing. However, after listening for a while it becomes apparent that these recordings served as a blueprint for or prequel to their first album, Gamelan Into The Mink Supernatural. The piece "Echoh Air" appears on both, though it's more of a solo guitar study on Origin and Primitives. Like "Echoh Air", "Enad/VOAT" and "Solo Electric Guitar With Pre-Recorded Drums" are the only ones most obviously related to their current sound world. The other music spread out across these two CDs travels between electro-acoustic works made with processed guitar, to solo acoustic guitar pieces that have been looped and reverse looped to oblivion. If I had to describe it in one sentence I'd say: "Post tonal guitar studies, covered by Penguin Cafe Orchestra, then treated and remixed by Brian Eno and Harold Budd."

Recorded live to stereo cassette 2001-2002 in France (tracks 2, 4, 5, 7); four-track cassette in Brooklyn, NY 1996 (tracks 3, 6); digital multi-track in Isère, France in August 2002 (Disc 2).

Personnel: Drew St. Ivany-electric, acoustic guitars, organ, drums, guitar, tape recorder, effects, loop pedal