Written By: Chris Parsons

Welcome back from the holidays! We’ve already undergone the mysterious transition into the “14th Baktun,” and are looking very much towards the prospects of 2013 on the horizon. Because of this in-between period, I’ve decided to draft up a retrospective for 2012. Fear not, this is not the typical ranking of the year-end “Best of…” or “Top 10, 20, 30” lists of bands and/or musical projects. Instead, I am very happy to squeeze 5 impressive artists from 2012 into this featured serial release over the weekend, before the slew of 2013 releases beginning pouring through the ozone. Since my inception into The Process Records/Think Like a Label back in April, my music collection and network has largely, and tastefully exploded and these psychedelic bands are ones that I’ve been particular smitten by, the only delay in their features being either the result of catching wind of the releases a bit too late or the increasing athletic trend of projects which are intent on producing an overwhelming output of multiple full-length releases in a single year.

Rancho Relaxo

This project is probably the most obscure out of the five, which is more or less why this plug had been delayed. However, Norway’s Rancho Relaxo is one psychedelic bunch I would never pass up. If there’s any band making original music in the timeless and psychedelic veins of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, it’s these guys. Rancho Relaxo realizes a completely feel-good wall-of-sound style of shoegaze, complete with guitar drones, sitar ragas, reverb-drenched vocals, and steady tambourine. Their 2012 release, “Happy Friday Experiment,” was released back in January on Trout as Lubrication Records, while their discography is seemingly eclectic and inexhaustible, and there’s surely more to come on the way! The sound of Rancho Relaxo is pure, blissful relaxation, sending heady vibrations from your ears right down to your toes; we find it hardly acceptable to remain sitting still while digging on these jams. Ditch that “Norwegian Wood” and pick up this Norwegian rock!