John Cep and Kim Field have been making some derivative of wispy dream pop together as The Stargazer Lilies for over five years, though their fourth LP together is proving to be their heaviest tape-warped take on the genre to date. Pivoting from the Black Moth Super Rainbow–associated label Graveface to a different label with ties to BMSR, the forthcoming Occabot also sees the pair working with BMSR’s Tobacco as producer. With Robert Beatty’s iconically psychedelic artwork on its cover, this record is veritably out there.
The idea behind the record—per Tobacco—was to shift the band’s sound from “panoramic and smooth” to “3D and bumpy,” the newly shared “Dizzying Heights” being a perfect example of this mission statement’s flawless execution. Field’s whispered vocals paired with noisy shoegaze-conscious instrumentation sounds closer to Candy Claws’ output than anything the band’s done before, with the constant sensation that the physical recording is suffering from some form of water damage as a steady reminder of its producer’s input.
“John got really sick during the writing of this album,” Field recalls, perhaps offering some context for the album’s woozy sounds. “I wrote the bass line and lyrics to ‘Dizzying Heights’ late one night after one of his panic attacks. He’d been having frequent dizzy spells along with a lot of other unnerving symptoms. Somehow I managed to be uncharacteristically positive during that period.”
Occabot is out November 1 on Rad Cult Records. You can pre-order it here.
