"welcome to the holiest place"
Listen to Eternally Sold Separately by London's avant garde art rockers Mass Datura and you might suddenly feel childlike and about to amble through a sort of musical Willy Wonka-esque world meets A Clockwork Orange-ish vision with pixie sticks full of psychedelia shot through a Warhol filter. Sonically, amidst the Sunday comics bounce, the song made me think of a car crash of the Kinks, T-Rex, MGMT, Droogs, Sparks and Henry Cow. Their is something weird and wonderful going on here. Art rock, power pop, experimental pop, psyche rock pushed and bent in avant garde ways. I need to steep in Mass Datura's aesthetic for awhile to even decipher their sound and my feelings about them but that's quite ok.
Eternally Sold Separately is from Mass Datura's sophomore album "Wish Untitled" due to drop on July 10, 2020 via All Types of Slime Records.
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:
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London, England
Thomas Rowe, Josh Hayward, Joseph Colkett, Christy Taylor, Leanne Roberts, Patrick Barleet
With a name originating in 16th-century occult mythology, Mass Datura initially formed as an outlet for Canadian poet, artist and cordwainer Thomas Rowe and music graduate Joseph Colkett to channel their unusually broad patchwork of experiences into masterfully playful songs. The band’s inspirations at the outset were taken from the sounds of grunge, alt-rock, doo-wop, blues and American folk. However, in more recent years they sought fervour from the operatic when classically trained violinist and soprano Leanne Roberts, and the artisticwhen The Horror’s guitarist Joshua Hayward, ICMP graduate Patrick Bartleet and UAL art major Christy Taylor joined the line-up. Mass Datura’s choice of instruments in itself demonstrates how these extensive genres interplay; vocals, guitars, bass, drums, synths/mellotron, lap steel guitar and violin. People often say that too many cooks spoil the broth, however, this group of East London misfits are on a quest to break the mould. According to Josh, their latest songs distinctively fuse the classical with the obscure in a manner which is “nothing short of a John Carpenter movie in the making”.
Mass Datura have earned their reputation for mesmerising, raw and unpredictable live performances, and are setting their sights towards a global audience. The band’s “proggy, space-age pop” (DIY Mag) was welcomed with open arms across nine UK cities in their most recent tour with Canadian psych-rockers Black Mountian. However, Mass Datura have been cooking up a storm across the UK for a while having played a celebrated spot at Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia 2017, headlined Field-Trip Festival 2019, Brighton and supported several acclaimed artists along the way including The Black Angels, A Place to Bury Strangers, L.A. Witch, Dark Horses and The Vacant Lots. New shows will be announced soon.
'Wish Untitled' tracklisting:
1. Sutra Swoon Sutra
2. Cats For Kings
3. Tongue Bones
4. Seasonal Social Reasons
5. Lady Equal
6. Deformer 1988
7. Eternally Sold Separately
8. Ocean Pink Meets Gutter love
9. Interlude
10. My Trash and Mr E.
11. Maria’s Little Elbows
12. Spirit Coins
www.massdatura.bandcamp.com
www.instagram.com/massdatura
www.facebook.com/massdatura
www.twitter.com/massdatura
www.soundcloud.com/mass-datura
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