Babe Rainbow “Mushroom” EP Review
Babe Rainbow really hit the nail on the head with their latest EP Mushroom. The cover art spells out Babe in psilocybin mushrooms, as if to brush aside any unnecessary subtext and put it simply: this is magic mushroom music.
Babe Rainbow is an Australian group of musicians whose sound, look and overall vibe seems to have travelled here via time machine from a late sixties SoCal beach party. If you’ve ever gotten the chance to catch them live then you might find it difficult to say they’re putting on some sort of act, especially considering that the four bleach blonde musicians looks so remarkably like the music they create. Their songs maintain a discipline of good-hearted psychedelia rooted in phaser pedals, clean solos and catchy riffs. On their four-song EP Mushroom, they follow the same pattern of mind-bending creation filled to the brim with their usual palette of monkey disco.
Their first song “Bad Day” takes the listener on a groovy paranoid trip down a sun-soaked highway with singer Angus Dowling advising “You should stop daydreaming/Got the cops in your rear vision” while simultaneously shouting out King Gizzard and surfer/musician Alex Knost. Even if the title of the song might insinuate a bad day going down, Babe Rainbow has no intentions to stop having a good time.
“Juice of the Sun” is by the far the EP’s catchiest track with a guitar riff that showcases the group’s talent at creating a hook that can tie an entire EP together. Just like any mushroom-trip’s moment of nostalgic self-reflection, “Juice of the Sun” is where the “Remember When’s” begin to take hold with the song’s opening, “Do you remember when you were young?/What happened to you in the juice of the sun?” There might be some anxiety brewing over self-love and keeping your head on straight, but these worries never shift the mood to negative areas of thought.
On the third track “Obsession,” the EP cools off with a groovy beat backing vocals soaked up in reverb. This is a song that exemplifies Babe Rainbow’s talent of performing as a collective group of musicians by bringing together various different bass lines and keyboard touches to create an enchanting little tune about the fuzzy early stages of a new relationship.
They finish off the EP with “Wild Ones.” Featuring guest vocals from Alex Knost, the song is the final culmination of this little journey and it’s packed with their various tools of psychedelia such a wobbling phaser on the guitar, reverse riffs between distorted verses and a goofy little opening kazoo? Distorted guitar? Bouncy synthesizer? Who’s to say for sure, but does it even really matter? The whole point might be to not think too hard about this or that or anything else and just sit back and relax while Babe Rainbow continues to do their thing.