“Sunrise Session Featuring 10000 Russos / Mugstar 04:40 – 06:00”! “Sunrise Session Featuring 10000 Russos / Mugstar 04:40 – 06:00”!! “Sunrise Session Featuring 10000 Russos / Mugstar 04:40 – 06:00”!!!

Photograph by Arthur Weed

Future were one of the many bands on ‘The Reverb Conspiracy Vol. 3‘ that captivated and left me wanting to hear more. Their track ‘Side Effects’, I described as, “an exquisite existential exercise in “sharp guitar riffs, cold melodies and fractured drums”” – as befits their “Cold Wave” self-classification.

Venezia’s New Candys are Stefano Bidoggia: bass, organ, Dario Lucchesi: drums, percussion, Diego Menegaldo: guitars, vocals and Fernando Nuti: guitars, sitar, vocals.

They play “33,3% Rock + 33,3% Roll + 33,4% Psychedelia”.

I first encountered the band whilst reviewing ‘The Reverb Conspiracy Vol. 3‘ back in January, describing their stand out track as follows, “Dysfunctional trip, ‘Meltdown Corp’ by New Candys from Venezia, conjures gorgeously dislocated, psych-soaked abyssal plains.”

Photo credit © Markus Werner

François Sky first came to my attention some time last summer courtesy of those fine Helicon chappies. JP “Helicunt” had mentioned he was joining ‘François Sky & Guests‘ at the Reverence Festival Valada – that had warranted further investigation, which brought ever more sweet music to my ears.

“I’m making my music in a very normal life.” So says the humble description on François’ bandcamp page which to date boasts 18 hypnotically addictive digital tracks, all available as free downloads.

The more I listened and the farther down the rabbit-hole I found myself, I realised that a lot of the why I liked this so much, was due to being able to relate to, age-wise specifically, then there was having been on a fairly similar musical listening journey, all rounded off nicely with that holy grail of having a no-nonsense approach to not suffering fools too gladly!

It became pretty clear to me early on that here was a true musicians’ musician, someone who was all about the creative process and perhaps most importantly, who was about doing it his way, with his integrity intact.

“Is everybody in?… Is everybody in?… Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin…” *

Act III of The Reverb Conspiracy ceremony is once more upon us, courtesy of Fuzz Club Records‘ co-release with The Reverberation Appreciation Society.

In the words of Fuzz Club’s Casper Dee, “I like to look at The Reverb Conspiracy as a modern Nuggets series. It’s our way of capturing the essence of the underground scene as it is today and documenting it for the history books. There’s so much amazing music coming out now and a huge energy within the scene; we feel like this is an era of rock ‘n’ roll that we’ll all look back on as the start of something big.” (Magnet Magazine 2014).