Dazzling psychedelic space electronica
Who they?
Dallas Acid are a trio of vocalist Linda Beecroft and synth heads Christian Havins and Michael Gerner. For clarity, they’re from Austin, Texas, not Dallas, and the “acid” in their name perhaps has much more to do with a test of the Electric Kool-Aid variety than the warped outputs of Roland’s TB-303.
Why Dallas Acid?
Since dropping their first album, ‘Odeon’, back in 2009, Dallas Acid have been quietly causing a disturbance on the psychedelically-hued frontiers of electronic music. Inspired by 1970s German and French electronica and what they describe as “Stockhausen-inspired pop”, the DA sound is characterised by long tracks of cosy analogue synth warmth that feel like the perfect accompaniment to staring up at the stars in a desert. Over the course of four albums and a documentary soundtrack, the trio have honed their craft of producing beatific sonic landscapes that display a textural virtuosity, without ever getting too self-indulgent or tied up in modular synth patch cable progginess.
Tell us more…
After 2018’s New Age-y ‘Arrive Without Leaving’ with ambient veteran Laraaji, new album ‘The Spiral Arm’ finds the trio heading out into more overtly symphonic territory. Though conceived as a live performance at San Antonio’s Scobee Planetarium, the album’s seven tracks are instead firmly rooted in human experiences – emotions, disappointments, and our fragile, fleeting existences. On tracks like ‘Vacker’ and ‘Zavana’, with their unswerving bass patterns and gently fluctuating upper-register melodies, you hear a band emphasising the pop sensibilities that have previously been hard to discern in their music. It’s Linda Beecroft that truly comes into her own here, her enveloping voice drifting over and through these epic pieces with a fleeting, ephemeral brilliance.
‘The Spiral Arm’ is out via All Saints
