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JuJu

JuJu bring tribal Psychedelia from Sicily on their UK tour of their fifth album, Apocalypse Is God’s Spoiler released via Manchester’s based label Sister 9 Recordings, celebrating it with a successful UK tour.
Their latest offering features two exceptional guests: Chad Channing of Seattle majesties Nirvana and Luca Giovanardi from Italian psych combo Julie’s Haircut.

Sicilian multi-instrumentalist and producer Gioele Valenti is a key figure of the European underground music scene. He is one half of acclaimed Occult Psych project Lay Llamas (Rocket Recordings) and the man behind Herself, a folktronica project that involved the likes of Jonathan Donahue of Mercury Rev, John Fallon of The Steppes and Amaury Cambuzat of Faust and Ulan Bator. He was also the guitarist of Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation. Chiefly, he gave rise to the genre-defying project JuJu, championed by the likes of Goatman and Capra Informis of GOAT.

JuJu’s latest album, ironically named Apocalypse Is God’s Spoiler, appears to encapsulate a clear-eyed and disillusioned perspective on our current era, reflecting a world saturated with mass-media, terminal hedonism, and pervasive total war. From the debut album (Sunrise Ocean Bender on Fuzz Club), where African influences held sway, to the subsequent Fuzz Club releases (Our Mother Was A Plant, Maps And Territory), where the blending of shoegaze and psychedelic elements evolved into a post-punk fusion reminiscent of Joy Division, with an increasingly pronounced noise trend (particularly in the fourth album La Que Sabe), JUJU has now achieved a more mature formal balance, characterised by a pure and distinct identity.
With Apocalypse Is God’s Spoiler, JuJu once again redefines the game.
This album not only signifies an evolution from their established sound but also marks a return to their roots and a more pronounced embrace of “western” imagery.

If La Que Sabe sparked an irresistible vibration, enticing sacrilegious disco rituals entwined with shoegaze guitars, the new LP embraces that blend of western Post Punk, Shoegaze, Darkwave, Industrial, Synthpop and then anchors it to the Tribal and Occult Psych elements of JuJu’s origins.

“You enter into a cathartic form of music, heavy stoner, psycho-funky rhythms, tribal, incandescent, and dirtier as it can get. Think of Monster Magnet on one of their superjudge trips.”
London Calling – Shades of Rock
Live review of London’s gig at The Victoria Dalston, March 17th, 2024

“It’s psychedelic but skewed away from the purple haze and flowers into spinning shards of concrete and broken glass. It’s a dense, massive sound that is completely absorbing me.”
Fighting Boredom (UK) – Live Review

“‘JuJu’ is an album of sweepingly melodic music that still retains a strange kind of intimacy. Just when you thought you might never want to hear another ‘psych rock’ album again in your life, along comes an artist who resets the co-ordinates and makes the past seem startling new again.” —The Quietus

“…JuJu fuses elements of psychedelia, glam, prog and post-punk into a propulsive, melodic art rock. Valenti describes JuJu’s self-titled debut long-players as “my personal tribute to the big music I’ve always loved, regardless of genre.” But the album also has a more serious intention, sourcing the refugee crisis as its primary inspiration: ”Where I live in Sicily, we literally see children die among the waves.” For Valenti, the music and words “conspire with ancient symbols and arcane memory, something buried deep in the collective unconscious of the Mediterranean, to give voice to a ‘drowning’ culture.”” — MOJO Magazine

Thee Lucifer Sams

Thee Lucifer Sams are a visionary psychedelic Rock’n’Roll band from Liverpool, UK making semi-improvised, instrumental music inspired by Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd jams, early Hawkwind, and post-rock noise.

The band feels that what is called “psych” today is little more than indie. By opting out of social media and streaming, Thee Lucifer Sams anchor their music in the only thing that matters – reality. Live shows. The moment.

The music and the attitude go beyond any music tags, it’s a philosophy – an extension of what we learned from Terrence McKenna, Douglas Rushkoff, Throbbing Gristle, Bryon Gysin, John Coltrane… is this “psych”?

The ‘Sams are not part of any scene – they create their own, as the organisers of the Liverpool Psychedelic Society and Acidfest events around the globe.

“Thee Lucifer Sams… take their cue from St Syd Barrett’s classic track and swoop off into a thirty-minute jam of epic psychedelic proportions. They seem to work out every single permutation of the god like mantra of the d minor drone and Ivan Thunders guitar and the bass soar into outer space and it sounds hypnotic and stunning. There are no vocals – just tapes of voices and it creates a genuine interstellar overdrive.” John Robb, Louder Than War. Read full review

“Spellbinding psych… an absorbing mesmeric experience. A true psych experience.” – Louder Than War review. Read in full

“Real Head Music…a trip!” Bobby G

“Like Can or Neu! with attitude and a side of speed to go with it. Primal Scream’s bad brother, perhaps…this was a privilege. An outstanding piece of work.” Get Into This review.