In Pictures - Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia 2017

Once again Liverpool Pysch Fest gathered artists from around the world to bring an explosion of noise to Liverpool’s Baltic triangle for two days of mind-bending noise and art. Headliners The Black Angels were immense, A Place To Bury Strangers an object lesson in sophisticated sonic annihilation and Ju Ju the new project from Gioele Valenti were quite superb, as were L.A.Witch full of insouciant cool and garage vibes. For twisted mayhem, you didn’t need to look any further than The Telescopes or Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs.

But the standouts for us at least were artists we wouldn’t necessarily immediately call “psych.” Autobahn whose second album ‘The Moral Crossing is due out in November were intense and immense illuminating the ludicrously dimly lit Camp stage with their dark power. And our favourites for big things next year, Yassassin opened proceedings at District and provided us with the most memorable performance of the entire festival. Intense playful and unhinged Yassassin are clearly a band with the brightest of futures if they can continue to release songs of the quality of their debut ‘Social Politics’ and the four outstanding tracks on their quite wonderful Vitamin Y EP

So there are the ups, any downs? Well show us a festival that doesn’t have a problem and we’ll show you an honest Tory MP. This year for us the lighting and projections which are normally off the scale seemed less impressive than in previous years. Indeed the Camp stage was a total write-off for photography given it was illuminated by a single red light. Whether this was by design or somebody had forgotten to put a quid in the meter is a moot point, but it must have been difficult for the audience to see who was on stage. District got way too busy especially if bands had just finished on one of the bigger stages And our final bug bear? People in the photo pit having a pint but not actually having a camera? What’s all that about? On a serious note when you’re carrying a few grands worth of gear you really don’t want someone staggering around the pit carrying three pints. But aside from these relatively minor quibbles, the standard of music and quality of bands on display was immense, thankfully we can still hear after such an onslaught of brutal noise and often beautiful melody. To Paraphrase Mr T ‘ I pity the fool who didn’t invest in ear protection’. All in all an amazing weekend with a hugely friendly vibe.