Earlier this year, Tactile Tracks ran a fantastic article about the struggles faced by artists, poets, and musicians in Chile during the reign of dictator Augusto Pinochet. Following the coup d’état that ousted Socialist leader Salvador Allende and placed Pinochet in power, the military regime tortured and killed folk musician/political activist Victor Jara, forcing many artists, writers, poets, and musicians to flee the country. The psychedelic rock scene in Chile was booming in the 1970's before Pinochet came into power, with acts like Los Jaivas (the most popular of Chilean psych groups) breaking boundaries with their free-flowing compositions and spacey atmosphere; Pinochet's rise essentially halted any and all artistic progress within the country.
While Chile’s music scene rebounded almost immediately following the fall of Pinochet, it is only now beginning to make a worldwide impact, and Föllakzoid, featured prominently in that Tactile Tracks article, are one of the best neopsych acts to come out of any country in recent years. Their second album II is an absolute trip, filled with spacey textures and trance-inducing Neu!-inspired grooves that will project you to the outer reaches of the universe.
As with any space rock album, the most important aspect is the atmosphere, and if you couldn’t tell from the previous paragraph, II has atmosphere in droves. Drummer Diego lays down the repetitive, hypnotic rhythms upon which synth player Alfredo and guitarist Domingo are able to trade places developing the textures and playing the lead melodies. Bassist Juan Pablo is felt throughout the whole record, binding everything together with a constant low-end glue and contributing a distinct hazy earthiness to the spaciness of the album that is most noticeable on 'Rivers' and present (to a lesser degree) in '99' as well. (There are sparsely-placed vocals throughout the album, but I can barely find lineup information on the band as-is so I have no idea who does them.)
However, despite that earthiness, II generally takes you way out into the furthest galactic reaches. '9' and 'Pulsar' each make you feel like you’re floating through multi-colored nebulae, and the faster-paced middle track 'Trees' feels like a high-intensity 12-parsec trip through the Kessel Run. And while the spacey atmosphere is no surprise – the genre is called “space rock,” after all – Föllakzoid’s execution of it is spectacular.
Föllakzoid have put together something brilliant, and if you enjoy modern psychedelic rock, II will be one of the best albums you hear in any genre. I can think of no better “fuck you” to an arts-crushing autocrat than for a universally-acclaimed album to come from the country he once ruled, and Föllakzoid may have just pulled that off.
