With so many colleges concentrated along the 90 from Rochester to Fredonia, intense winters, and a long time epicenter for sonic exploration in Dave Fridmann’s Tarbox Road studio in the woods outside Fredtown, Western New York should totally be a hotbed for modern psychedelic music and for fans of music that makes ears feel WEIRD. Those fans just got something else to feast on in the form of a collaboration between Moody Cosmos and Joe Mason, Mason’s sophomore release I Sold My Soul For Five Dollars. Alternately bright and dark, and joyfully freaky all over, this album is seriously aural cotton candy for your brain.
Swinging from outsized kaleidoscopic bursts of sound on jams like “Crazy Legs” and “Wide Eyes” (featuring Moody Cosmos) and “Alright” to the spaced out minimalism of chilled cuts like “Come Back” and “Waiting For The Day,” I Sold My Soul For Five Dollars keeps everything sweet and satisfying. Mason and Moody Cosmos’ Joe and Pete pull out all the stops, fusing of Montreal otherness with Neon Indian bubbling electronica and Flaming Lips sonic wildness (ie processed vocals and wonked out guitars) to give their listeners what they need.