This excellent debut from British artist Dimorphodons comes in the form of an EP chock full with an LP’s worth of ideas: from pulsating electric psychedelia to the quietude of early summer’s eve back garden vibes as the smell of eucalyptus, redwood and lavender waft in the late evening air located somewhere between the more delicately broken, pale moments of SMILEY SMILE (“Whistle In,” “Fall Breaks Back To Winter”) plus only the most aggressive moments from the CHOCOLATE SOUP FOR DIABETICS series. Like that. And judging from the results of this EP, it would appear that the man who calls himself Dimorphodons completely captured that illusive sonic atmosphere that he himself states is “the fantasy world I’d like to live in” which would be the following, judging from the far ranging results on this record: one of sensory delights, optical illusions, shifting cellular dimensions, aural hallucinations, colour dreams, and overall vibing-out while your brain erroneously receives depraved visual information and…It’s alright. Yeah!

The EP blows up with the first number, “Searching for Dimorphodons.” Think The Mike Stuart Span’s “Children Of Tomorrow” shagging “I Can See For Miles” (and therefore: The Craig’s “I Must Be Mad”) on the corner of Jesus and Mary Chain. It’s that clatterfest of drumming over dual guitars breaking wave upon wave upon wave of rhythm, their punishing electric signals taking future silence by force and thrashing it into oblivion as it’s shot through with agonising feedback. The production is keenly aware, keeping the vocals just perched on the blurred threshold of intelligibility as it merges with the music. The vocals swirl into a whirlpool of upended guitars, crashing cymbals and saturated bass until a click off on a Jordan Boss Tone or some such distortion pedal ends it all. Unbelievable.

Likewise is the video. Der Doctor Schnabel von Rom on a Vox Phantom, another guy with a mask like an oversized licorice allsort playing what looks to be something like a weird homemade Tesco Country Gentleman or something The Music Machine played live and a drummer who just keeps flailing while Dimorphodons imagines himself as the wizard he is (making a guitar out of a coffee table Oxfam were throwing out pretty much qualifies him as a wizard) discharging a series of lightning bolts from his fingers.

The above track feeds directly into the super-slowed, slurred-to-abandon two minute psychic pit stop of “Snodohpromid.” A temporary respite where the pitch of a random signal gradually slows down then divides into indistinct whorls and eddies that somehow evolves into birdsong and a bright white burning fluorescence that will lose you every time.

With the same solo electric guitar through Leslie-amplifier-plus-tone-control-pedal-of-unknown-origin picking at barbed wire entwining the iron gates of dawn that opened Amon Düül II’s “Dem Guten, Schönen, Wahren” arrives the disjointed pop splendor of “Petty Things Are All I Have And Know.” ‘Petty,’ not ‘pretty,’ although it is as vocal harmonies streak gently into each other as a random sprinkling of glockenspiel notes twinkle in the background like fireflies during the chorus. In one part, there’s a startling hint of that cryptic recitation in the coda of Yes’ “The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)” that sounds like “Siberia knows,” only staggered out for several seconds whilst exhaling. The coda is signaled by an aggressively bowed cello encircled by further glockenspiel hits as it recedes into the fading sunset.

Taking a path through the forest, we arrive at the melancholy that is “The Factory.” Its watery, near-Leslie amplified vocals drift upon the surface of clustered piano notes while Dimorphodons’ cavernous voice strains through a battery of effects like Leslie amplifier, echo and phase so badly as if to be understood yet the only words you hear over and over are the alternating phrases of: “Nothing was all right…” or “Nothing was all wrong…” A stinging fuzz guitar solo erupts over the downbeat-ness of it all. Gradually, it fades gently away and passes into infinity. As a finale, an untitled segment seconds in length comprised of some velvet phasing on distant vocals suddenly upwards to echo only to shudder instantaneously into a million pieces. Marvellous and magic stuff, indeed.

This one-sided vinyl is a limited edition of 250 with a hand pasted sleeve. Although released on September 11, 2020 there may yet still be vinyl copies. Seek it out here immediately or forever be satisfied with just a download.

Meanwhile, the incredible video for “Searching For Dimorphodons” awaits in stroboscopic colour: