Psychedelic outfit Mandrake Handshake share their debut EP ‘Shake The Hand That Feeds You’
The psychedelic collective take a big step up with their debut offering
Photo: Press
The band’s first-ever EP, Shake The Hand That Feeds You, kicks off with Mandragora, an invitation to jump on an interdimensional, time-travelling machine that takes us through 20 minutes of ethereal, pleasantly distorted, other-worldly, expansive and sometimes breezy sounds.
There’s a lot going on and I find myself focusing on something new with each listen, the tracks vocals paint a path to navigate these different sounds and visions as they present themselves.
The band’s style has been aptly coined ‘psyche collective’ — synths, eastern influence and a generally spiralling sound make me feel like they easily live up to these positive accusations.
The second track, Eclogue 11, comes in to change up the pace and give us a better understanding of the democratic role each one of the ten — yes, ten — band members plays in making room for each and every unique sound.
Gonkulator, the third song on the band’s debut outing manages to effortlessly combine varied rhythms, styles and even time periods. Even with so much constantly going on, Mandrake Handshake achieves a certain smoothness when transitioning between tracks — part of the credit for this goes to Andy Ramsay (Stereolab) who recorded it.
The EP comes to an end with the last esoteric track, Monolith and aptly closes with the line, “Uncertainty / Is the price of being free”.
