With a buzzsaw psychedelic urgency, the Portland, Oregon-based instrumental surf-garage-psych project Trabants never relents into cruise control. With soft passages crashing into abrasively hypnotic squawls, along with guitar pyrotechnics, Trabants recalls the work of Russian Circles, Explosions in the Sky, and Allah-Las’.
Trabants is orchestrated by musical auteur Eric Penna and a rotating cast of ‘60s-psych-loving ringers that he assembles like the ensemble cast of a Sergio Leone film. Trabants’ latest fuzzed-out, visceral, psychedelic surf experience is a two-track, 7-inch, 45-rpm vinyl containing the songs “Mantra” b/w “Surfers On Acid” (out May 30 via Hypnotic Bridge Records).
Trabants (pronounced Truh-bonts) have shared bills with Dick Dale, Charlie Megira, Mark Sultan of The King Khan & BBQ Show, Yonatan Gat of Monotonix, Tav Falco’s Panther Burns, La Luz, Messer Chups, The Sloths and more. They’ve played festivals across the world including the Surfer Joe Festival (Italy), Tiki Kon (Portland, Ore.) and Surf Guitar 101 Festival (Los Angeles). The roster of Trabants contributors include Pete Curry (Los Straitjackets/ Nick Lowe), Samira Winter (Winter), Bryan Murphy (Man Man), Glenn Brigman (Triptides) and members/sidemen of bands as diverse as The Pharcyde, The Monkees, World/Inferno Friendship Society and many more.
Glide is premiering “Mantra” off the two-track 7-inch, 45-rpm vinyl, which might very well be one of 2024’s most potent psych songs, where rock and surf build to a crashing pinnacle of musical bravado.
“Mantra” is inspired by the psychedelic sounds of the late 1960’s, chasing and embracing the primitive fuzz effects of the time to craft the perfect audible accompaniment to your own personal psychedelic trip – drug fueled or otherwise. It’s the soundtrack to the voyage of existence we call life. The soundtrack of any journey inside the depths of your own mind. If this sounds abstract, maybe it is; maybe it isn’t but don’t forget to listen… the sound should inspire your own art in any shape or form that it may take. Mantra is personal. Mantra is honed. Mantra is the temple. Mantra is pure. Mantra is love distilled into its simplest form. Each of us living beings has a Mantra within us and if we are willing to listen, we may find a wiser version of ourselves reflecting back in the mirror of the Future,” says Penna.
