The Strange Encounters’ All in the Mind gets filed under folky / power pop / psych / jangly and just plain wonderful music. To quote their own words, this music is “like swimming under the stars.”
Scotsman Joe Armstrong and Guido Kreutzmuller (from Bad Oeynhausen, Germany) have crafted an album that stirs the melodic breath of the Beatles, R.E.M., the Byrds, the Posies, the Rave-Ups, the Jayhawks, Badfinger and Robyn Hitchcock into their warm addictive sound that flows with the underground waters of the ’70s clever acoustic rock (and everything else) perfect current.
A wonderful early R.E.M. vibe flows through several songs on All in the Mind – with an equally mysterious open-hearted folk-rock pulse. “Don’t Hold Back” is a crystal-clear tributary flowing from the whirlwind soul of Athens, Georgia. It has the perfect chime of a melodic clock tower and the sound of a Rickenbacker electric guitar. Indeed, the Strange Encounters’ “Twenty Sixteen” rocks with an always necessary “murmur” of an Americana (recorded in Berlin!) rock ‘n’ roll heart.
There’s delightful pop-rock: “Recognize” has an irresistible verse and an even more memorable chorus. It’s a superb tune, with just a touch of keyboard soft punctuation. And “Under the Sun” adds a psych guitar to the mix with even more great harmony vocals that recall the brilliance of that great band the Long Ryders. Oh my, the Strange Encounters evoke the desire (thank you, Bob Dylan!) to sing, “Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky / With one hand waving free / Silhouetted by the sea.” Indeed, musical currents can still run with deep wonder.
There are simple tunes: “Surveillance Town” is urgent acoustic music with a strummed folky (with tabla) cowpoke vibe. Then, “An Hour or a Day” swirls with acoustic patience and drama. The bare-bones acoustic guitar and voice plead for humanity while an organ adds an eternal halo. Nice. Yet, amid all of the Strange Encounters’ classic rock references, the song sings its original footprint within that endless “dance with one hand waving” tradition. And ditto for “Twenty Sixteen,” which throws a heavy stone onto the melodic folk-rock hammock. The tune stirs a tough cauldron.
In contrast, “Thinkin’/Drinkin’” is a quick acoustic oasis with lovely harmonies. Nice, once again!
And there are Beatles’ glanced songs: “Different” recalls the searching honesty of John Lennon, with a bit of (the before-mentioned) Badfinger — big compliment, there. The same is true for the Strange Encounters’ vibrant “They Keep Wakin’ On By,” with its neat echo of Rubber Soul psych folk rock, while the melancholy “A Smile for Everyone” echoes a Plastic Ono Band piano-graced naked thought. And “The Boy in the Mirror,” mimics Lennon’s stark and heavy rock ‘n’ roll swirling psych urgency. Nice, way too many times!
The final song on All in the Mind, “Long Lost Days,” stretches all the album’s melodies into a violin-summer homecoming final groove. Perhaps, the universe is just a featherbed of songs. This tune lounges at the moment between a good beer and a happy memory – or, possibly, that synapse passed by a happy beer into a good memory.
As said, this album “swims under the stars.” The Strange Encounters float in the melodic and continuous current of folky/power pop/psych/jangly/and just plain wonderful music. My friend Kilda Defnut always says, “There are very few things that are worth the bother of a resurrection.” But All in My Mind sings with the melodic chime of a new hour repeating a sacred circle.
So yeah, this rock ‘n’ roll Lazareth, thankfully, gets to “dance” with “one hand waving free,” and write beautiful songs because they are, even after all these years, still “silhouetted by the sea.”
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