Now here’s a thing: the moment you think you’ve got The Sufis pinned
down, the slippery buggers take a sharp detour into yet another
psychedelic wormhole. For sure, the opening trio of ‘Where Did She
Go’, ‘Sri Sai Flora’ and ‘Wake Up’ will have those who favour paisley
shirts and Cuban heels nodding their fringes knowingly, as they reach
for the bong and lava lamp – for these are tracks that unashamedly tip
their Lenin caps to The Beatles of ’66 and the Pink Floyd of Piper At
The Gates Of Dawn vintage. But then things start getting a little, uh,
weird…
Hailing from East Tennessee – a part of the world that seems to have
bought into Timothy Leary’s idea of putting LSD into the water supply,
judging by the volume of psych and garage rock emanating from its
locale – The Sufis are Calvin Laporte, Jay Smith and Evan Smith, and
while the halcyon days of swinging London’s UFO club, the Alexandra
Palace’s Technicolour Dream and Roundhouse all-nighters are the
starting-off point, the trio offers so much more to open your head
with.
As evidenced by the wigged out journeys into inner space that are
‘Downtrace’ and the plain cosmic – or should that be kosmische? –
‘Lemming Circle Dance’, The Sufis gleefully take a few cues from Can’s
more pulsating grooves. Also firmly in place is a cornucopia of
treated organs, tremeloed vocals, flutes, string scrapes and any
number of effects designed to be as far away from the 21st century as
possible. Or, for that matter, anything resembling sanity.
Of course, it’d be easy to dismiss The Sufis as little more than
shameless copyists with little interest in the here and now, but this
is to do them a grave disservice. Psychedelia’s always been about
subverting the norm to gain a greater insight into the wider truths
that are out there, and in this respect The Sufis succeed with aplomb.
It’s also a testament to the enduring appeal of rock & roll and the
fact that, despite the whinging of naysayers forever attempting to
shovel the dirt on the grave of the genre, it’ll never die.
Though this debut may be struggle to convert believers outside the
existing circle of disciples, there remains enough evidence that what
they do next should create some seismic and significant rumbles.
