Now that it’s been around for 50 years, it’s worth asking: What is psychedelic music today? What does it mean? Is it another term for loud rock? Culturally appropriated dress? Tambourines? Trippy electro? Or is it something more?

The music of Heron Oblivion brings a full-force return to the peaks of psychedelic culture, a salvo from the other side; this is a supergroup with the skills, the background and the vision to play the undisputed prime cut of dark acid-folk for a modern generation. Featuring Meg Baird (whose solo career has taken off in the wake of her participation in groups like Espers and Watery Love) on drums and vocals, guitarists Charlie Sauffley (Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound) and Noel Von Harmonson (Comets On Fire), and bassist Ethan Miller (Comets On Fire, Howlin’ Rain), Heron Oblivion restores both austerity and blistering excess to the form, following in the footsteps of Fairport Convention, Jefferson Airplane and the purists that came after (Major Stars, Vermonster and the rest of the Twisted Village roster, for starters, as well as Polvo and Sonic Youth, who cut their own trails throughout the ’80s and ’90s).

On their first album, Heron Oblivion shows an uncanny ability to merge and move between authentic forms of psychedelic expression, be they slow burners like “Beneath Fields” and the 10-minute “Rama,” or in woollier offerings like “Oriar” and the whammy-bar-heavy “Faro,” in which Baird enters a vocal trance from which many might never return. Across the whole endeavor, Sauffley and Harmonson display a shared language of dynamic shifts and withering, feedback-laden bursts of guitar that create a deeply unsettling effect. Miller hangs back, providing a near-perfect foil to Baird’s minimalist, atmospheric percussion.

Still, it’s Baird’s voice that sets Heron Oblivion apart: Clear and breathy, it evokes the spirits of Sandy Denny, Trees’ Celia Humphris, Judy Dyble, and the vocal performers from the Wicker Man soundtrack, among others. It cuts through even the grimiest displays of noise the band can muster, punctuating the band’s doom-laden sentiments with bell-tolling finality and grave seriousness. Even if it’s not what the group had envisioned as its calling card, that stern mood helps Heron Oblivion stand out. With any luck, this music will mark a sea change in how we approach psychedelic music in general: as a sound that’s both rooted in history and geared toward the future.

Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

D.C. space-rock band Heavy Breathing descended from The Apes.

That is to say, the trio traces its roots to the late, iconoclastic rock band by the same name. Equal parts Vangelis and Deep Purple, The Apes were part of a small group of D.C. locals who, about 15 years ago, found inspiration in the not-too-distant future (see also: Trans Am).

But The Apes couldn’t hold onto a singer. So members Amanda Kleinman, Jeff Schmid and Erick Jackson went through three vocalists before they finally decided to invent their own.

The trio started using vocal samples, processing them to Max Headroom heights of electronic dissonance. The three musicians called the singerless lineup Heavy Breathing, and debuted in 2012 with Body Problems.

Heavy Breathing guitarist and bassist Erick Jackson says he scours the Internet to find vocal samples.

“I take anything that sounds decent and cut up the vocals into single words and syllables,” Jackson says. “I then pitch and tune the phrases till they sound musical. By this time there is no semblance to the source material.”

The result is often energetic but inhuman psych rock, whipped into a frenzy by a charismatic vocalist who doesn’t exist. Take Heavy Breathing’s latest single, “Night First” (stream it below). Over a propulsive organ riff, a robotic croon doles out vaguely meaningful sentence fragments: “I can’t believe,” “Yes, I’m feeling,” a garbled cadence that could very well be the title of the song.

“Basically, the vocals are another instrument that produces riffs and rhythms,” Jackson says. “The actual words are open to the listener’s interpretation.”

As novel as this process may sound, Jackson dates it back to The Apes.

“When we did Apes, we had a recurring mad computer character called the Rhythm Machine, who appeared on several albums,” Jackson says. “This mad robot was kidnapped to help us write songs. Years later with the progression of computer power, the vision became reality.”

“Night First” appears on Airtight, Heavy Breathing’s upcoming full-length on Electric Cowbell Records, out Nov. 13. The album’s cover features a planet-sized finger, the band’s name flying into a void à la Star Wars — and a naked guy.

“The ass on the cover we just call Steve,” Jackson says.

Jackson cites a range of influences for Airtight, including “the feeling and memories of late-night television shows,” SCTV, “our love of riffs,” humor, “abstract violence” and “a dash of spiritual mumbo-jumbo from the Master Computer in the sky.”

But overall, the artist says, Airtight “is supposed to be a good time.”

Heavy Breathing plays Nov. 19 at Black Cat with !!! and Stereolads.

Dan McNabb, the band’s guitarist, lead singer and primary songwriter, concedes his preference for a simpler approach.

“I like the three-minute pop song for its brevity, and [I] appreciate being left wanting more,” the Mount Pleasant resident writes in an email.

Like any great pop song, “I Found You Out” was built to be short, catchy and relatable. But McNabb would rather not delve into the lyrics.

“I don’t like songs to be too much about one specific thing,” he writes. “I like the mystery of other people’s songs. Give me the mystery, let me try to figure it out for myself so it can be mine. I want to make sure I give people the same opportunity.”

McNabb started The Beginner’s Mynd several years ago as a solo recording project. The name refers to a Buddhist term for the endless possibilities open to a novice — and that cute “y” in “mind” nods to the creative spelling used by ’60s psych-rock bands. McNabb calls the moniker “a name to write on the demo tapes that I thought nobody would ever hear.”

But when McNabb shared his early recordings with two Alexandria friends — keyboardist Carrie Ferguson and drummer Larry Ferguson — they loved the songs, and they started filling out their arrangements.

The trio released a self-titled cassette in 2013 through garage-rock powerhouse Burger Records. The tape earned them acclaim, but the band wanted their next release on vinyl, so they moved to Austin-based 13 O’Clock Records.

McNabb wants “I Found You Out” and its B-side, “When You Go,” to be the first in a series leading up to an LP. On wax, of course.

“Burger [isn’t] focused on vinyl as much as cassettes,” McNabb says, and vinyl is “where I want to be right now.”

The Beginner’s Mynd plays Sept. 21 at Comet Ping Pong. “I Found You Out” and “When You Go” are released on vinyl Sept. 22, and available on Bandcamp now.

Aspiring to a ’70s ideal that rolls up sugarcoated bubblegum glam, soul balladry, Francophone pop and echoes of the Brill Building, Fleming finds the right notes of sincerity under all that artifice. “Spring Breathes” inhales the dark perfume of Pet Sounds and exhales something akin to truthful camp, as the track bounces between his breaking falsetto and acoustic strum, and between choral bursts of fuzz guitar and chunky bass. “Soon To Be, Won’t To Be” continues those clever juxtapositions, coming across like a millennial Saint Etienne with its mutable, Leslie-speaker vocal vibrato and rainy-day stabs of funk organ. The rhythm section anchors the album from stem to stern, its low end acting as a buffer against studio-tested fills, brassy bravado and canny intros that make these 11 songs feel all the more familiar.

At the center of all this is Fleming, who mines a double-edged conceit: tailoring the intensely borrowed elements of Everybody’s A Good Dog to fit his own aims, and bringing his stage and screen training along to bolster them. He’s mugging as hard as he can, while also adding dimension and character to the collection. His cooing high notes are matched by a predilection for blue-eyed soul, with a range that accommodates jumps into the clouds and throaty, from-the-gut proclamations. “Duet,” a fittingly named collaboration with vocalist Felicia Douglass, recalls the weathered 45 sides that built up R&B radio in the early ’70s; the song jams a bedroom-funk wah-wah break into a confident take-me-back ballad, underlining the influences while also having fun with them. Fleming will never let you forget where his music comes from, but on Everybody’s A Good Dog, he works hard to keep his own identity in there, as well.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

A woman dressed in what appears to be a cross between a (literal) cat suit and a Mexican wrestling outfit fending off creatures that look like something out of Jim Henson’s craziest Dark Crystal imaginings? Check. Large-breasted dogs in American flag jumpsuits, being coaxed in a boxing match by Abraham Lincoln in a Spider-Man suit? Yup, they’ve got that. Oh yeah, and there’s a band playing, too.

All of this and more took place at the Flying Dog Brewery in Frederick, Maryland, Saturday night, as the psychedelic rockers from Athens, Georgia, took to the lawn stage for the brewery’s final summer show of 2015, the ensemble’s second time there (they also closed out the 2013 season). Frontman Kevin Barnes led the group — this time a four-piece consisting of Barnes on vocals and guitar, Jojo Glidewell on keyboards, Bob Parins on bass and Clayton Rychlik on drums — through a 17-song set, much of which was drawn from the band’s latest album, Aureate Gloom, and from 2007’s Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?

As is typical for an Of Montreal show, an ensemble of costumed performers — which added a surreal element to the performance — frequently joined the band onstage.

Most of the performance was lit only by images from a projector stationed at the sound booth. This proved to be one of the few flaws of the show; the projections were often dark, making it tough to see what was happening onstage, and they competed with, rather than complimented, the action.

Fellow Athenian indie rockers Mothers and Frederick, Maryland, garage rockers Old Indian opened the show.

All photos by Matt Condon

Old Indian

Mothers

Of Montreal