Single Review: Babe Rainbow - ‘Zeitgeist’

‘Zeitgeist’ – Babe Rainbow

Written for beach-bound morning meanderings but sounding just as delectable on an overcast lockdown Sunday, the latest peace offering from psych-pop crusaders Babe Rainbow is a luridly submersive export. Born of Byron Bay and with all the breezy, coastal spirit you’d expect, the band have become fondly revered as tousled, hippie hit-makers, or else a stoned, sunkissed iteration of their North Coast counterparts, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard.

Strolling the far-from-beaten path of the psych-funk vortex, latest single Zeitgeist is buoyant, transcendent and irrefutably addictive, fusing the foremost parts of sunlit hits Peace Blossom Boogy and Love Forever into a shimmery apex. Here, quivering synths and xylophone jangles latch onto a lazy sugar-shaker beat, fashioning a beguiling soundscape – totally uninhibited, totally inviting.

Lyrics with all the fragrance of summer, however, take the track from shimmery, airy jam to pigmented love-struck allegory; vivid images of the natural world and human experience intertwining with startling poise. Think Attenborough on acid. “Outside lies within, peel a mandarin / Love has just begun,” Cameron Reed, the band’s laconic frontman, coos, whilst the innumerable layers of nebulous, psychedelic goodness swell around his words like a riptide. Joyously spacious, this is psych-pop at its pinnacle. So, switch off your brain, cruise downstream, and let Babe Rainbow be your guide.

Full feature here: https://www.themicmagazine.co.uk/post/the-mic-recommends-9