Brooklyn psychedelic rock band NAAM has released its new music video “The Starchild” from its recently released EP The Ballad of the Starchild. As the song unfolds, the video weaves into epic Egyptian lore, touching on the myth of Osiris, Isis and Horus “as told in three acts” and laden with symbology that aludes to the pagan “Killing of the King” ritual, the worship of higher beings from the constellation Orion and NASA’s Apollo mission (!!). Directed by Zev Deans for Panorama Programming (Liturgy, Chelsea Wolfe), the video is an insane journey and surely unlike anything you’ve ever seen. Check it out NOW at this location.
Released this past May, The Ballad of the Starchild was recorded in BKLYN’s Galuminum Foil Studios and mastered at NYC’s world famous Masterdisk (Miles Davis, Nirvana, etc.), showcasing NAAM‘s most forward-thinking material to date. The new music on the EP has been called “far-out space jams” and “epic, blissful nuggetoids” that are “just beggin’ to play through your headphones. On your beanbag chair. Under flourescent lights illuminating glowing velvet posters of big-titty Frank Frazetta chicks with pet panthers and a Loc-Nar pendant (Blurt).” NAAM will perform live alongside Andrew WK at the 2012 Bushwick Block Party (FREE!) tomorrow in Brooklyn before launching a European tour in support of The Ballad of the Starchild on August 1 (see dates here).
There are very few bands in the known universe that can draw upon such varied influences as The Stooges, Hawkwind and Can, but NAAM certainly fits the bill. With The Ballad of the Starchild, NAAM creates spacey, spacious, garage-bluesy kraut-psych with an epic scope and altered state intergalactic musings about time, space and the future. A vintage-sounding offering that manages to include elements of trance rock, acid-blues and psychedelic star-gazing, The Ballad of the Starchild is the perfect accompaniment for “exploring inner space and imagining outer space.”
NAAM (photo: Samantha Marble)
NAAM’s The Ballad of the Starchild
About NAAM:
NAAM‘s high-voltage power and addictive sound has found favor with both hard rockers and psychedelic rock fans alike, all of whom have talked up the group’s addictive musical muscle. The band delivers utterly hypnotic songs that “resurrect the concept of space-rock for a new era”.
NAAM‘s musical style has met to first-rate acclaim, being called “a tightrope walk between hyper-distorted stoner bustle and Brooklyn’s long-standing psych-rock hedgerow” by the
Village Voice while
Rolling Stone championed the band’s sound as “extended krautrock blissouts.”
NAAM‘s music video for the track “Skyling Slip” can be viewed at
this location.
NAMM features Ryan Lee Lugar (guitars, tambura, vocals), John Preston Bundy (bass, vocals, piano, synthesizer), Eli Pizzuto (percussion) and Johnny Weingarten (lead organ, electric piano, mellotron, lap steel).
”We loves us some far-out space jams at Blurt and those epic, blissful nuggetoids just happen to be Naam’s forte.” - BLURT
”The Starchild” sounds like an acid trip: not a freak-out, but rather a long jam with squalling guitars, quavering organ fills and distant-sounding vocals…like it was inspired by a buffet of peyote buttons and magic mushrooms.” – CAMPUS CIRCLE
“bottom-heavy dark-boogie” - TIME OUT NEW YORK
“Virtuosic bass crunge, ripped jeans, long hair, extended krautrock blissouts…Yes!” - ROLLING STONE
“Whatever the level of high, the heavy psychedelic trio drift regularly into echoed and sometimes Crimsoned-out excursions without losing momentum or their excellent vintage stoner doom groove.” - STEREOGUM
“NAAM take the trippiest part of your favorite Hawkwind song and stretch it like space-taffy into hypnotic, riff-driven mush…a sucking black hole of reverb and space dust” – VILLAGE VOICE
“Having already established themselves as heavyweight psych-rock contenders, Brooklyn’s Naam are about to release their new EP “The Ballad of the Starchild” with an ambitious scope that further enhances their claim to the “Psych-est Band in NYC” title.” – THE DELI NYC
