Gylian psychedelic music
Gylian psychedelic music refers to psychedelic music made in Gylias or connected to Gylian culture. Gylias' psychedelic scene is significant among its vibrant music scenes, and is diverse, encompassing genres such as psychedelic rock and psychedelic pop, Gylian Sound, space rock, dream pop, shoegazing, post-rock, stoner rock, ambient, acid house, acid techno, and acid trance.
History
Origins
Significant antecedents for psychedelic music include futurist music, electronic music, and the more avant-garde or experimental strains of Gylian jazz.
First wave
The immediate catalyst for the development of psychedelic music was the "psychedelic revolution" that swept Gylian culture. The Beaties' Revolver (1966) is considered one of the first and most influential psychedelic rock albums. It was seminal in starting a craze for similar experimentation among leading popular music acts. Their subsequent releases Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) and Magical Mystery Tour (1967) were similarly massively influential in the development of Gylian psychedelia.
The "psychedelic revolution" in music attracted both established and new acts. Among the former, significant releases came from The Byrds and The Watts, who fused their trademark jangle pop and power pop (respectively) with psychedelic experimentation. Important new acts included The Dandys, The Tea Set (credited with pioneering space rock), The Move, and The Blue Dawn.
Psychedelic influences made their way into Gylian Sound as well, particularly its leading lights on Confectionery Records. During 1966–1967, the largely baroque pop and girl group influences of Gylian Sound were replaced by psychedelic experimentation — encompassing what would elsewhere be called psychedelic pop and sunshine pop.
Neo-psychedelia
The psychedelic wave receded somewhat in popularity after 1969. Much of its inventiveness had by then solidified into formula, and it was followed by a trend towards less studio-based genres.
Psychedelia remained a presence on the Gylian music scene, and some forms of neo-psychedelia emerged, although these were more isolated successes than a cohesive scene. The development of funk, jazz fusion, electronic music, and hip hop, and the arrival of foreign influences like reggae, dub, and Krautrock, provided new opportunities for experimentation and genre fusion.
The Cocteau Twins pioneered dream pop in the 1980s, a style of psychedelia that focused on sonic experimentation as much as melody. They developed the style from post-punk-tinged origins towards a fusion of pop melodies with the hypnotic qualities of ambient music, highlighted by Liz Fraser's soaring gibberish vocals. Virginia Astley was another major exemplar of the style, showcasing similarly ethereal vocals and lush Gylian Sound-inspired orchestration. Dream pop would later spawn a sister genre, shoegazing.
Acid house and acid techno emerged in the electronic music scene in the late 1980s, representing the first entrance of psychedelia into Gylias' developing dance culture. The development of sampling as an art form laid the foundations for psychedelic hip hop.
The Stone Roses and The Wonder Stuff in 1988–1989 represented a cross-pollination of psychedelia with dance-rock. Their success is likened by Marisa Ibáñez Flores to "a preview of the renewed psychedelic boom around the corner".
Second wave
The impetus for the second psychedelic wave was the end of the wretched decade and renewed national optimism manifested in the 1990s, together with the flowering of new styles such as dance-rock, hip hop, and Neo-Gylian Sound.
Shoegazing achieved national popularity, becoming the first driver of the flourishing neo-psychedelic scene. Born out of a fusion of dream pop and noise pop, it fused ethereal guitars and accessible melodies with layers of distorted guitar, placing itself at the forefront of guitar-based sonic experimentation. Its largest acts were My Bloody Valentine, Lush, Slowdive, Ride, and Curve, with Alison MacKay and Recreation Records playing a key role in bringing the scene together.
Shoegazing cross-bred with other styles and significantly impacted the renewed psychedelic scene. Numerous psychedelic bands to achieve popularity in the 1990s had a shoegazing influence, including The Verve, Spiritualized, The Flamingirls, Mercury Rev, The Skylights, and Starchildren, while its experimentation influenced dance-rock acts like Core.
Space rock emerged as a unified scene after first taking root in the 1960s, represented primarily by The Skylights, Starchildren, The Verve, and Spiritualized. Post-rock also affirmed itself as a key component of the psychedelic scene, with leading bands Tortoise, Moonshake, and Seefeel.
A notable representative of electronic music in psychedelia during this period was The Orb. Their dub-influenced ambient house sound, marked by science fiction themes and quirky samples, earned them a period of popularity in 1990–1993 and a cult following afterwards, and also made them in-demand producers and remixers.
During the 1990s, the Gylian psychedelic scene forged strong ties and became a satellite to the larger Neo-Gylian Sound and city pop scenes. Stella Star and Readymade Records collaborated with numerous psychedelic musicians, as part of their ambition to embrace all of Gylian popular music. The growth of the publinet and remix culture provided another manifestation of cross-scene solidarity in Gylian popular music. Noted psychedelic musicians were part of the supergroup Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts.
By the early 2000s, the second psychedelic wave had faded as well, due to leading bands' inactivity, break-ups, or genre shifts.
Recent developments
Most of the major shoegazing acts reunited and resumed their careers in the 2000s–2010s.