dodo skin music

Co-hosts of the Games for May happening Mega Dodo have been quietly creating a buzz on the psych loving underground these last few years, home of sky picnic, Icarus peel, mordecai smyth and of course Crystal Jacqueline and the Honey Pot (Mega Dodo’s own Jane Weaver) – her version of the Stones’ ‘play with fire’ is just something else and finds it recast as a haunting and enchanting mysterio draped in Doors-ian shadow plays which without playing down the worth of the sets other cuts just stands head and shoulders as the most vital listening moment here. The label has admirably curated a bespoke back catalogue flavoured in strange 60’s florals, lysergic pastorals and woozy kaleidoscopia. ‘Dodo Skin Music’ is a mind warping 43 minute stereo show of sorts that finds guest presenter Neil Nixon of miskin radio rooting through the labels enviable archives for a prize picking shop window taster of the aural attractions lying hidden within. Amid this mercurial mix lurks the warping Walrus machinations of Strange Turn’s trip-a-delic ‘pink litmus paper shirt’ and the ethereal out there ghostly mirages of the Green Question Marks quite sublime re-tooling of the Hollies ‘pegasus’. Octopus Syng’s quite simply unreal ‘you are every poem’ is pure Donovan while Sky Picnic are your bona fide 60’s children of the sun emerging from the darkening shadow lines of that decades fracturing in to crystal clear lysergic light formed from an equal measuring of Barrett and Jefferson. Mordecai Smyth has been known to occasion the Mega Dodo playlists with psych treats aplenty that owe much to Tomorrow as proven on ‘sinister cyclist’ and erstwhile Tomorrow-er Keith West per ‘plastic people’ albeit here cut with the abstract impishness of Anthony Newley while his sparring partner from a recent ‘barnburner’ face off Icarus Peel can be found here doing hazily glazed homages to label mater Crystal Jacqueline. Its left then to Mark and the Clouds to close the curtains of this defining box of treats with ‘Goddess of Desire’ for a spot of wig flipped mid 60’s soul shimmered beat cool – over and (far) out.