Dope Purple & Berserk
This Is The Harsh Trip For New Psyche
300 only on ashen white vinyl LP, housed in a matt finished colour sleeve with obi. Three years on from the band's acclaimed 'Grateful End' album, and following up 2023's reissue of their live release 'Psychedelic Scum Freaks,' Taipei's underground psych monsters Dope Purple return with their new album proper, 'This Is The Harsh Trip For New Psyche.' The album is co-released again by Riot Season and WV Sorcerer Productions. It's a mixture of harsh noise and psych rock, the noise element being well recorded and presented so we can hear many details, and blends perfectly with the other instruments in all frequencies. The whole album moves between a spectral sadness and insanity, each track takes a rather different direction, recognising the influence of classic Japanese bands such as High Rise, Mainliner and Les Rallizes Dénudés. The album is a collaboration with Berserk, a young underground pioneer from the Taipei scene, and has been performing chaotic frequency manipulation and carefully textured post-apocalyptic soundscapes since 2015. The cover features hand-drawn artwork by Japanese artist Ten Kashiwagi, and the mixing/mastering was taken care of once again by Darklaw from Japan, perfectly capturing the aesthetic and technical aspects of the recording.