Beautify Junkyards - The Invisible World of Beautify Junkyards (2018)

Worth a buy on the strength of the rather fetching Czech new wave/pulp fiction-inspired cover alone, which is a typically eye-catching design by Ghost Box’s resident visual genius, Julian House. The music on Beautify Junkyards’ third album offers instant gratification too, as the Lisbon collective strike up a woozy amalgam of esoteric English psych-folk and Brazilian tropicalia. There’s also tinges, of kosmische and an underlying hauntological vibe (this is Ghost Box, remember) adding an eerie, dystopian edge. It’s splendid stuff, but then you’d expect nothing less from a band whose beatific cover versions of Kraftwerk’s ‘Radioactivity’ and Nick Drakes’ ‘From The Morning’ were as dizzyingly good as the originals. And as with their first two LPs, there’s much to love here — standouts include the swirling ‘Sybil’s Dream’, channelling Broadcast’s wistful retro-futurism, and the transcendental Os Mutantes-like ‘Manhã Tropical’. Anything but invisible, it’s a bewitching album that you’ll warm to immediately.

Velimir Ilic
Electronic Sound

So slowly has the Ghost Box family grown, and so rarely do artists get to become part of the label’s small roster, that each new arrival comes with an implied certificate of authenticity. So it is with Portugal’s Beautify Junkyards, who after a 45 entry in the Other Voices series last year, here present their third album of spacey acid-folk. The combo treads delicately through 15 percussive, pastoral tracks, singing sometimes in English, sometimes in Portuguese. Indeed, the ability to understand the lyrics feels unimportant. Nor are acoustic instruments always to the fore – in fact a good deal of the texture of the LP comes from a deftly-wielded electronic palette, and the thing Beautify Junkyards undoubtedly do best is marry those two worlds in a satisfyingly seamless way. Atmospheric, immersive, and arcane, The Invisible World Of.. is a record out of time and as such a natural fit on Ghost Box.

Christopher Budd
Shindig

There’s something unusually special lurking in the opulent psychedelic foliage of this third album from Lisbon’s Beautify Junkyards; their first for Ghost Box. The band first appeared on Fruits de Mer in 2012 covering Nick Drake’s From The Morning and his lazy riverbank soliloquys could provide one reference point. But so could a surface resemblance to peak Incredibles, Forest or Dr Strangely Strange. Still, these comparsions swiftly become just essences swirling in a cauldron stirred from their own evocative visions, as previously honed on their self-titled debut album and 2015’s celestial The Beast Shouted Love.

The band’s versatility is demonstrated by the vocal interplay between keyboardist João Branco and Rita Vian (occasionally singing in Portuguese) swooping over shimmering backdrops created by Joao Moreira’s mountain stream guitar, Sergue Ra’s earth’s core bass, Antonio Watts’ disparate percussion and Helena’s Espuall’s autumnal cello, enhanced by tropicalia rhythms and the icy strings and flute of a Mellotron on Ghost Dance and others.

Tracks like the sinister The Masque Of The Hidden Garden, spoken word tapestry Half Marble and cello-coated instrumental Golden Apples Of The Sun reinforce this beautifully-packaged helping of 21st century acid-folk at its headiest.

Kris Needs
Record Collector

Track List:
01. Ghost Dance (04:37)
02. Sybil's Dream (03:29)
03. Prism (04:11)
04. Half Marble (03:56)
05. Golden Apples of the Sun (04:04)
06. Echo Chamber (01:17)
07. Manhã tropical (01:11)
08. Aquarius (03:39)
09. Shelter (04:21)
10. Cabeça-Flor (03:32)
11. Claridade (03:29)
12. Sorceress (02:47)
13. The Masque of the Hidden Garden (04:04)
14. May Day Eve (03:38)
15. Trackways (01:40)

More Music in My Blog
Follow My RSS Channel