* En anglais uniquement
Helping to spearhead a revival of neo-psychedelic pop, California's
Sugar Candy Mountain emerged in the early 2010s fusing sunny, retro sounds with lush, sophisticated composition. Ranging from lo-fi experimentation to vibrant Tropicália, early releases like 2013's Mystic Hits soon gave way to a brighter, synth-driven brand of psych-pop on 2018's
Do Right.
Sugar Candy Mountain's evolution continued with their eclectic fifth album,
Impression, in 2021.
The band initially began in 2010 as the recording project of Oakland-based musician
Will Halsey. From early on, his partnership with collaborator
Ash Reiter yielded a unique sound blending classic '60s West Coast psychedelia with pastoral folk and pulling inspiration from pop experimentalists like Brazil's
Os Mutantes,
the Flaming Lips, and
Brian Wilson. The band's self-titled 2011 debut drew largely from
Halsey's early, more lo-fi recordings. By the time of 2013's Mystic Hits,
Sugar Candy Mountain had evolved into a fully fledged live group with
Halsey and
Reiter at the helm. The album also expanded on their Brazilian influences and was partially recorded in São Paulo. For their follow-up, they recorded in San Francisco with
Papercuts frontman
Jason Quever. The album,
666, arrived in the summer of 2016 via PIAPTK Records. Working again with
Quever,
Sugar Candy Mountain took a more modern approach with 2018's
Do Right, layering in vibrant synths alongside their more organic instrumentation. Following the hazy standalone 2019 single "In My Own World," the group wrote much of their next album during a prolonged 2020 camping trip while escaping the devastating wildfires raging around their home state. Released in 2021,
Impression introduced deep '70s grooves and Krautrock influences into
Sugar Candy Mountain's already eclectic sound. ~ Timothy Monger