The John Michie Collective – High Vibrations CD

The John Michie Collective is unquestionably a rare phenomenon on the indie rock scene. Powered by marvelous ideas, exceptional musicianship, and a perfect understanding of balance, John Michie proves that some musicians don’t need involvement with the entire band at all. Mix these crucial ingredients with tremendous songwriting, composing, producing skills, and you got yourself High Vibrations, a profoundly detailed material fully stacked with loads of musical delicacies. Before High Vibrations, John Michie released the series of singles and extended plays, such as The Fool, Under The Stars, Wish You Were Dead, I’ll Write Your Constellation, High, Written In The Sky, and Nothing To Die For. Each recording included three compositions per release, so John Michie breaks the tradition by encompassing fourteen numbers within this interesting full-length.

Perhaps High Vibrations could be classified as an indie rock album, but The John Michie Collective embraces a vast universe of various music genres throughout the entire material. The predominant presence of psychedelic and progressive rock are the most dominant ones, but there are also elements of space rock, blues rock, shoegaze, dream pop, power pop, and disco included along the way. Besides the heavy involvement of psychedelic aesthetics, you’ll notice a retro sci-fi ambiance pervading from all the possible directions. These retro electronics were achieved by granular and modular synthesis, which were quite popular during the late sixties and early seventies, but they’re receiving a well-deserved comeback nowadays as well. Both psychedelic and space rock elements are gradually liberating even more layers of sound as the album proceeds towards the end, but John Michie also pays attention to the other genres throughout the entire recording.

With involvements of dream pop, power pop, and indie rock, this material carries some nearly cathartic, hypnotic, mellow-sounding ambiances that are overwhelming listening apparatus in so many ways. In combination with the psychedelic aesthetics, this album resembles something that Pink Floyd, Flatwood Mac, The Beatles, John Lennon, and Kansas would eventually record throughout their careers. While these artists probably heavily inspired John Michie’s tremendous work, his album undoubtfully resonates in an entirely different manner. The John Michie Collective unquestionably relies upon the psychedelic ambiances, synthy drones, generous dosages of progressive rock, contemporary indie rock accentuations, polyphonous dream-pop harmonies, and power pop chants. High Vibrations is a multilayered listening experience that will overwhelm your listening apparatus with cathartic melodies.

High Vibrations comes on a compact disc housed in a jewel case. The first 35 copies are signed by the artist. However, you can listen to this outstanding album on Spotify, Bandcamp, Soundcloud, and YouTube if you’re more into streaming services.