TRAFFIC SOUND [AKA: III / TIBET'S SUZETTES]

Peru's six-man psych-pop outfit Traffic Sound came up during a turbulent period for the South American country, the tentacles of the global counter-cultural and social revolutions that defined the 1960s affecting almost every facet of life in the mountainous province. Recorded in 1968, 'Traffic Sound' - or 'III' as it is sometimes to referred to - sports a kaleidoscopic brew of influences and styles, blending fuzzy rainy-day psychedelia, lysergic acid-rock and droplets of ethnic percussion into a richly-coloured album that proves more than a match for the era's better known American-and-English groups. Although rather brief-in-length due to various budgetary and recording restrictions, there's enough on this self-titled release - the group's second overall - to arouse the interests of those with a penchant for Jefferson Airplane, Chocolate Watchband, Tomorrow etc. Album highlights include kinetic, organ-doused jaunt-pop medleys on 'Tibet's Suzette', the hazy, bucolic rock of 'Yesterday's Game' and last but by no means least, the vibrant latin-psych soundscapes of the seven-minute mini-epIc 'Chicama Way'. A very pleasant surprise indeed.

STEFAN TURNER, STOKE NEWINGTON, 2012