No Products in the Cart
The Brian Jonestown Massacre have been Anton Newcombe's swirling, drone-soaked obsession since San Francisco, 1990, a revolving cast of more than 40 players orbiting his songbook with Joel Gion on tambourine at the center of the storm. Their sound is 60s psychedelia run through shoegaze, jangle, garage, and lo-fi haze: guitars that hang in the air, rhythms that lock in and never let go. Methodrone, their 1995 debut on Bomp!, is where it all crystallized, a title fused from "methadone" and "drone" that tells you exactly what you are walking into.
We have shared a lot of bills with this band. They played Austin Psych Fest in 2012 and 2014, then carried right through to Levitation in 2016, 2018, 2023, and 2025. Six times across our stages and counting, so pressing Methodrone as a Levitation Edition feels less like a reissue and more like keeping a long conversation going.
Spun front to back, Methodrone still sounds like a band figuring out how deep the rabbit hole goes, and loving every minute of the fall. The guitars pool and bleed into each other, the rhythms hypnotize rather than push, and Newcombe's debt to Spacemen 3 and My Bloody Valentine is worn proudly rather than hidden. It is dreamy and narcotic and patient in a way debut albums almost never are.
Largely overlooked when it landed, the record has aged into a quiet shoegaze cornerstone, the kind of thing crate diggers trade knowing looks over. Our one honest gripe: it asks for surrender, and a couple of the longer drifts test that patience if you are not already under. But that slow burn is the whole point, and it is exactly why this one belongs on wax. Our pressing runs 500 copies on "Wasted" Blues on Blue Swirl and Splatter, the kind of vinyl that earns its spot on the shelf next to The Black Angels, The Dandy Warhols, and The Warlocks.
Recommended if you like: The Black Angels, The Dandy Warhols, The Warlocks.
