Psychedelia meets indie rock

“Turn on, tune in, drop out,” might have been Timothy Leary’s counterculture phrase meant to promote LSD in the ’60s, but it’s very applicable to “Signal Morning.”

Released Sept. 8 by Cloud Recording, “Signal Morning,” is Circulatory System’s superlative, psychedelic concept album and follow-up to their 2001 remix album, “Inside Views.”

Blessed as a member of the Elephant 6 Collective and featuring former members of The Olivia Tremor Control, the bar was already set very high for this release.
Circulatory System beat all expectations, and will have listeners tuning in and dropping out of this world and into the band’s fantasy.

William Cullen Hart, lead singer and former lead singer of The Olivia Tremor Control, has perfected the art of creating noisy yet psychedelic pop-indie rock.

Devendra Banhart and other acoustic “psyche-rockers” beware; Circulatory System has raised the bar again.

Containing a total of 17 tracks, “Signal Morning” feels like an organically formed double-album/concept album.

With every song under five minutes, and some under 30 seconds, “Signal Morning,” sounds like an experience rather than a simple pop album.

Beginning with “Woodpecker Greeting Worker Ant,” the album starts off with chugging bass lines, which then usher in heavily distorted effects. After nearly two-and-a-half minutes, Hart’s multi-tracked vocals creep in.

His soft, whispery, spider-like vocals cast a thin, connecting web throughout the entire album. And by alternating traditional pop songs such as “Overjoyed” and “Rocks and Stones,” with short acoustic clips like “News From The Heavenly Loom,” Hart leads the album without dominating the lush and sometimes harsh instrumentation.

In “This Morning (We Remembered Everything)” Hart’s characteristically simple, pop lyrics epitomize the rest of the album’s composition. Chanting “this morning we remembered everything,” Hart creates an anthemic mantra that leaves listeners mesmerized and flying high in his otherworldly imagination.

Keeping consistent focus on psychedelic, metaphysical musings, each of “Signal Morning’s” songs sounds like a different diary entry in a stream of consciousness.
Hart’s imagination and vocals recall George Harrison’s work in the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” To keep with this comparison, “Signal Morning” echoes the Beatles’ magnum opus, but inspired by Harrison’s complexities rather than McCartney’s light, fluffy pop hits.

In short, Circulatory System’s “Signal Morning” ranks as the supreme psychedelic concept album of indie rock.