Kevin Bronson on November 1st, 2019

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Indigo Skyship is the new band piloted by singer-guitarist Tyler Kennedy, the architect of an outsized sound that should have fans at future Desert Daze festivals quaking in their sandals.

The sheer majesty of the new single “Psychic Fish,” out today, suggests Kennedy has scaled the mountain of heavy psychedelia and is enjoying the view. The song was produced by Grammy-winning Tom Biller, who has worked with the likes of Kanye West, Fiona Apple, Elliott Smith, Brad Mehldau, Karen O, Warpaint, Silversun Pickups and Liars. Biller got an idea of what Indigo Skyship was all about during his first conversation with Kennedy, who had fleshed out his early demos with the help of drummer Arthur Siegel.

“When I first sat down with Tom to discuss making a record together, I kept making sweeping motions with my hands to describe how large of a sound I wanted for this record,” Kennedy says. “I didn’t want to be afraid to be too ostentatious, to let it all hang out. I wanted to rock as hard as possible. This song, ‘Psychic Fish’ has been the closest thing to capturing the grandiose vision that is in my head for what I want this Indigo Skyship project to be. Essentially, it is meant to be played as loud as pleasurably possible.”

And like any self-respecting psych-rocker, Kennedy takes a probing approaching lyrically — “Psychic Fish” is not just a sonic head trip. “The lyrics are existential in nature, as a meditation on the temporal aspect of all of life around us,” he says. “When I wrote the line, ‘Sands of time escape the tightest fist,’ I was reminded of Shelley’s poignant poem, ‘Ozymandias.’ I later go on to interpose the question, ‘Life, what is it all for? To die, and to live once more (and to live once more …).’ I feel there is a powerful cyclical nature to life and the universe around us. This song is my attempt at harnessing my limited understanding of the grandeur of it all.”

If you, too, wonder about such things, try this 6 1/2-minute exercise in mind expansion.

||| Stream: “Psychic Fish”

||| Also: Stream “Do You Already Know?”

||| Live: Indigo Skyship celebrates their single release with a show Saturday night at the California Institute of Abnormalarts (CIA) in North Hollywood.