Psychic Ills

Over more than fifteen years, Psychic Ills evolved in New York from a seething tangle of primal, trance-like noise rock toward a subtler strain of psychedelic composition. Underground audiences held the group in high regard, as they issued material through Sacred Bones and Social Registry while enlisting collaborators from Royal Trux and Mazzy Star; the project ended abruptly after founding member Tres Warren died in 2020.

Warren and guitarist/keyboardist Tom Gluibizzi assembled the band in New York City in 2003. They released two short-run vinyl documents—Mental Violence I in 2004 and Mental Violence II in 2005—which Social Registry later combined, with two additional tracks, under the title Early Violence. After Mental Violence I, bassist Elizabeth Hart and drummer Brian Tamborello completed the lineup for the first proper album, Dins, issued in 2006. The largely spontaneous Mirror Eye followed in 2009. Shifting to Sacred Bones, the band adopted a tighter approach on 2011’s Hazed Dream. One Track Mind, released in 2013, ventured further into approachable territory, featuring production and guest vocals by Royal Trux’s Neil Hagerty. Keyboardist Brent Cordero, already a touring member, joined the studio sessions that yielded the fifth album, Inner Journey Out, in 2016; Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star added vocals to its track “I Don’t Mind.” Warren passed away on March 21, 2020, at the age of 41. Days afterward the band issued two previously unheard recordings: their version of the Beach Boys’ “Never Learn Not to Love” and a raw, narcotic rendering of “Cease to Exist,” the Charles Manson composition that supplied the basis for the Beach Boys song.