Triptides

Drawing from the bright, ringing guitars of the Byrds, Pink Floyd’s lush psychedelic atmospheres, and the Beatles’ buoyant hooks, Triptides steer clear of direct imitation. Their recordings instead function as a vivid, prismatic extension of late-’60s sounds, lightly flavored by Paisley Underground textures and updated through dense, reverberant studio methods. Early releases document a period of gradual refinement, yet the 2015 album Azur already placed the group on equal footing with leading psychedelic-pop acts of the era. Signing with Curation Records for 2021’s Alter Echoes yielded their most expansive and polished statement to date, an achievement followed in 2023 by the stylistically broad Starlight, which incorporates jazz-fusion elements.

The Los Angeles, California-based project originated in the Midwest when Glenn Brigman and Josh Menashe first crossed paths while attending university in Bloomington, Indiana. Shortly after forming, the band issued the EPs Triptides and Tropical Dreams. Their debut full-length, Psychic Summer, appeared in 2011, with Sun Pavilion arriving the next year and Predictions following in 2013. Bassist Dylan Sizemore joined in 2014, the same year the group performed at Lisbon’s Rock in Rio Festival alongside the Rolling Stones and Queens of the Stone Age. Brigman and Menashe subsequently relocated to Los Angeles while Sizemore remained in Indiana; there the pair recruited bassist Bryant Fox and drummer Brian Dove. Requiem Pour un Twister, the Paris-based imprint, released the fourth album Azur in 2015. Throughout the following year the band toured extensively in both the United States and abroad, sharing stages with Temples, Dead Meadow, and Boogarins.

Line-up shifts in 2017 brought the exits of Fox and Dove, the arrival of drummer Shaughnessy Starr, and Sizemore’s return for live performances. Afterglow, the fifth studio album, came out that June; Brigman and Menashe had tracked it prior to leaving Indiana. Their subsequent effort, Visitors, marked the first recordings completed in Los Angeles and appeared on Requiem Pour un Twister in early 2018, presenting a still intensely psychedelic but more studio-refined sound. Also in 2018, Brigman collaborated with Samira Winter on the Brazilian-inspired duo album Estrela Mágica, issued under the name Winter & Triptides. The band returned with the 2019 singles “Nirvana Now” and “Call of Creation.”

A refreshed rhythm section featuring bassist Stephen Burns and drummer Brendan Peleo-Lazar joined Brigman for a late-2020 cover of the Tubeway Army track “Are Friends Electric?” While that session took place, work was already underway on the group’s first release for Alive Naturalsound. Captured at a storied Los Angeles facility whose history includes the Standells’ “Dirty Water” and a visit from Pink Floyd, the resulting 2021 album Alter Echoes emerged as Triptides’ most concise and straightforward collection. Later the same year they released the psych-folk single “So Many Days,” which anchored the four-song EP of the same title. Starlight, issued by Curation Records in 2023, expanded the sonic palette further with jazz-fusion passages, expansive electronics, and dancefloor-ready rhythms.