Rude Audio and Danwainwright share the studio for Psychedelic Science, a long, long-player that leans hard toward the lysergic, and also indulges the pair’s passion for dub. 

Ditching RA’s trademark Chris & Cosey-influenced sound for something more tropical, more Wally Badarou, the opening number, Be Love, features the wisdom of spiritual guru, Ram Dass, once a close friend and colleague of acid’s most famous  advocate, Timothy Leary, and is an uncharacteristic move into chilled out, Coyote / Is It Balearic? country. The duo then cover The Grateful Dead. Their version of Fire On The Mountain, though, is not a sprawling LSD-assisted jam, but instead a fine piece of punk funk. Recalling The Clash, Big Audio Dynamite, or Ruts DC at the mercy of Mad Professor’s controls. Slow motion drums rolling through, not showers, but serious storms of cymbal crashes and sound effects. The careful guitar picking almost African highlife. Sunshine-soaked JuJu. Super accomplished, the track brings to mind, Adrian Sherwood’s recent re-shaping of Texan rockers, Spoon, and their album, Lucifer On The Moon. The Fever continues in this vein. Dubwise deconstructing heavy rock riffing. The song smacking of gothic, industrial geezers, like Fini Tribe / Ministry’s Chris Connelly, getting their grungy groove on. El Qasr Dub, with its zither, gated muezzin-like vocals, and monstrous b-line, no doubt takes inspiration from Jah Wobble’s Invaders Of The Heart. Also tipping its hat toward Nicky Skopelitis and Bill Laswell. Control climaxes in a finale of trippy thermin-like frequencies. Talking To The Sun is a percussive punky reggae party. Somehow Mark and Dan have persuaded author, `60s psychedelic seer, and former Merry Prankster, Ken Babbs, now nearly 90, to tackle on Bowie’s Heroes. Ken’s reading is predictably well-traveled, lovable rogue ragged, while the music is reminiscent of Sabres Of Paradise’s smoother sessions, their work with One Dove, or their own Red Stripe Dub. 

As epic as all of this is, it’s basically a prelude for the closing, 18-minute, Patience Dub, A Prog Odyssey. Where treated Fairlight-like fragments slowly fuse and form tribal chants, war cries, and the soundsystem mixing desk skullduggery synergises with rock`n`roll guitar rumbling. The two climbing together, sights set on a full-on freak-out. In the post-peak calm, soothing samples from Tibetan meditation teacher Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche aid your re-entry. 

Psychedelic Science is out now on Rude Audio.