Label: Nice Swan Records
Released: 14th May 2021
More packed than a car boot sale on a Sunday morning, Mandrake Handshake’s debut EP – while clocking in at only four tracks – effortlessly feels like a hell of a lot more.
The Oxford ensemble fuse together quite the melodious mix of psychedelia and jazz perfectly befitting a starry-eyed odyssey through the cosmos – or just having a tinny in a field with your mates.
Where Mandrake differ from their other explorative contemporaries – your Black Midis and Black Countrys – is that they really want you to shake that hand, so they give an easy in. There’s never any abrasion or swift left-field curveballs.
Instead, it’s a warm embrace that, at times feels like it’s going a bit deep-dark-corners-of-Glasto but that’s all part of the psychedelic fun; exploring new territory, and truly none sound as spring-fresh as Mandrake Handshake.
