San Francisco-based producer Al Lover has spent the last several years evolving an approach to psychedelic reworks of rock ‘n roll in its various inflections. Though they share some common structures, his solo LP debut Sacred Drugs is a thick distil- lation compared to older remixes or the heady mixtapes he’s curated for Austin Psych Fest, each its own primer on garage and psych in the corresponding year. Sacred Drugs stands out in Al’s discography, though some of its character and more transcendant qualities are hinted at in his collaborations, with GOAT, and particularly on the single “Snake Hands” recorded with White Fence. The elaborate treatments on his 2011 digital album Distorted Reverberations (of Reverberating Distortion): Psychedelic Reinterpretations of Contemporary Rock ‘n Roll offer the most obvious antecedant for Sacred Drugs, but clearly as a collection it lacks the same scope.

Listening to Sacred Drugs is as transformative an experience as Al’s own style of composition. Songs are a deliberate as- sociative enterprise, paralleling both the contextualization that takes place as part of any conscious “hearing” and the abstract notion of self-development. Texture and tone combine to lead the listener inward, with hypnogogic beats that evoke the sense of ritual awakening when it was still a communal undertaking. In that way Sacred Drugs offers a measured take on reality, a tool for perceiving the outlines of your own interconnectedness... like the eponymous entheogens, Sacred Drugs is intended as a companion for self-discovery.

“...the San Francisco-based sample maven takes beats, guitar sounds, rhythms and random chaotic sounds and compiles them into instrumental excursions.” -LA Times Music Blog
“Al lover makes the sort of DMT infused music that leaves other contemporary psychedelic bands gasping for a breath of fresh air.”

-Noisey

“Mixing equal parts 13th Floor Elevators and The Night Beats with equal parts Dilla and Pete Rock is an unconventional formula for sure, but itʼs Al Loverʼs thing, and to paraphrase Bill Grahamʼs famed statement about the Grateful Dead, heʼs not the best at what he does- heʼs the only one who does what he does.”

-Potholes In My Blog

“Skuzzy and burned at the seams, each beat is stoned off its ass. He’s stated that the psych music of today is what the producers of tomorrow will sample, but rather than give them the opportunity to do so, he’s taken on the task of being ahead of the curve with each record.”

-Impose Magazine

“These tracks couldn't have been made without the originals, but something just as novel has come out of them. Fans of crate-dug instrumental antics take notice.”

-The Needle Drop