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Atlanta's own Good Friday Experiment has been slowly crafting a sound for itself by merging other worldly environments with '60's pop sensibilities and a space rock ambiance. Like the dog end of a drug addled evening gone by, the band combines the dark psychedelia of Pink Floyd and The Electric Period of Miles Davis, with the droning ambiance of Low, Spiritualized, and Spaceman 3 to embark on a blissful journey to the dark side of the moon, while floating through space on laser guided melodies. - Chad Radford SE Perf.
Collection of almost acoustic pop that's airy without being flimsy. Wet, reverb-drenched vocals shiver over gentle sounds. - Tony Ware, CL
"We've come to realize we're a much weirder band than we ever imagined," says Justin Mcneight, vocalist/guitarist/principal songwriter for Atlanta space rock outfit Good Friday Experiment. "We lie just beyond what most labels want."
Since forming in 1999, Good Friday Experiment has been plagued by everything from bad booking agents to broken bones that kept the outfit from touring. But what has been most detrimental to the group is a lack of forward movement.
Self-releasing its debut full-length, Bottom of a Pail Breaking Through, Mcneight, bassist Ed Rawls (former Hal al Shedad guitarist/Red Lab engineer), drummer Mathis Hunter and keyboardist Rich Morris have gelled with psychedelic virtuosity. Camouflaging classic rock hooks under droning bliss, GFE has been quietly honing its abilities and waiting for the right label to sign the group and send it on its way. But after fruitless flirtations with Atlanta's International Hits and Athens' toppled torchbearers Kindercore Records, the group remained in limbo with its second record in-hand.
Finished in the summer of 2002 in Rawls' Living Room Studio, the band's sophomore effort, Spread Out Inside, lay in wait for nearly six months. When waiting was no longer an option, the group released the recording on its own Shakedown Records.
"Some labels are interested, but they're aiming for spring of 2004 and we need to get this record out now," declares Rawls. "If we wait any longer, this one won't ever be released and as a band we have to keep moving."
- Chad Radford, Creative Loafing
Discography
Spread Out Inside 2003
Halocline 2004
Photos
Bio
The foursome began to cultivate their musical and personal relationships playing together in a series of various projects - most notably Atlanta's Hal Al Shedad and Seventy Spacebird. Good Friday Experiment builds its foundations off of a steady diet of psychedelic/space and avant-rock (Pink Floyd, Can, Neu, Allman Bros., Hawkwind) and 70's future-jazz (Miles, Wayne Shorter, Weather Report) but digests these varied influences into a unique cohesive, and accessible sound of their own. Good Friday gives us music that, as Creative Loafing's Tony Ware describes, comes off "airy without being flimsy." The music glides smoothly through different corridors of experession, in one turn taking on a textured instrumentals in the next. The key to this versatility is the band members' roots in improvisation-jamming-and their open-ended songwriting. This love of improvisation, which relies on the players' comfort with and knowledge of their respective instruments, is even more evident in their live performances.
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