Standing among bellowing football fans on the train to Lewes isn’t the most psychedelic of experiences, but SOURCE can smell odd smells and see a lot of blue. It could be the hangover from last night or it could be that, after last year’s quite marvellous festival, the expectation is mounting to the point where the senses are already distorting…

Lewes is the ideal setting for this well established fan-favourite festival. Rumours abound of tunnels and covens and smugglers beneath the ancient town walls and there’s definitely something elemental afoot as we approach the main venue, the brooding All Saints Church. As festival wristband check-in desks go, this one broods more than most. But before the place opens its doors fully, it’s back out onto the street and over the road to the significantly less-brooding Union Records for the first act of the day. It is a warm and welcoming little temple of the turntable and it is packed.

The sense of the ethereal descends again as Rose Io opines. Formerly one half of Rokurokubi, Rose now performs solo. She speaks and sings songs of love and of sun gods with a wide-eyed wonder and there’s a dark, English country garden poetry to her folk melodies that conjure up visions of The Lady of Shallot. The mystics have arrived (they must have been on the train behind us) and the festival is go!

Entering the literally named Small Psych Room is like going inside a bright pink spinning diorama made of liquid marshmallows, cherryade and popping candy. A perfect backdrop then for nicely off-balance experimental duo VÄLVĒ. If Brian Eno invented a time machine and took Steve Reich on a tour of 17th century olde England and recorded their trip on a handheld radio, this would be the result. And yes, that is a good thing.

Our final trip back to Union Records is for Sairie. Singer Emma Morton has a beautifully fragile folk-inflected voice and the band are all about traditional folk of the sort that’s delicate with a hint of menace. When guitarist John Griffin takes the mic we wonder whether someone slipped on a Damien Rice LP when no one was looking, such is the quality of his vocal.

There’s a quiet reverence present in the Small Psych Room as Mark Peters coaxes his guitar towards an instrumental wail. His rhythm section are on point and we get Mogwai vibes via long-lost, Old Man Peel favourites The Rock Of Travolta. Is it prog-psych or psych-prog? Who knows, but with the projections still spinning it feels like someone might have spiked the Kool-Aid. The crowd in the chapel love it and as we approach break time before the main room ignites, it’s off to imbibe in the local hostelry. You know, the one with the tree inside, to start work on our miniature wicker man.

With “reed weaving” and “Britt Ekland” safely bookmarked, it’s time to head back to the church as the main room opens up and SOURCE wanders into a fearsomely psychedelic maw. Countless bubbling oil projectors wheel and spin across the walls of the old church as if the building is time-warping back to the 60s, like a fractal Tardis. Oddfellows Casino are, in a word, mesmerising – we’ve entered the realm of uber-musician and keysmaster David Bramwell. You may know him from his Odditorium events, the Catalyst Club or his Sing-along-a-Wickerman show. In any case, his band, now in their 20th year, soar. The soulful lead vocals are one of the best things we hear all night, the violin squalls and flutters and the whole going concern is completely drenched in harmony to die for. And there was a trumpet too, which often goes wrong in these situations, but on this occasion it was deployed very effectively indeed.

However, the instrument of now is the saxophone and let’s be honest, who saw that coming? The darned things are everywhere these days. Memorials are two-piece Verity Susman and Matthew Simms and their sax gets the five-star psychedelic sampling treatment. Simms hunches over a tape loop machine that’s almost as old as the church and the immense waves of oceanic sound they create would certainly please Beach House.

Karma Sheen stride on to the stage and the audience straps itself in. What follows is a pounding and joyous set of fuzzed-up 60s sitar rock which beckons us eastward for a singular sonic journey. While showcasing the coolest drummer of the night (in what is a crowded field), the band encourage what we can only describe as a psych seance. Frontman Sameer Khan breaks out the incense and his boundless energy really gets the party started. King of the visuals Innerstrings amps up the optics with some organic, pulsing projections and Lewes Psychedelic Festival properly lifts off. Despite the hippy vibes and an instrument that’s hundreds of years old, Karma Sheen are light years ahead of us.

Acid Klaus is the brainchild of ex-Fall member (yeah, we know how many of those there are) Adrian Flanagan and he is a class act. Joined on stage by a mini-troupe of singers and dancers, Flanagan is great company, cracking sardonic one-liners before ducking behind his synth, pressing some unseen buttons and making the kind of noises that would make Neil Tennant and Bernard Sumner smile. The precocious vocals and the hi-NRG dance moves show that when techno meets house meets psychedelia, the result is ball bouncingly good fun. And we’ll probably be singing the stupidly catchy refrain “bad drugs, bad people” all week. Although not in front of our mum or cat.

TVAM’s star is in the ascendency and his headline spot is well deserved. Head honcho Joe Oxley definitely has a few Gary Numan records in his collection. He creates intense walls of guitar-driven sound, but the set clings to a quickly established psych-pop formula. Although the show doesn’t carry quite as much mystic charisma as what came before, it’s still a great way to end the evening.

Co-promoters Melting Vinyl and Innerstrings have done it again, serving up a sold-out treat for the senses with a fabulously curated line-up in a unique location. Staggering home through the dark and winding streets, we feel discombobulated and can see still those fluid projections floating across ancient walls and doorways. Luckily we’ve got 364 days to recover. See you there next time.

Melting Vinyl and Innerstrings presents Lewes Psychedelic Festival
All Saints Arts Centre, Saturday 4th February 2023
Words and photos by Jason Warner/Fyrefly Studios