Skip to content

King Cnut

Robert Rackley
Robert Rackley
— 1 min read

London-based outfit Mandrake Handshake has something like a psychadelic+ sound. Or as they call it themselves—flowerkraut. They probably owe as much to Stereolab as anyone else. In their song “Hypersonic Super-Asterid,” they actually use the phrase “metronomic underground," which is the first track from Stereolab’s Emperor Tomato Ketchup LP.

Their bandleader, Row Janjuah, acknowledges their influences in this interview with DIY.

You are what you eat in music — what I listen to influences every creative decision.

Mandrake Handshake take their name from a Brian Jonestown Massacre song, another clue into the music that drives them. Their overall aesthetic heavily references 70s sci-fi. The band is greater than the sum of its influences, though, weaving disparate threads into a cohesive whole.

The video for "King Cnut" leans into their psychedelic bent. You might even call it “trippy.”

Mandrake Handshake - King Cnut (YouTube)

NoiseSaturday Night Video
Robert Rackley

Robert Rackley

Mere Christian, aspiring minimalist, inveterate notetaker, budget audiophile and paper airplane mechanic. Self-publishing since 1994.

Related Posts

Members Public

We Might As Well Be Strangers

Weezer comes back with a strong collaboration.

Members Public

Jim Carol New Year

With Life in Small Spaces, the upcoming album from Black Marble, the project's creator, Chris Stewart, taps into one of my semi-obsessions. The album's description on its Bandcamp page has further details on the clue we are given with the album title. It is an invitation

Members Public

Don’t Panic

English Breakfast by Hoops Despite seemingly being designed by a corporation to be mostly inoffensive, sometimes to the point of banality or worse, Coldplay launched into the world consciousness hot, with “Don’t Panic,” the song in the pole position on their debut album Parachutes. Though I feel more generosity

Don’t Panic