The Society of Rockets, a psychedelic pop band from San Francisco, have been around since the mid-1990s, quietly building a deep discography while almost entirely removed from the larger indie rock community. Their obscurity is at least somewhat deliberate. In all this time, they have not toured or participated in any typical promotional activity, preferring to pour their creative energy into ambitious studio recordings. The group is led by singer and primary songwriter Joshua Babcock, a man with a seemingly endless appetite for old-school psychedelia, science fiction, and head shop ephemera. Babcock's best compositions blur the lines between many strains of 1960s and 70s pop and exotica, coming together on albums that sound like either an alternate version of the past, or an older version of the future.
Up until 2003, the Society was known as the Shimmer Kids Underpop Association. The core personnel remained mostly the same, but the tone of the band's music changed, or at least it did for their first two releases under the name. Whereas the Shimmer Kids records had a bright, poppy tone characterized by Beach Boys harmonies and whirring theremin, the initial Society of Rockets albums were slower and more subdued. They were going for a sort of spacey country-rock thing, but ended up with tunes that felt flat and listless compared to the colorful whimsy of their older material. Their 2007 album Our Paths Related was more interesting, but their experiments with hard psyche grooves and funky horn flourishes were a poor fit for Babcock's reedy voice.
Thankfully, their latest record is a return to form. Future Factory sprawls out over four vinyl sides-- it's not being released on CD-- and finds Babcock and his collaborators reclaiming the sunny ba-da-ba tunefulness of their early days while successfully integrating elements from krautrock and bossa nova. The album sequence is punctuated with interstitial song fragments that shift mood, provide texture, and capture brief moments of inspiration that require no further elaboration. At just under an hour, it's generous but not overlong, and its restless spirit and variety of tones keep the music from falling into the samey ruts of previous Society of Rockets releases.
The group sound genuinely thrilled and engaged by these songs, and that spark results in some of the finest recordings of the band's overall history. "Circulate and Sing" and "I Am a Battery" blend chiming British Invasion chords with delirious, hazy synthesizers. "We" recalls early Stereolab with its super-charged motorik groove, while "The Great Experiment" brings to mind that band's later excursions into zoned-out polyrhythmic lounge pop. "Guess My Name" nods in the direction of Hall & Oates smooth, R&B-inflected studio pop without a hint of kitschiness, while "Blowout Chief" is reminiscent of Guided By Voices in their mid-90s heyday. It's a pile-up of scattered influences and recycled ideas to be sure, but the execution is distinct. After years of seeming to chase after some kind of artistic growth, Babcock and his band have made the best album of their career by letting loose and playing to their strengths.
