Triptides

Influenced by the sunny jangle of the Byrds, the warm psychedelia of Pink Floyd, and the bouncy melodies of the Beatles, Triptides never sound in thrall to their heroes. Instead, their music sounds like a modern, kaleidoscopic continuation of the magical sounds of the late '60s, spiced with a little bit of the Paisley Underground and dipped in modern, reverb-heavy production techniques. Their early albums saw the band learning their craft, and by the time of 2015's Azur, they were making assured psychedelic pop on par with any of their contemporaries. A move to Curation Records in 2021 for the LP Alter Echoes coincided with their biggest, most professional-sounding effort yet, which they followed with the wide-ranging, jazz fusion-tinged Starlight in 2023. Their refined trippiness took on a stronger '70s influence on 2025's Shapeshifter. The seeds of Los Angeles, California's Triptides were sewn in America's heartland, where co-founders Glenn Brigman and Josh Menashe met as university students in Bloomington, Indiana. The project's first yield was a pair of EPs, Triptides and Tropical Dreams, which arrived shortly after the band's formation. In 2011 they issued their debut long-player, Psychic Summer, with Sun Pavilion and Predictions following in 2012 and 2013, respectively. 2014 saw the group expanding with the addition of bassist Dylan Sizemore. It also saw their profile raised with an appearance at the Rock in Rio Festival in Lisbon, Portugal, where they shared the bill with a host of big-name acts including the Rolling Stones and Queens of the Stone Age. The following year, Brigman and Menashe packed up and relocated to L.A. (Sizemore elected to stay in Indiana), where they hooked up with Bryant Fox (bass) and Brian Dove (drums). Their fourth LP, Azur, was issued in 2015 on Paris-based label Requiem Pour un Twister. The band spent the next year on the road, playing both at home and abroad, making appearances alongside contemporaries like Temples, Dead Meadow, and Boogarins. 2017 saw the departures of Fox and Dove, the arrival of drummer Shaughnessy Starr, and the return of bassist Dylan Sizemore to the live band. The group's fifth studio long-player, Afterglow, was released in June. It was recorded by Brigman and Menashe before they left Indiana; their next album was the first the duo made in their new L.A. digs. The still super trippy but less homemade-sounding Visitors was released by Requiem Pour un Twister in early 2018. That same year, Brigman teamed up with Samira Winter to record Estrela Mágica, a duo album of Brazilian-inspired tracks, which they released as Winter & Triptides. Returning to band work, the group turned out a pair of singles in 2019's "Nirvana Now" and "Call of Creation." With a new lineup of bassist Stephen Burns and drummer Brendan Peleo-Lazar joining Brigman, the band recorded a cover of the Tubeway Army song "Are Friends Electric?" in late 2020. At the same time, they were working on their first album for the Alive Naturalsound label. Recorded at a historic Los Angeles studio with a pedigree stretching back to the Standells' "Dirty Water" and including a visit by one of Brigman's favorite bands, Pink Floyd, the 2021 album Alter Echoes was the group's most streamlined and direct release to date. Later that year, they issued the sunny, psych-folk single "So Many Days," which appeared on the four-song EP of the same name. 2023's Starlight, released on Curation Records, saw the band add jazz fusion, sweeping electronics, and dancefloor-ready beats to their rich, sonic arsenal. 2025's Shapeshifter was an exercise in laid-back studio psychedelia dominated by electronic keyboards -- no great surprise, as Glenn Brigman played all the instruments himself on eight of the album's eleven tracks, with Stephen Burns contributing guitar and percussion on the remaining three songs. It was Triptides' first album under a new contract with the independent imprint Label 51 Records.
© James Christopher Monger /TiVo

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