Helicon x Al Lover – Not A Thought
Helicon and Al Lover drop “Not A Thought”, the third single from their upcoming collaborative album “Arise” (out February 13 on Fuzz Club). This one’s built for heavy psych heads—pounding motorik momentum, swirling fuzz guitars, and a dense mix that locks you into a euphoric psych-out.
The track came together differently than most of “Arise”. Al Lover took the lead this time, sending over initial beats and chords that Helicon then arranged and expanded. They recorded the final version together in Glasgow with producer Tony Doogan (Mogwai, The Jesus & Mary Chain) at Castle Of Doom Studios.
“I love how unhinged the final version is,” Al Lover says. “It’s dark, heavy, and freaked out, but there’s a light touch of humor and a real blasé attitude to it. That kind of juxtaposition is what makes it work, and it feels connected to the spirit of bands like The Velvet Underground and The Stooges.”
Lyrically, it’s about pretending everything’s OK when it isn’t. The mantra-like repetition captures the quiet violence of modern mental saturation—when you’re drowning in information but can’t process any of it. Helicon frontman John-Paul Hughes describes it as “unlike anything I’ve heard—it really feels like new ground was broken.”
The collaboration between Glasgow’s Helicon and LA-based Al Lover started with a trans-Atlantic exchange of demos, eventually narrowing down over 20 tracks. Helicon’s eight-piece band laid down bare-bones recordings before Lover flew over to add drum machine, synth, and samplers. The result fuses Helicon’s trademark psychedelia with Lover’s genre-bending electronics into maximalist, hypnotic sound—trip-hop breaks, deep low-end, and dub textures layered together.
“For me, psychedelia is about breaking things open and seeing where it can go next,” Hughes says. “Working with Al Lover let us twist it into something new and prove it can still evolve, still surprise, and still mean something in a world of conformity.”
Tracklist:
- Arise
- Backbreaker
- Tabula Rasa
- Not A Thought
- It Won’t Stop
- Adjust The Dosage
- We Don’t Belong
- Midnight Mass
- Goodbye Cool World
Tour Dates Europe:
- 7th Feb – Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, UK
- 26th Feb – Sidney & Matilda, Sheffield, UK
- 27th Feb – The Deaf Institute, Manchester, UK
- 21st Mar – The Georgian Theatre, Stockton On Tees, UK
- 25th Apr – Foxlowe Arts Centre, Leek, UK
- 25th Apr – Ramsgate Music Hall, Ramsgate, UK
- 1st & 2nd May – Fuzz Club Eindhoven, Netherlands
- 3rd May – Kulturzentrum Kinett, Kusel, Germany
- 13th May – Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth, UK
- 2nd Aug – Kendal Calling, The Lake District, UK
- 19th Sept – Psyched Up! The Old Woollen, Leeds, UK
- 25th Sept – The 100 Club, London, UK
