Guadalajara group Uay take their name from the Mayan word for enchantment, or magic spell. The basic building blocks of their soft-edged psychedelic sorcery are Rodrigo “Chaka” Torres’ creeping basslines, an abundance of raw percussion by hand, supplemental sound effects for en extra bit of hallucinatory kick, and of course Francisco “Oby” Lopez’s guitar, which shimmers, shivers, caws like a raven, and soars like an eagle, or a condor, or in any case some sort of mystical bird. With unhurried tempos and an avoidance of excessive distortion, as well as a pronounced Mexican folk flavour, Torres and Lopez (also co-founders of the Mexicadelia psych-rock fest, on pause this year, of course) leave lots of room for the listener to appreciate the many little subtleties woven into their debut album’s five pleasing tracks (we’ll exclude “Almohada”, an unnecessary knot of noise at the album’s end).
