THEE GNOSTICS
Archival 2x CASS + ZINE
Bennifer Editions 2010
Damn Hippies! This group was sorely missing from Time Machine: The History Of Canadian 60’s Garage Punk And Surf 1985-95 (Stomp 1996), which was compiled by my friend Jordan Swift (Cryptics/Kingpins). Some strange shit was going down in these Hamilton, ON suburbs circa the 1990s, sounds like some musically inclined young people were experimenting on hallucinogenic substances and then went from grooving on their grannies’ wallpaper patterns and shag carpeting to forming this secret order of visionaries, now revealed to be Thee Gnostics! I loved a lot of this double cassette and it’s just a miracle that it’s finally left the safehouse after all these years! This double cassette with 48-page photocopied zine/silkscreen book with reused old gig poster imagery mysteriously showed up at Mongrel Zine HQ with information revealing the history of this prolific group. This was as strange as my coming across a series of psychiatrist’s dictation case study cassettes once that were so clinical and odd that I disowned them. Not the case here, I’m counting myself lucky to have this and recommend investigation! Bennifer Editions’s cassette singles are the bulk of their releases but they also release records with self-published books. Superb attention to detail was paid by Bruce Mowat master screenprinter (whose style looks similar to the cover work on Saffron Sect’s Gavin Dianda 7” on Wee ‘Wanna Records, 1997). The offset silkscreen ink with contrasting, almost op-art, colours has a tactile feel almost like a velvet poster. Using the word ‘tactile’ would usually make me dry heave but the cassettes and complimentary book are so downright psychedelic, groovy, and surprisingly good I can’t help myself. A lot of this Thee Gnostics material here is pure psych with some heavier acid rock and more experimental space jam stuff similar in spirit to ‘70s supergroup Can, and a few really cool psychotic asylum and go-go garage caveman stompers played by the band thrown in for good measure. (Bob Scott)
