The Psychedelic Genius of Tame Impala's Innerspeaker

It was released 10 years ago today. You should give it a re-listen.

• Jamie Mah @grahammah

I love Tame Impala. Innerspeaker is one of my favourite albums and it’s crazy to think it’s Kevin Parker’s very first. What a debut! 

I first heard of Kevin and Tame Impala back in early 2011 when I was dating my ex Jessica. To her credit, she was the one who introduced me to psych rock. Up until that point I’d heard of groups like the Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Black Angels but had never given their works a passing glance. Tame Impala was the introduction I needed to see the beauty in this style of music. And let’s get one thing straight here, Innerspeaker is as pure a psychedelic album if there ever was one. As one of the fore-bearers of the psychedelic movement in the 1960s, here’s what Timothy Leary had to say about what psychedelic music should sound like:

To understand what makes music stylistically “psychedelic,” one should consider three fundamental effects of LSD: dechronicization, depersonalization, and dynamization. Dechronicization permits the drug user to move outside of conventional perceptions of time. Depersonalization allows the user to lose the self and gain an “awareness of undifferentiated unity.” Dynamization, as makes everything from floors to lamps seem to bend, as “familiar forms dissolve into moving, dancing structures”… Music that is truly “psychedelic” mimics these three effects.

No song on the record captures these three qualities more astutely than the track Why Won’t You Make Up Your Mind? — Not to be confused with Michael Pollan’s fantastic 2018 psychedelic book How To Change Your Mind. 

It’s a mind bending track best listened to outside on the grass with your friends. Beers in hand, shades on with some mushrooms in your stomach. Grab the record, give it a look and just ride the wave. What Parker captures is a feeling of nostalgia. That 60s ethos of freedom and good vibes. Don’t overthink it. Just enjoy it. 

Parker presses this sense of longing for past eras even further with the two eponymous standout tracks of the record, Alter Ego and Lucidity. Both songs force one to just let go and lose perception. You may not be high when you listen to them, but you will wish you were. I can promise you that. 

Ten years removed, this sound is all but a forgotten dream for Parker and his fans. The push for pop stardom found on Currents and his latest, The Slow Rush, show how he’s developed and grown as an artist. I enjoy both records quite a lot. I was excited to see Paker perform them this summer had COVID — 19 not arrived. Hopefully, in 2021 I will be able to. In the meantime, I’m going to refresh Innerspeaker and give it the love it deserves. It’s a summertime classic. Best listened to at the beach. I may just head there today. 

I suggest you do as well.

Lucidity, come back to me
Put all five senses back to where they’re meant to be
Oh it’s hard to tell, it breaks down
There is a will, there is a way

Wondering around like spare time never knew it
I might suck fizzle or I might just float away