Winged Wheel are a collective of musicians from different US cities playing an experimental fusion of krautrock and psychedelia.

This is exactly the kind of noise I love: Winged Wheel lay down their foundations with a driving motorik beat and infuse their kosmische krautrock with psychedelic flourishes. 

Formed by a group of experimental rock veterans, the sextet made their debut in 2022 with an album of noise-rock psychedelia called No Island. It was followed two years later by another, called Big Hotel. This is the opening number, Demonstrably False.

Their music is structured but simultaneously spontaneous; listening to it can feel like eavesdropping on a casual jam session among friends… albeit friends who have played together for 20 years.

Beneath the Neu!-like motorik beat played by former Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, heavy basslines rumble, guitars intertwine and ambient synths hum in the background. 

Ebbing and flowing, swelling and subsiding, their amorphous songs never aim for a peak or a trough: they’re all about the journey, not the destination. Which is apt as all six group members live in different cities and initially constructed their music through file-sharing.

The recording of Big Hotel was the first time they had met up in person to play together, leading to further gatherings and live tours. Winged Wheel now have a third album, Desert So Green, that explores the limits of their sound, resulting in what is both their most experimental and most cohesive record to date.

Listening can feel like stumbling through a landscape both brutal and beautiful comprising raga drone and haunted violin screeches in a soundscape of woozy stoner rock. And they are ever evolving, as demonstrated on their recently released third album, Desert So Green.

Disappointingly, I discover that they played the final date of their European tour in Rouen, having neglected to play any gigs in the UK (thanks Brexit).