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Celebrate Psi Phenomenon

Biography

Celebrate Psi Phenomenon is a drone, noise and experimental music-focused label from Upper Hutt’s Campbell Kneale, the prolific performer behind Birchville Cat Motel, Black Boned Angel and Our Love Will Destroy the World. The label often utilises a distinctive wallpaper aesthetic to their cover designs.

The label has been a prominent force in New Zealand underground music since the mid 1990’s, along the same line as Root Don Lonie for Cash, A Stabbies and the Rocket Recording and PseudoArcana.

Celebrate Psi Phenomenon was set up to release primarily my own stuff, Birchville or otherwise. At the time I was still finding it hard to believe that Insample was going to release BCM on CD and I thought that the likelihood of anybody wanting to formally release any of the other things I was doing was bordering on pure fantasy. I was hanging around folks like Clayton Noone (from Armpit), Stefan Neville (from Pumice), and Glen Frenzy and they all had their own little cassette labels. I was very much inspired by them and decided to put together a catalogue of my recordings too. Cassettes on a dub-to-order basis and lathe cuts in editions of 20 became the order of the day.

Campbell Kneale – Interview by Matt Silcock (Perfect Sound Forever)

Celebrate Psi Phenomenon releases have no set agenda, though Kneale has always been a ‘Challenging’ musician, attempting to push the boundaries at any given opportunity – this includes moving in free improvisation (Greg Malcolm), Doom Metal (Black Boned Angel) and even folky directions (Nether Dawn). This experimental edge has led the label to put out releases by some particularly high profile underground acts – from Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo to the Pioneer of drone himself – the late-great Tony Conrad.

Psi-Solation – A global compilation of music made in lockdown

In 2004 Kneale formed the orientated off-shoot label Battlecruiser and then limited edition CDr labels Lower Plain and Higher Plain around 2007. In 2020 Kneale compiled the massive 119 artist/recording ‘Psi-Solation’ online-only release – ‘A global compilation of music made during lockdown’, this was repeated a year later with the 59 song sequel ‘Psi-Solation +1’.

Psi-Solation +1 (one year on)

Artist Roster

Compilation Discography

  • Shutupalreadydamn!: A Tribute to Prince double CDr (2002)
  • Supernaut: The Black Sabbath tribute cassette
  • Psi-Solation – A Global Compilation Of Music Made In Lockdown (2020)
  • Psi-​Solation +1 (One Year On) – A Global Compilation Of Music Made Exactly One Year After Covid-19 Lockdowns (2021)

Contact Details

  • Campbell Kneale
  • 4 Whakataki Grove
  • Waiwhetu
  • Lower Hutt
  • New Zealand [postal address]

Links

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