A singular phrase kept creeping its way into my head whilst listening to Mellowmaker, Black Market Karma’s latest album. A phrase that I feel embodies the ethos and feeling of the LP. That phrase was “beauty in it’s imperfections”. Mellowmaker is an album that is aware it can’t be perfect, but revels in its differences, its idiosyncrasies, and find’s something not necessarily beautiful, but wholly distinct.
To simplify BMK’s music down would be a disservice. Yes, they are mostly identified as being psychedelic rockers, but there are many nuances present that make that picture all the more grander and singular. Mellowmaker’s mastermind, Stanley Belton, sought to provide an array of influences onto the album, from old-school hip-hop breakbeats, washed-out vocals that float, and jangling guitars that dance and weave.
The opening title track serves all these influences on a golden platter. The track opens with this simple flute melody that permeates the rest of the track, the drums provide not just the driving force for the song, but a memorable beat that sticks with you, and guitar riffs in between the verses that fill the empty gaps confidently and assuredly.
Mellowmaker is an album that continues the success of last year’s “Wobble” but elevates it to greater heights. Keeping the general lo-fi psychedelic rock sound intact and adding little bits and bobs that keep the album feeling fresher and fuzzier. The album and its individual tracks all seem to be their own unique worlds, some sit and saunter, like the humble ‘flutterbug’, with it’s almost innocent sound. Some tracks create an enigmatic vibe. The two instrumental tracks of ‘Coasting in Aquatica’ and ‘Recalled By The Rays’, with the former’s focus on a smooth, warm sound that drifts with ease, whilst the latter feels like a meagre, quiet end to some mystical, medieval tale.
After the peace of Recalled By The Rays, the final 4 tracks are where the best of this mystifying psychedelic fusion come together. ‘Nautodelia’ is gorgeous, the strings rise and rise to the moon. If ever there was a track to ascend to another realm, I would like it to be this one. ‘Looper’ is carried by a guitar riff that’s twangy and jangly, with which it drives both the verses and instrumental breaks. And ‘Lagging Through The Soup of Yesterday’ is an instrumental culmination of the best pieces of Mellowmaker, the breakbeat drums, the sharp riffs, and the ascendant strings.
To close out, that instrumental culmination continues and reaches its peak on closer ‘Adoration’, the most rock heavy track here, the riffs are much more pointed and close, the washed out vocals have a different texture of otherworldly to them, and the last 3 minutes allow for the whole band to shine, as all these pieces culminate in a layered ending that can come across as disjointed, but keep up the imperfect ethos of the record.
Mellowmaker, like nearly every album out there, is not perfect, the tracks can admittedly find themselves to be a bit too straightforward and routine. But Mellowmaker is an album that embraces the flaws and doesn’t let itself get brought down. The best credit I can give to this album is that within the imperfections, it is 100%, authentically, a Black Market Karma record, and a particularly good one at that.
Black Market Karma: Mellowmaker – Out 6 June 2025 (Fuzz Club)
Market Karma – The Sound Of Repetition (Official Video)
