About this Episode
Our CD tip this week takes us into a dense, hypnotic and beautifully unsettled world: The Dharma Chain and their new album Some Kind Of Pure State. The band originally comes from Australia and is now based in Berlin; this new record is their second full-length album, following Nowhere from 2022. Some Kind Of Pure State is set for release on June 5, 2026, via Spinda Records, in collaboration with several partner labels, and was recorded at Funkhaus Berlin with producer Jonathan Dreyfus.
Musically, The Dharma Chain move somewhere between neo-psychedelia, shoegaze, post-punk, krautrock and darker alternative rock. Their sound is built around reverb-heavy guitars, driving rhythms, industrial textures and a strong male-female vocal interplay. It is music that feels both physical and dreamlike: sometimes cold and mechanical, sometimes warm and almost spiritual, but always immersive. You do not simply listen to this album from the outside; it slowly surrounds you.
The title Some Kind Of Pure State already suggests a search for clarity, but this is not a clean or comfortable kind of clarity. The album is about the moment after chaos, when things begin to settle but nothing is fully resolved yet. Themes like love, addiction, political tension and the search for meaning in everyday life run through the record, not as slogans, but more as shadows, fragments and reflections.
Tracks like “Inside A New” and “Red Red Red Red Red” show the band at their most focused and intense. The songs feel tightly controlled, but never sterile. There is always a sense that something could break open at any moment: a guitar line, a vocal phrase, a rhythm, a layer of noise suddenly pushing the track into another space. The album’s tracklist also includes “Into The Night,” “Borderline,” “Love’s Confusion,” “Cross Over,” “Minor Prayer” and “How Far.”
What makes Some Kind Of Pure State so compelling is the balance between atmosphere and momentum. The Dharma Chain know how to create a wall of sound, but they also know how to let a song breathe. There is repetition, but it never feels static. There is heaviness, but also melody. There is a clear psychedelic element, but without drifting into pure nostalgia. Instead, the band sound modern, urban and slightly haunted — like psych rock filtered through late nights, concrete walls and emotional disorientation.
This is an album for listeners who enjoy bands like The Black Angels, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Spacemen 3 or My Bloody Valentine, but The Dharma Chain are not simply copying a tradition. They take familiar ingredients — fuzz, delay, repetition, shadowy vocals, motorik movement — and turn them into something that feels personal and alive.
Our CD tip of the week is The Dharma Chain – Some Kind Of Pure State: a dark, hypnotic and emotionally charged record between shoegaze, post-punk and neo-psychedelia. It is the sound of a band refining its identity, finding strength in tension, and turning confusion into atmosphere. A record that does not explain everything — but invites you to lose yourself in it.
The Dharma Chain: Red Red Red Red Red (5:01)
