Psychedelic Artists

In the 1960s, folk and rock groups in the United States and United Kingdom began making psychedelic music, opening a broad field that included psychedelic folk, psychedelic rock, acid rock and psychedelic pop. It isn't one fixed musical form so much as an approach: songs often aim for an immersive, perception-shifting atmosphere rather than straightforward pop directness.

The sound can move from folk-rooted writing and amplified rock to pop melodies, longer instrumental passages and studio-based electronic work. That breadth separates psychedelia from psychedelic rock, which is specifically a rock-based branch, and from neo-psychedelia, a later revivalist strand. Its later descendants also reach beyond guitar music: progressive rock, krautrock, psychedelic funk and stoner rock each carried parts of the approach into different settings, while acid house, trance and new rave brought it into electronic music.

Modern psychedelic records may therefore sit close to indie rock, experimental music or indietronica without abandoning the genre's central interest in altered texture, expansive arrangement and sensory impact.