One can argue about the relative influence of place on music without ever really proving anything beyond a kind of vague Romantic gesture towards landscape and upbringing. But the allure remains, and in the case of the San Francisco psyche scene, it's difficult not to argue for some geographical or environmental effect on sound and tone so deep does it seem to run. Even without the historical antecedents of the mighty Blue Cheer, The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane there's the modern scene nexus of Comets On Fire (or more precisely, Ethan Miller) who seem to be plugged into the fuzzed up emanations that cross the city's troposphere like aircraft contrails. There must be something to all this, right?Sleepy Sun are originally from Santa Cruz, an artist's enclave 70 miles south of San Francisco and home to the aforementioned Comets on Fire. The band have been house mates for several years and moved en masse to San Francisco two or so years ago, primarily to give this thing a proper go but also clearly obeying some inner impulse to hook into the sonic wellspring at the centre of the scene. There is a relationship to Comets on Fire in the overall sound but much more has been made of the similarities to Black Mountain - whilst they might draw on comparable influences, Black Mountain aint done nothing this loose, this groovy....The opening track, 'New Age' (oh yeah, you should see some of the press photos with the band lying on the grass/huddled in dark rooms cuddling lambs, calves) sets things up perfectly: the snubby bass and drums kick in and the bass-player goes on an almost Scott Reeder-esque run; deep, deep in the mix Rachel Williams is crooning to herself in tongues - the production is cavernous, and when the guitar finally arrives it comes as if from another universe. It's so rare to talk about space in production these days, as if we've completely lost all concept of the depth of music, of the sonic possibilities of space and light. All this is perfectly managed on Embrace. 'New Age' is both big and dumb, but intricately pieced together, and structured with an intelligent sense of form. The whole album is. At the midway point of the song, a lacerating solo takes over the centre of the sound and Williams 'whoops' from somewhere deep - cue wide, dumb grin.'Lord' follows 'New Age' - a piano led track that starts out like some early 70s ballad, something that wouldn't be out of place on Tapestry or the like. It's underpinned with a similar sense of depth and grace and is evidence that the band are great songwriters on top of everything else. The two standout tracks though, are the epic twin centrepieces of 'Sleepy Son' and 'White Dove' - equal parts massive psych-jams and outrock voyages that sound at times like some of Spacemen 3's more frazzled edges. Both tracks fizz with creative intensity and are based around two of the grooviest, heaviest bastard riffs I've heard in some time - and particularly on 'Sleepy Son' Williams reveals herself to have a gorgeous, adaptive voice, moving from Grace Slick croon to a high keening Beth Gibbons with ease. And 'White Dove' has a cowbell. It's dazzling stuff.What with this, the continuing presence of the Comets collective, the Sleep reformation for ATP and the Wooden Shjips record (another band who drawn to the psychic hub of SF) 2009 is proving to be something of a great year for psych rock. Maybe we should all get hairy and drag ourselves out West - West, where the white dove flies... 84%Sleepy Sun on MySpace