By Dustin Lothspeich

If you didn’t know, psych is back.

While San Diego is no Haight Ashbury just yet, we’ve got quite the hotbed of psych rock/pop on our hands, with its own lifestyle renaissance to boot. To some, the psychedelic music movement may be nothing new — after all, it sprouted up from the anti-establishment counterculture and mainstream introduction of hallucinogenic drugs in the ’60s. Originally intended to accompany or emulate the feeling of being on mind-altering substances, psychedelia hit the masses back then with The Beatles, The Byrds, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream, Pink Floyd, The Grateful Dead and The Doors.

But it truly reached its peak between ’66 and ’69 when lesser-known groups like The Soft Machine, Love, and The 13th Floor Elevators started releasing acid rock masterpieces to a rabid cult following. It wasn’t until the last decade or so though, that a younger generation picked up those old records, dusted them off, and emerged with a fresh new twist on those vintage vibes. The Growlers, Ty Segall and Tame Impala are currently some of the biggest artists in indie music today, all taking a cue from those older albums and updating their output with a modern touch.

Wild Wild Wets are no different. The San Diego six-piece (made up of Mike Turi on vocals/synths, guitarist Taejon Romanik, drummer Marco Piro, live visual artist John Kelley, artist Andrew McGranahan, and current one-named fill-in bassist Yegor) started up in 2012 and became known for their outlandishly trippy live shows. Three years later, they’re now set to unleash their inner wild child on Jan. 16 at The Casbah with their very own masterpiece, the appropriately titled “14th Floor.” Turi admitted that it’s been a long, arduous process.

“[‘14th Floor’] has been finished for a while now. We, being a DIY operation, tried our best to find a label to help press it, but we had no concrete luck on some of the labels following through on vinyl. So now, it’s just that time when we had to say ‘fuck it’ and go our own way with this release,” Turi said. “The saving grace is that in this time since the record was finished, we have lost a few original members and right now, with the forces aligned, it’s nice to be putting out all of this out now in a time where our writing/recording is getting way better. We definitely knew what our sound was intended to be, but recently, it’s what we’re nailing.”

The eight-track album is a throbbing, mesmerizing journey; a hazy, winding road through deep reverb canyons, washed out vocal riverbeds, hypnotic groove quakes, and pulsing waves of guitars and organs. Songs like “UK Drugs” and “Black Bridge” surge on head-bobbing beats and grinding guitar grit, “Floating” stomps along in a druggy daze, and the title track offers up a deliriously melodic take on it all. The whole thing’s a woozy affair — an oozing, sticky slab of acidic propulsion.

According to Turi, there’s a lot going on.

“We don’t try to reinvent psychedelic music,” he said. “Our brand is just a product of our influences. There is an element of modern relevance that comes from a ton of influences that pairs really nicely with the sounds of old we are akin to. Like, there is a nice ’60s-influenced sound to our tracks tonally and what not, but there’s also a post-punk/grungy/surf kind of vibe in there sometimes, or a chill dubby bass line that pulls things into our corner.”

The recordings are also the clearest you’ll ever hear the group. While they’re fantastic in a live setting, you’ll be hard pressed to single out more than a handful of words at a show — the rest nearly guaranteed to be obscured by copious amounts of distortion, reverb and echo while the band’s expansive sonic wizardry swirls around them. Turi explains that while it’s all part of the plan, it’s also more fun than he’s ever had.

“[Wild Wild Wets] has been my most sincere and fruitful attempt at gaining a voice for myself, and with all of my [effect] pedals, I just have the control and permission to do what I want,” Turi said. “Twisting knobs, making my voice sound crazy whilst singing and dancing is my thing. We all love performing and the music we are creating. I guess I hate the crazy idea that some music folk have that we should be cooler by looking like we aren’t having fun. Not only are we having fun, but we truly love doing it and I think that the crowd responds correctly from that. We open the doors for people to let loose and that’s our vibe.”

Aside from fronting Wild Wild Wets, running a solo project named Emerald Rats, and spinning wax as DJ Mikey, Turi is also the primary organizer of the San Diego Freak Out — a dedicated psych rock festival he throws whenever the planets align. Jan. 16 will mark its fifth incarnation since 2013.

“[The San Diego Freak Out] was my little creature stirring in my head for a while, and when I discussed it with the band and some friends, I could tell I was heading in a good direction with it,” Turi explained. “It is our attempt to make our shows more of an ‘experience’ as well as having us curate the bands we want the people to know about … It has been building a small community together so far and I think that is great.

“Our little city here needs a bit more community, not just bands that do well and then say ‘adios.’ Hopefully, this will grow into an all day, all ages, all weekend, all fun festival — but for now, we are setting up the building blocks and getting the word out.”

The lineup for this particular Freak Out will be a litany of like-minded friends, peers and comrades: Burning Palms (from Tucson, Arizona), Max Pain and the Groovies (from Salt Lake City, Utah) and Slow White (Los Angeles) along with locals Swift Beats, Moonshine, and Sixties Guns. It’ll be a cornucopia of everything you’ll need to let your freak flag fly: tons of music, tripped-out visual art, DJs, positive vibes, friendly faces and “sometimes a grip of pizza.”

With the upcoming release of “14th Floor,” you’d think the band would be planning on spending the next year or two supporting it. But Turi says they’ve already got more on the way.

“Our next record should be finished recording soon … The next one tackles a few more elements of music that our listeners haven’t heard from us yet. We are very excited to debut a few of them at the Freak Out.”

Which is excellent news for their fans. Psych is back in a big way, folks — and if Wild Wild Wets have anything to say about it, it’s here to stay.

—Dustin Lothspeich is a music writer in San Diego. Contact him at [email protected].