In tandem with the release of their new album ‘Raised Up By Witches’, Swedish stoner prog band Mammoth Volume have also shared a new digital single ‘Lisa’, which explores an even more interesting aspect of their varied sound.

Stepping further away from the band’s usual prog and stoner elements, ‘Lisa’ draws from a hugely jazzy canvas. A busy melody totters back and forth, and the way the organ peaks between a waltzing rhythm that’s overlaid by clean guitar, unexpectedly, draws more influence from older bands like Affinity than the usual 90s fare. Occasional glockenspiel takes everything further into a world of jazz prog, and very occasionally some of the jazz themed guitar work sounds as if it could slip into something Mike Oldfield-esque. A semi spoken vocal adds plenty of atmosphere to the lolloping rhythm. This is one of those numbers where you’ll hear traces of influences from all manner of artists, but Mammoth Volume eventually end up sounding like no-one else.

Of the new track, the band had plenty to say: “Truth be told, the music for ”Lisa” was written instrumentally. If memory serves, the working title was something like ”¾ swing” – descriptive but not very poetic or narrative. When it came time to record the song we obviously had to come up with some lyrics. About three-quarters of the lyrics was prepared, but we still had to fill out the rest as we were recording the vocals in the studio. That’s when we (spoiler warning!) thought to rhyme ”way” with ”gay”. We double-checked to make sure the lyrics couldn’t be conceived as homophobic, then we celebrated: an actually decent song lyric, with a twist at the end! Then (and only then) it occurred to us that there is a 60’s film called ”David and Lisa” that deals with some of the themes in the song: mental illness, tragic romance, and most notably a girl named LISA! Lucky for us that movie was in the public domain. In an inspired rush of creativity, a screenplay was written to match scenes in the movie with the lyrics of the song. BOOM! One of our better moments is born. They matched up pretty well if we may say so ourselves. Shit happens.”

Both ‘Lisa’ and its parent album ‘Raised Up By Witches’ are available via Galaxy Haze (vinyl edition) and Blues Funeral Records (digital) now. You can watch the new visualiser for ‘Lisa’ below.