Honesty Flowers

Upupayāma — 2026

“Alessio Ferarri builds entire worlds out of percussion, groove, and hypnotic repetition on Honesty Flowers.”

Funk is the last thing you expect to anchor a psych record made alone in a barn, but that is exactly what Alessio Ferarri does on his fourth album as Upupayāma. Honesty Flowers spreads eleven tracks across about seventy three minutes, a double record that never sits still and moves through plenty of peaks and valleys while shifting through different angles of psych. Funk is an underlined driver here, but it gets pulled through krautrock motorik pulses, hazy fuzz, flute passages that occasionally drift toward prog territory, and quiet drone passages that will have you drifting off before pulling you back in. “Fliiim/Laliīmph” opens the record on a single bongo and within seconds the psych guitars and percussion lock into a groove that recalls GOAT with a ritualistic sound. What works best is how Ferarri takes you places he invents and then makes you believe in them, a Mongolian steppe, a hollowed tree trunk full of ritual, a caravan that refuses to stop. It is a generous record, occasionally maybe a little too generous with its lengthy runtime which can occasionally become a hurdle for a double album as several tracks may lose you a bit. With that said, there are some great moments on every song here no matter the length and they firmly place Upupayāma in the top modern tier of the genre. The playing itself carries enormous warmth, and the global rhythms give it a pulse that most home-recorded psych never finds.

“Mystic Chords of Memory” is the biggest statement here of funk filtered through something Ferarri describes as crazed and slightly furious Peruvians, all clattering percussion and woozy guitar that somehow stays danceable. “Baobab” feels like a rolling late night party where the congas push everything forward and the riffs pile up without ever feeling crowded. “Old Sky, Wandering Clouds” is just over 9 minutes but has some of the album’s best guitar workouts which I think really did a nice job changing up the pace. “In The Solstice Sun” is another 9 minute track that just buries you on the front end with its soft repetition before erupting into a foot tapping grooving party.

GOAT is the obvious choice, sharing that ritualistic approach to funk and the same trust in repetition to catch your attention. Fans of Kikagaku Moyo will recognize a similar wandering psych guitar and the willingness to let a jam breathe. There is also a thread running back to Can, especially on the moments where the rhythm section locks in and refuses to let go, and Ferarri himself points to that lineage. If you have spent time with Wax Machine or the really classic psych corners of King Gizzard’s catalog, the way this record balances groove against calm will feel like familiar territory.

Some records ask you to sit still and others ask you to move, and the rare ones do both before you notice the difference. Ferarri built a whole world out here by himself, and the door is wide open.