Sydney’s Richard In Your Mind second album My Volcano is perfectly weird in almost every way possible. Abstract lyrics form peculiar song titles; strange instruments create unexpected sounds and there’s no two songs that sound the same.

Teaming up with producer, label-mate and fellow Sydneysider SPOD seems to have been a clever move from Richard In Your Mind. The result? Well it’s a bit like The Avalanches, Animal Collective, Beck, DJ Shadow, Beastie Boys and The Dandy Warhols having a party in your ears. And everyone’s invited.

However, listing all of Richard In Your Mind’s influences would be too lengthy, confusing and bizarre; and comparing them to others won’t do justice to the band’s individuality.

Album opener Tiny Collosus Face sounds a bit like The Dandy Warhols playing some sort of chilled out hip-hop, but it’s much more than that: the song is dashed with so many little qualities, it’s almost impossible to define. The same can be said for the album as a whole.

Candelabra contains several unusual samples, including a monkey scream and a bird call, in addition to the cow bell and trumpets that interject at haphazard times. The bizarre samples that run through My Volcano can be attributed to the fact that Cartwright spent almost a decade working at Vinnies collecting unwanted vinyl.

Losing Our Minds, I Will and, to a lesser extent, Lightning Eyes, are possibly the only songs that can be grouped, purely due to their guitar-based nature. Computerised beats and a generally more electronic sound powers Birds as the album turns back to hip hop. Similarly, This Face contains a hip-hop beat; however, the drums sound more natural, with the vocals being the freaked-out element of this song.

The mostly instrumental Mongrowlia is full of samples and wouldn’t be out of place in The Avalanches’ Since I Left You. The Sun Broke Into Your Heart plays between grandiose and simple before fading away to give Creation with very minimal vocals taking a back seat to the bass and drums that make the track. Like The Sun…, Creation slowly fades out but doesn’t rebuild into an introduction for the lo-fi Edge Off Dreaming.

Just when it seemed the album had done it all, Edge Off Dreaming ensures it’s impossible to give this album a definite, logical genre. The distorted vocals that open Flower Of The Heart give way to a very Akron/Family-esque guitar riff. The seven-minute epic will most likely provide the soundtrack to many a sweaty nightmare running through the desert, only finding huts with crazy gypsies in them. Chaotic tribal drumming fuels the frenetic feel of the song. Jamaica is not the most memorable album closer – but after forty-five minutes of psychoactive music, a peaceful rest is welcome.