Lamp of the Universe / Kanoi - Split LP

Clostridium Records (CR029)

Germany's Clostridium Records keep on pushing great psychedelic sounds for the cosmically oriented masses. Well, quite small masses in fact since all their high quality releases are strictly limited editions. Lamp of the Universe has been one my favourite trippy, spacey and spiritual psych folk acts since the beginning and I'm always excited about Craig Williamson's new musical adventures. This guy from New Zealand has the ability to transport the listener into a mystical, metaphysical plane with his beautiful, hypnotic and mind-blowing music. Kanoi is a pretty new one-man-band from Austria whose progress into the heart of the psychedelia I've been following for some time now and I've got to say he has now definitely found the way.

This time LOTU offers us four a bit shorter (relatively speaking...) tracks, two of them being just little instrumental meditations. All four tracks were performed in a drug entranced search for the god YHWY and I feel the god was found or at least glimpses were seen. The two-minute "In the Beginning" starts the spiritual journey in a smooth, Eastern-tinged way. Slowly we are taken further with the mystical, dreamy and peaceful "The Cosmic Body Track". Amazing! After that the creator of the cosmos, "Father" is slowly introduced to us mere mortals. This track is a bit heavier with more fuzzy electric guitar and drums but still very dreamy and trippy and extremely cosmic. Human voice is only used as an instrument. Very cool! The short and meditative "Space Chant" that ends side A is pure magic.

The Kanoi side has two long tracks. "I'm Gone (I'm Gone)" starts with acoustic guitar, nice, groovy beat, heavenly keyboards and beutiful vocals with tons of reverb. Soon we also get some acidic lead guitar work and there's plenty of that to come. Kanoi has never sounded this good, I'm loving this! The track just gets more psychedelic with the next section that includes spacey synth sounds, backwards guitar etc... Wow! Towards the end the acoustic mood returns but in much more tranquil way and things get really dreamy and chilled out. "Mountains of the Sun" is a laid-back and very beautiful psych rock/pop track that I also love. Towards the end it starts to rock out some more with cool solo guitar work. Don't get too high while listening or you might not find your way back. Excellent work by Benjamin Kantschieder!

In summary, this is a totally mind-blowing split album by two superb mind explorers and I highly recommend trying to score the hand-numbered die-hard edition on green/yellow/white vinyl with insert and puzzle as it really looks and sounds amazing with the excellent artwork and sleeve design by Dale Simpson. Check out my photo below.

lampoftheuniverse.bandcamp.com

kanoi.bandcamp.com