Electric Moon - Stardust Rituals

Sulatron Records (ST 1703-2)

With Stardust Rituals Germany's Electric Moon must have created their best ever release so far. The trio of Sula Bassana (guitars, e-sitar, mellotron, organ, e-piano, effects), Komet Lulu (bass, bass synth, vocals, space echo, effects & Marcus (drums) give us all you might expect from an Electric Moon album and more. It seems like a bit more planned/written album than before, although there's still room for the heavy and mind-blowing space jams as well. I also like the fact that Lulu is singing on most of the tracks.

The eight-minute "Loop" starts off in a beutiful way with organ and soft guitar. Soon the rhythm section joins in and then Lulu's very spacey and cool vocals (think of Brainticket or something) are added to a great effect. Wonderful! After some laid-back lead guitar work the track gets more intense and hypnotic and really starts to rock in space. Wow! One of their best tracks for sure, I hope they also play this live. "Stardust (The Picture)" is a heavy, repetitive and hypnotic track that also has nice vocals from Lulu, this time not so manipulated. Some cool jamming, psychedelic space sounds and mind-blowing guitar soloing on this one. We are all stardust. We're made of the Sun. We're all made of stars. That's why we're one. That's the message for you all! Ten minutes goes past fine with just one simple riff when you are trippy as hell. "Astral Hitch Hike" is the only shorter track on the album at 4:44. This is a peaceful, emotional and touching piece with nice electric sitar to give it an Eastern icing. Mellotron adds its own dimension and this truelly is a blissful journey. The albums longest track is the almost 23-minute "(You Will) Live Forever Now" the begins in a very laid-back, sleepy manner but slowly grows into a full-blown heavy space rock mind fuck. Some sitar and quiet vocals in this one as well. Here the band gets rather metaphysical and spiritual even... The ending just blows my mind... Excellent!

The first blue marbled edition of the LP version is already sold out but the second pressing is available as well as the CD version. I must also add that the cover art on both the vinyl and CD editions is phenomenal and suits perfectly the mystical, majestetic mood of the amazing music. Maybe my favourite album in 2017 so far! I'm really looking forward to see Electric Moon live again later this month, and the first time in Finland! Welcome space cadets, we love you. Finnish freaks, make sure you make it to Tampere on 14.7. or Oulu on the following day, you won't be dissappointed.

www.electricmoon.de