Shem - II

 Clostridium Records (CR 067)

Shem from Stuttgart is a new band making improvisational, instrumental psychedelic rock inspired by early krautrock, Hawkwind and modern bands like Kungens Män. As you might have guessed, II is their second album following the CD album No  Songs, Just Sound (2020). The guitars are pretty heavy compared to some other impro psych bands nowadays (like OSC, for example).

This limited edition LP (150 on black, 150 on coloured vinyl) has just three long tracks. It starts of with the heavy and massive "Descension" that rocks out in a freaky way. "Night" is slower and more tranquil at first but gets darker and heavier. The band also has a synth player but he mostly does sound effect like stuff which fits in fine. The two guitarists are more in the front, anyway. The over 19-minute "Fall" fills the whole side B. It has a bit faster, sort of motorik groove and all in all it's the more krautrock sounding, hypnotic piece. Great stuff! If you like improvised, heavy psych/space/krautrock I'd say you should locate a copy of this album for your collection for sure.

shemtrails.bandcamp.com

Sleeping Pandora - Ride the Horizon

 Clostridium Records (CR 064)

Ride the Horizon is the latest physical album (the first one on LP) by German solo artist Mathias Rosman. His dreamy, instrumental, rather electronic project Sleeping Pandora has now released already nine albums on Bandcamp, the latest being the brand-new Atmosphere. Clostridium's promo sheet mentions Pink Floyd and Ashra as comparisons and I must agree, although the music has a rather modern touch and sound quality, so no early 70's vibes except maybe on the marvelous guitar work with lots of delay and reverb.

The album has five long tracks. The opener is the 13:18 long, wonderful "Interplanetary Meditation". The title is rather revealing: just close you eyes and let the dreamy, spacey music take you away. "Vertical Drive" is a bit tighter and groovier tracks, very nice. Side B starts with the cool, airy and floating ambient piece "Holy Daze". It is the shortest track at just under five minutes and pretty simple. "Lightkeepers Routine" is pretty and hypnotic, one of my favourites. The album is finished with the faster, danceable "Ancient Subterranean Swimmingpool". Great! All in al, Ride the Horizon is another very pleasant Sleeping Pandora album and I recommend it warmly. The ultra limited colourerd vinyl seems to be sold out already but you might be able to score one of the 200 black copies. Both come with poster, sticker and download code and are hand-numbered.

www.facebook.com/sleepingpandora

 

Thought Bubble - Around

Dirty Filthy Records

Around by Thought Bubble (UK) fits in fine to the rather varied although eccentric style of Dirty Filthy Records. They play experimental, improvised electronic music in an interesting and unique way. This is their first album following a few digital only singles and one EP. Thought Bubble is a duo project of Chris Cordwell & Nick Raybould mixing together synths and live drums. Some of you might remember them from the band Glowpeople. Their recordings also feature guest musicians, this time Suzette (voice on "The Waves" and "Beatwave"), Pablo Raybould (voice on "Möbius Trip"), Shaun Bailey (guitar and loops on "Möbius Trip" and "Devoider") and Gregg McKella (clarinet on "Fluctuate") who give the music more colour in a nice way.

 

The rather short album includes six, almost instrumental tracks. The opener, "The Waves" has a strange, bit oriental vibe and lots of psychedelic sound effects. This track is also included on the latest Fruits de Mer freebie CD Music For Amphibians, very nice! "Beatwave" has a sort of motorik beat and futuristic, hypnotic atmosphere. Maybe my favourite! "Möbius Trip" has cool narration, great lead guitar work and a weird feel to it. Quite trippy! "Rat Race" is a shorter, faster experimental piece and like ther rest of the album, has a rather modern sound. Next is the longest track of the album called "Fluctuate" and it has a nice cinematic vibe due to the addition of clarinet and string sounds. I like it a lot. The last track "Devoider" is the slowest one and has a quite strange atmosphere getting closer to ambient music before speeding up towards the end. All in all, this is an interesting album and I got to say I have not heard anything quite like it before, although some of it brings to mind 80s King Crimson and some of the solo works of Brian Eno. Out on LP, CD and digital.

www.facebook.com/cloudduo

 

Scaling down even more

 Hello! You must have noticed that there have been very few reviews or any other postings lately. The main reason for that is that most of my rather limited free time goes to my own music project Astral Magic.

I have always preferred physical media over digital downloads (that have a habit of getting lost in my hard drive anyway). I have still reviewed some downloads from time to time. Due to lack of time I hereby declare that I won’t review any downloads anymore. Please take me off your mailing list. Only option might be the Astral Magic collaborators. Sorry about that. However, if you want to send your stuff in physical form please contact me and a review is guaranteed.

Best,

Dj Astro

Superjord - For the Moment Vol 1

 Fruits de Mer Records (strange fish twenty four)

 

For the Moment is planned as a continuous stream of mainly improvised live recordings by this great Finnish psych rock band. Vol 1 was recorded at their superb G Livelab gig in Helsinki in january 2020 (I was there!) and released in digital form in the Summer. As often with digital only releases I missed it completely even though I really like the band and have been following them since the very beginning. It's a really great thing that a proper vinyl release is upon us now! The band on that day were Sampo Fagerlund: drums, percussion, Mikko Kapanen: vocals, guitars, Juho Ojala: vocals, keyboards, synthesizers, Jussi Ristikaarto: vocals, guitars, electronics, percussion, Teemu Soininen: bass and Olavi Töyli: tenor saxophone, percussion. All excellent musicians, I might add!

 

The whole gig was not of course improvised, but the hyper sonic quality of G Livelab was perfect for the band to strech out into the unknown every now and then. Around 40 minutes of thet is captured on this great sounding release. The side A starts off peacefully with "Moment 1". It has a bit jazzy vibe at first and grows intoo more psychy territories. Great jamming, something for The Grateful Dead fans for sure.  Later on there is also some moody sax. "Moment 2" has a positive, sunny vibe thagt I really like. Some weirder, Zappa-like stuff happens in the middle and the soft ending also includes some vocals. Very nice! "Rainbow" of course is an actual song from the band's second album, but the version heard here has more improvisation than usual I think. Superb and very groovy playing by all here! It turns into magical "Moment 3" at some point when minutes have already lost all their meaning. I really enjoy listening to this record since it immediately takes me back to the live experience this amazing band can offer. Oh how I miss live gigs! Anyway, get your copy before they're all gone, definitely worth it.

 www.superfjord.net

Astral Magic - A Trip to Alpha Centauri on pre-order today for Bandcamp Friday!

 

Okay folks, it's once again the first Friday of the month and Bandcamp Friday! It means that BC does not take their share of the artists' sales for 24 h. As it happens, I have a new album to put on pre-sale today!

A Trip to Alpha Centauri is the instrumental album that was supposed to be released on Misophonia Records on tape this month. The label was sadly decided to be put on hold for now and the release got cancelled. I decided to do a limited, home-grown CD-R edition instead, just 40 copies. Make sure to pre-order now if you want one!

Also of course available on digital download. Official release date is September the 17th.

 

Kev Ellis and the Space Cadets - The Silent Band

 Self-released / The Electric Salac Co.

Kev is a singer, harmonica player and psych/space rock veteran from Portsmouth, UK. Some of you might remember him from the great psych/space/blues rock band Dr. Brown who were active from late 80s to early 00s. They also did an album together with Nick Salomon (The Bevis Frond) as Dr. Frond. Kev has been active on the UK psych/space festival scene ever since with various bands. He's also part of the Spirits Burning collective and we did the title track of their Alien Injection album together. I have previously reviewed his 2014 solo album Space Cadet as well as the excellent Dubbal album The Return of the Lonesome Traveller last year. The Silent Band was recorded, mixed and mastered by Kev himself last year during the lockdown, since there was no way of playing live gigs with a band.

All the instruments are played by Kevin who of course also does the vocals. The only exception is the long (18:51), hypnotic opener Tortoise, where Steve Plummer plays lots of vary tasty and cool wah guitar. The rest of the nine tracks are a lot shorter, ranging from 1:27 to 6:31 in length. The music is a cool mix of electronica, dub and space rock and I enjoy the album a lot.  Kev has a great, soulful voice that is a pleasure to listen to. His harmonica gives some of the tracks a more bluesy vibe too. There are also some more relaxed moments ("Far Sawney Part 1 & 2") and a beautiful space ballad "To the Stars" in the middle. My favourite probably is the mysterious "Messages in the Sky", but I do like all the tracks. All in all, this is very cool album that sounds great for a self-made home production. The album is also available as a limited edition CD you can onlyi get through Kev's Bandcamp site. I'm also thrilled to announce that Kev and Dr. Brown guitarist Stefan Olesinski will be taking part in my Astral Magic project contributing vocals and guitar for the electronic space rock album The Third Eye! Can't wait...

www.facebook.com/kevellismusic