Sun Dial, one of the most important and influential post-psychedelia bands from the U.K., has been among my favourites since the early 90s. Their debut album Other Way Out released in 1990 is a real corner stone in the history of psychedelic rock combining 60s psych with 90s style and the band have continued to pour out mind-blowing stuff ever since. New albums have been a few years apart during the new Millennia, but you can always count on Sun Dial to deliver the goods. Mind Control released in 2012 was a true masterpiece of hypnotic space/kraut/psych rock and on the latest album Made in the Machine (2016) the band had developed a more electronic but just as great and hallucinogenic brew of psychedelic sounds and beats. On Science Fiction the band have put together their Sci-fi / space oriented soundtrack music from the last 20 years and the end result is amazing. I knew that Gary Ramon & co. had done some film and television soundtrack work but I had never heard any of it, at least not knowingly. Here we finally have 12 previously unreleased tracks of atmospheric, instrumental and rather electronic but still rock oriented music of that stuff!
"Hangar 13" operates as a launch-pad to the space journey. A slow, droney, repetitive and spacey haze fills your mind. I love those Mellotron sounds. "White Stone" is a bit groovier piece and "Mind Machine" is a rather electronic juggernaut. "Saturn Return" has some early 70s krautrock as well as space disco vibes, cool. On "Space Travel" the journey into stars continues in a very nice way. "Alien X" is a beautiful space ballad and "Rise of the Robots" is a pure electronic piece. "Airlock" is closer to traditional psychedelia with sitar and percussion but still very spacey as well. "Aftershock" is another killer electronic rock number that also has some Air vibe I think. "Ghost Ship" is a bit darker and brings to mind Depeche Mode in a way. "Infra Red" is a groovy, funky and spaced-out piece and the album is finished with the more ambient, magnificent and gorgeous "Starwatchers" that could almost be a Hawkwind out-take from Church of Hawkwind. Amazing! The LP version is limited to 750 copies and the CD limited to 500 also has the long version (15:29) of "Hangar 13" as a bonus track. All Sun Dial fans naturally NEED this album and everyone into spacey, psychedelic soundtrack music should also try it out. Marvellous!
Okay, this must be THE festival for all psych lovers in Finland this summer! Uleåborg Festival Of Psychedelia will be organized for the fourth time in Oulu, Finland, on July the 13th and 14th. The festival has now published the timetables and there really are some amazing bands on the bill!
Okay, the weather has been REALLY hot in Helsinki this month and so has the music.
Mythic Sunship – Upheaval Nicklas Sørensen – Solo 2 Vive La Void – S/T Us and Them – On Shipless Ocean Minami Deutsch – With Dim Light Bong – Thought and Existence Øresund Space Collective – Chatoyant Breath Dr. Space's Alien Planet Trip – Vol. 2 - Gloomy Horizon Our Solar System – Origins Verstärker – Aktivität
Sirkus is a bluesy indie rock band with hints of psychedelia from Germany. The Noise of Time is their second album following the debut album Dream Factory released in 2015 by the band themselves. This new, 40-minute album was released by Nasoni Records on vinyl and CD and includes 10 rather short songs. The band is formed by six musicians and there are also five guest musicians so the sound spectrum is rather full and varied but still guitar dominated.
"Goldmine of Truth" starts off the party with cool, gypsy music styled rhythms including percussion and rather heavy guitars. You can also hear some spacey effects in the background. The mellow and soulful "Leaving Ten Times" is one of my favourites. Pretty and melancholic stuff. "All Your Teachers" has a nice, summerly vibe. The singer has a rather unique, bit raspy sound. "Hotel Room" has an interesting, hypnotic thing going and "Cigarettes" is a slow, easy and bluesy piece. "Road Song" has some female voice and some cool lead guitar work. Another great, rather slow song. On "Last Year" there's more partying again, a bit Santana vibe I think. "Sea" sounds a bit like The Doors, not bad at all. The flute break is a nice bonus! "Mama" is again slow bluesy stuff. The longest track on the album is "Life Is Visiting" at 5:36. It begins with some minimal, experimental spacey sound effects and then the tranquil beat gets going. Sometime after the two-minute-marker the song grows and then we get some psychedelic lead guitar, cool! This might not be exactly my cup of (mushroom) tea, but I still enjoy it and if you like slightly psychedelic, bluesy alternative/indie rock you should try this out.
Verstärker is a motorik, instrumental neo-kraut/space rock trio from Kentucky, U.S.A. They use guitars, bass, amplifiers, synths, effects and drums to create a hypnotic, cosmic soundscape mostly inspired by early 70s German music. There are also hints of post-punk, no-wave and drone for a good measure. This debut album was originally released on tape and digital form on their own SpaceLab Records in 2015 and has now seen a limited vinyl treatment on Tonzonen Records.
The over 11-minute "Mit Glück" starts off the A-side with rather hectic motorik beat, heavy guitars and spacey sound effects. This sounds like a harsher, noisier and faster version of Neu!, I'm loving it! "Abstrakt/Konkret" has a bit more laid-back sonic quality but the steady kraut beat is still going on. Things do get noisier and wilder along the ten-minute ride, though... On side B there are three more abstract pieces. "Übertragung" is an experimental, ambient and synth-oriented drone number. "Etwas Anders" has a more electronic, mesmerizing vibe and a slow beat. This is the shortest track at 5:06. The album is finished with the long title track that has a post-punk styled bass line and drum beat with noisy, very abstract sounding manipulated guitar stuff. This is perhaps closer to Joy Division of something but still psychedelic and spacey and I like it. All in all, a very enjoyable album of experimental space/krautrock and post-punk, check it out! The LP is released on clear vinyl and limited to 500 copies. www.facebook.com/Verstarker
Melody Fields is a new Swedish psych rock band who released this debut album of theirs earlier this year. The magnificent, mystical opener "Morning Sun" was already released digitally last Autumn and I was immediately in love. This Gothenburg-based group was formed by Thomas Widholm, Ramo Spatalovic and DavidHenriksson in 2015. Nowadays they have five members. You can hear some Oriental vibes in their wonderful, harmonic, sort of 60s and 90s styled, guitar-dominated music.
After "Morning Sun" we get the sunny and airy "Liberty", another amazing, melodic piece. I really enjoy the full guitar sounds and harmony vocals of Melody Fields. "Run" is a bit heavier and brings to mind The Black Angels, Golden Void and Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound a bit, but there's an obvious The Byrds vibe there as well. "Rain Man" is a very nice, jangly psych pop piece with echoes of The Soundtrack of Our Lives in addition to the previously named bands. Cool! "Fire" is a dreamy pop psych piece that could be a Verve out-take from the 90s. Great guitar lines, once again. The organ is also great. The longest track on the album is the 10-minute tranquil and soulful "Trädgränsen" that ends the limited vinyl version in a great way. Later on it has some loud & wild guitar solo freak-outs. The CD (on Sound Effect Records) and digital version also has "Morning Sun Revisited" that's a sort of acoustic, even more mystical and Oriental version of the opener. Amazing! This album will be a perfect soundtrack to your Summer dreaming and fun, so go and get it!
It's been a while since I have been at bigger festivals abroad (DJ:ing at Roadburn 2014, to be exact), and even now this happened almost accidentally. Just one month before the festival I received a last-call email from Desertfest Berlin saying that they were closing their press accreditations soon. I filled in the form without thinking much, and was soon accredited. Okay, flights, hotel, some money and I was ready to go! I even had quite a lot of friends going, excellent. I had only heard good things about this festival before. This year the festival had moved to a new place: Arena on the other side of the river than the previous area. Arena is a huge, old buss terminal that can hold up to 9 500 people. All the bands were playing on two stages that were placed side by side. This meant that you could see all the bands without any overlaps. It also had a few disadvantages but I'll get back to that later.
This festival certainly focuses on heavy stoner/desert/fuzz/occult/hard rock & doom metal bands but there were also a few more psych or space rock bands on the lineup. Monster Magnet is an old fave of mine and since they were not going to play in Finland on this tour I was excited to see them. The band I was mostly looking forward to see was Swedish psychedelic space rock band Yuri Gagarin since I've really been enjoying their studio output and had not seen them live before. Most of the bands were at least somehow familiar to me but there were also some that I had never even heard of before.
It felt like Summer in Berlin for the whole four days I spent there. On Friday I met some friends at a park before the festival to get in the mood and this was to be the norm for the whole festival. The bands started rather early, so I sadly missed a few first ones every day. What I really feel sad about is missing Swedish female psych rock band MaidaVale on Saturday, since I really wanted to see them after just checking them out before the festival. Ordering a hamburger in town just before and not remembering the right starting time were my mistakes and I only made it there when they had just finished... Oh well, hopefully some other time.
I was most active on Friday arriving to see half of the second band Pretty Lightning. They were good and a bit different from the main emphasis of the festival (see my video below):
I of course really enjoyed all the rest of the bands and it was first time to see Nebula and Death Alley. Because of the huge size of the venue the sound got a bit muddy and echoed when you were at the back but getting closer to the bands helped a lot. Monolord were great as always, Monster Magnet played quite a lot of songs from the new album that I have not really got into so much yet but Dave was on fire anyway. I even had some stamina left to check out the cool dj who played until 3 in the morning. What a great night! I must also say that liked the outdoor area with bars, food-stalls, dj's, karaoke etc. Getting and paying with the "desert dollars" was pain in the ass for everybody, though.
After sadly missing MaidaVale on Saturday I watched most of the Horizon show before heading back to the sunny river bank outdoor area. Cool 70s styled hard rock band! King Buffalo was a very nice new find for me and I highly enjoyed Elder, Lucifer and Graveyard as well. Luckily I was still awake when Yuri Gagagarin played the last slot of Saturday after midnight. I was totally mind-blown and couldn't even shoot video anymore... We definitely need to get these guys to play in Finland!
On Sunday I was pretty wasted and tired although I still had a lot of fun... No videos were shot that day, but the highlights were Church of the Cosmic Skull (again, a rather different act than the rest), Jex Thoth, Eyehategod, Radio Moscow and the very energetic High on Fire.
All in all, Desertfest Berlin 2018 was an excellent festival and superb experience and I'm sure I will return!
Here's a few pics from the festival area that also of course featured merch stalls (cool posters, t-shirts, World of Sound & Burning World Records distros etc.) as well as a tattoo studio.
There was very little time for sightseeing this time but we did go to a few record stores and flee markets etc. The best second hand record store we popped in was Waxart on Gärtnerstr. 23. They had optic art walls and even a small bar in there! See the pics below.
Next a few pics taken at the parks & restaurants...
Just before going to the airport and back to Finland our Desertfest Berlin pioneers showed us around the old festival area where the first six or so editions took place. The next pics are from there, looking pretty groovy...
Thank you Berlin, Desertfest & the best of friends, I love you all!
Okay, a bit late but I've been busy & on a trip so:
Monster Magnet – Mindfucker Hawkwind – At The Roundhouse Hawkwind – Dark Matter Steve Hillage – Düsseldorf Sendelica – My House Is Made Of Angel Hair Star Sponge Vision – Crowley and Me Moonweevil – Verticle Tide White Hills / Gnod – Aquarian Downer Zone Six – Live Spring Electric Moon – Live at Epplehaus
Germany's number one psychedelic acid rock band keeps on pushing groovy, cosmic and mind-blowing sounds to the people. My brain has not even back to normal after Mushroom Mantras released last November. Now it's time to get TOTALLY spaced-out and even the catchy choruses and pop elements the band is famous for are lost in the trippy sea of sonic mayhem.
This album sort of continues from the earliest Vibravoid recordings with "Vibrations From The Cosmic Void Part II". It's a great, short psych tune to get you tuned on the Vibravoid frequencies. Another shorter (well, five minutes or so) and up-beat track "The Modular System" follows and keeps a hypnotic, krautrock styled tension on for its whole duration. This instrumental turns into "Melodies Of The Stars" that also has a steady, groovy beat going on with tons of hallucinatory effects and monotonic vocals, this time in German which sounds very cool. Achim Reichel fans take notice! In the middle the beat fades out for a weird side-trip into the cosmos but it makes a return after a while. The end is chill-out stuff. On side B the band goes into a long, strange and relaxed trip with 20-minute dream sequence "The Cosmic Playground". This is very experimental stuff with sitar and Mellotron sounds and Lord Shiva only knows what else. As you might guess, the short ending tune "Frequencies Of The Cosmos" isn't one inch more "normal"... Wow, another killer album by one of my best-loved bands for sure! The CD version of Vibrations from the Cosmic Void has two bonus tracks: "Mirrorspace"
(19:56) and "Milchstrasse 14, Cologne" (6:50) that stay in the
experimental, instrumental ambient/spaced-out-of-your-mind state. If you were wise enough to buy the limited pre-order LP version you'll also get a bonus LP from Vibravoid's Rheinkraut Festival. This is only half of the gig that will be released as a 2CD later this year.
