I was apparently too busy last month to even come up with a monthly Hotlist, but here's one for two months:
Warp Transmission – The Process Ultra Sleep – Leagues Beneath 12" Black Helium – Primitive Fuck Kungens Män – Fuzz På Svenska Mythic Sunship – Another Shape of Psychedelic Music Superfjord – All Will Be Golden The Oscillation – Wasted Space Dead Otter – Bridge Of Weird The Skull – The Endless Road Turns Dark Fuchsia – S/T. Expanded 2LP reissue
I got the download of this strange album by obscure band from Oakland, California from Bruce Duff of Jesters of Destiny. Like it often happens, I first forgot to download it, and then just forgot it on my hard-drive (sorry Bruce, I still love you!). You might think that a band that Mr. Duff feels passionate about enough to promote to a small, unknown psych blog on the other side of the known universe might be pretty special, and you are right about that.
It's hard for me to describe or label the music that Grex makes. It is experimental and psychedelic, has elements of free jazz, noise pop and art rock and then some. The band is apparently just a duo of Karl Evangelista (gtr, voice, b, misc) and Rei Scampavia (keys, voice, misc) but on this lates offering they are aided by a skillful drummer Robert Lopez. There are also some other friends guesting on various instruments. They have six previous releases on their Bandcamp site, so they have been doing their weird music for some time now. They are also playing live gigs, I just noticed. Might be interesting! The melodic female/male vocals sort of make the music more accessible to "normal" human beings, but sometimes the sounds really seem to come from some other dimension of something. At times the going gets really freaky, wild and strange, but some of it is more like art rock or indie pop with just an odd twist. There are 13 tracks on Electric Ghost Parade most of which are rather short, but three of them are over the six-minute-marker. You can check four of the songs on the band's Bandcamp site and you can also find the album in Spotify. Check it out if you are into inventive, bold and out-of-the-norm stuff!
Now this is a weird one...It's been a while since I've received anything this experimental for review, and especially on LP. Lime Eyelid is a one-man kitchen band by Josh Schultz from San Francisco. Josh played everything (drums, e-bow, electric guitar, synth, tape, theremin) into a four-track tape recorder and mixed the whole thing all by himself giving him an relatively unlimited space to experiment and do what he felt like. The end result is rather psychedelic!
There are six tracks on the LP, most are just numbered, but the second track on side A is called "I Saw Waves". That's also the only one with real vocals the rest being more or less instrumentals. Having said that this is weird and experimental, I have to add that it's not unlistenable noise or anything like that but actually totally enjoyable and clearly music with some melody and also slow, hypnotic beat on some tracks. "I Saw Waves" and the following, long "3" actually have some Spacemen 3 vibe in them, but other than that, I'm not reminded of anything else directly. The home-grown, modest sound maybe makes this sound more experimental than it actually is. "4" is the longest piece and almost ambient drone with also some wordless chanting. "5" has a sort of creepy, dark vibe, great! If all this gets you excited good luck finding a copy of this private-press LP since it's limited to just 110 copies.
Things might have slowed down a little bit in the ØSC camp since the main organizer and synth player Dr. Space relocated to warmer (and higher) climate. Luckily, the band is still active playing some shows and releasing new albums (I count over 50 releases altogether at Discogs!) for their dedicated and relatively large fan base all over the world. This release is a double CD package of a gig they played in Berlin, Germany on the 2nd of June this year. At the moment, there are no plans to release a vinyl version, but I wouldn't be surprised if one would appear at some point.
The Collective is this time comprised of Jiri (bass), Tim (hand drum), Vemund (guitar), Dr. Space (synths), Mogens (synthesizers) and Jonathan (violin, guitar, theremin). The sound quality is crystal clear and the playing is great. The album starts of with the 30-minute "Improv To The Other Side" and like usually, the band really opens the gig with a peaceful, quiet introduction. Later on the slow jamming reminds me of The Grateful Dead and by the 20-minute-marker they are turning their space rock gear on and the track really starts to rock out into deep space. This is where the band is at their best, if you ask me, since the slowly building , tranquil stuff can get a bit sleepy at times. The 16-minute "Sneaky Snake Jam" takes some time to begin and now Jonathan switches into violin for to add some different vibes that even bring to mind Mahavishnu Orchestra a bit. It's still not all jazzy, don't be afraid! Cool Eastern sounding melodies by Mogens and a groovy rhythm section with the ever-wooshing, windy space sounds of Dr. Space. Things get heavier and more intense on their way, I like it a lot! "Henk's Jam-o-Rama" has a fast, groovy and jazzy beat at first and before ten minutes have gone it has turned into a powerful, mind-frying space/psych rock orgy! I'm reminded of the Ozrics along the way. There's some killer acid solo guitar work towards the end! On "Freaks of Berlin" the band tries to get funky on their audience and do a pretty good job at it. The track does turn into a very fast, wild space rock thing later on, which is great! One of my fave jams on the disc, after all. "Another Jam for Sabine" finishes off the album in an Eastern-tingled haze including hand-drum and mystical melodies. This is a really trippy ending for a great gig that really deserved to be properly released! I'm so glad to be able to see the band in Finland again in next month when they play three gigs in Turku, Helsinki and Tampere.
It's been four long years since I reviewed the debut album of then new Finnish psych sensation Superfjord. It Is Dark, But I Have This Jewel was an excellent release and found its way into the hearts of many serious psych rock lovers all over the world. Since then the band has been involved in a couple of split singles on the marvellous Fruits de Mer records, and the cover versions of Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" and Zappa's "Peaches En Regalia" were totally mind-blowing. They have not played that many gigs with several band members also being active in other projects etc., but I have been lucky enough to witness some great, almost spiritual live performances by them.
The band has lots of different infuences from various decades of psychedelic, experimental, jazzy, hypnotic and progressive pop & rock music. They have mixed all these different vibes, sounds and vibes into a fresh, interesting and inviting brew that sounds modern while bowing deep to the musical master-minds of the past. This exactly is their strenght, in addition to great compositions, clever arrangements and superb musicianship, of course! The use of percussion on several tracks brings to mind Santana (or Finnish groove gurus The Hypnomen), the delay guitar on the opener "Cut and Paste" was perhaps first introduced by Ash Ra Tempel's legendary Manuel Göttsching but later used by many fans of cosmic krautrock like Helsinki-based Siinai. In addition to the groove, vibe and texture the music also has some superb melodies. The vocals are mostly used more like a mantra somewhere in the background, they are difinitely not a lead instrument like guitar, synthesizer and saxophone. I really like the solos, by the way! There are also elements of modern electronic (trance) music that I sometimes dislike but Superfjord can handle that too with flying colours. Astralasia, Hidria Spacefolk and Kingston Wall's III came to mind in this respect.
The progressive flourishes remind me of Frank Zappa at times and the sax adds a pleasant, smokey and jazzy element. When the band really let go, they are on fire. Some of the little more relaxed parts will get any Pink Floyd fans to close their eyes and dream. There are no totally chilled-out, ambient tracks this time, though. "Parvati Valley" gives us also some Indian atmospheres without sitar, "Rainha da Floresta" takes us into a whole different trip inside a rainforest. This is absolutely one of the best and most inventive albums released in Finland this year, so be sure to check it out! The official release date is this Friday, September the 21st and the release party will be held at Kuudes Linja on October the 19th. See you there!
Astral Zone is honored to present you the world premier of a new video by Swedish psych/space/prog rock group FLOWERS MUST DIE - Ejefjallajökull
This is what the band has to say about the track and video:
“Ejefjallajökull”
a name hard to spell, pronounce and to remember but for many people the actual
Eyafjallajökull which is a volcano on Iceland is hard to forget. It erupted in
2010 and caused a lot of problem especially air travel all over the globe.
And it was
around this period we started playing this song, so even if it´s on our latest
album ‘Där Blommor Dör’ it was recorded many years ago. And a track we have
included in our live set many times.
But still
only a early version was included on a tape in 2012 and then later in a live
version on “The Greatest Hits (Live)” tape from 2014.
This
recording is probably between those releases and the structure was kept for
years, and then we decided to add some instruments as the original take was a
bit from our safe zone when Jonas played Xylophone, Rickard Saxophone and Lars
only on Djembe through the track. So Sven added more drums, flute, Martin and
Jonas some guitars. Rickard took care of themixing from home and added some Synth and Percussion and finally a
violin on top from Lisa to complete the track.
A fun note,
Lisa´s previous band was named after another Icelandic volcano - Katla and we
named this track several years before even meeting her.
The band will perform for the very first time in Finland on Helsinki Psych Fest in Gloria this weekend, get your tickets from:
Custard Flux is a new project by The Luck of Eden Hall psych/prog/pop guru Gregory Curvey. It's easier to let the man himself tell you how this happened: "This project was born out of a vision I had after acquiring a 100 year old Harmonium, and the ability to be able to set up in the park and play progressive psychedelic pop without any electricity. Newly located in Detroit, I've set out to find a group of like minded musicians, including a Double Bassist, Drummer, Keyboardist and Guitarist. It's taken some time, but the spark has been lit, and I'm pleased with the music. I hope you like it too." So the idea was to make psychedelic prog pop in an semi-acoustic way without electric instruments and the Harmonium definitely adds and extra baroque flavor to the music. This is still definitely not "classical music" in any way, although you can hear classical influences in some of the melody lines etc. The drum set and wonderful, rather complex compositions still make it sound more like modern stuff. There's also been some cheating so you can hear a few marvelous fuzz guitar solos in there... Just check the beautiful "Forevermore" for a taste of that.
All the 11 tracks on the main CD were written, performed and produced by Curvey himself. I love the way he can make rather complex melodies and rhythms seem and sound so natural, flowing and effortless. His soft vocals are perfect for the music and caress your soul. There's lots of excellent acoustic guitar work throughout the album. The magnificent, progressive instrumentals "The Shire of Gingin" and "La Mort" are great example of this. Curvey is also an able drummer and has visited several of the recent Sendelica albums as a second drummer, for example. Other instrumentation includes at least piano and double bass, I'm not sure what else, but the overall sound is very lush and well-balanced. The acoustic nature of the music makes some tracks sound more like folk, especially the ones without actual drums. The fans of The Luck of Eden Hall will for sure also enjoy this project since you can hear the similarity with Custard Flux. The music is maybe not THAT psychedelic but songs like "Out of Phase" will still make your head spin a little. As usual, it's almost impossible to name any highlights since I just love all of Curvey's tunes. Warmly recommended! If you want to go all the way, there's also a limited deluxe edition in a beautiful hinged wooden box including a bonus CD with five more tasty tracks as well as a card set and 16-page booklet. Hopefully a double LP version will follow!
