Yikes! This new project debuts with a searing 38-minute, single-track attack. Billed on their website as "New Kraut Occult", the sound here is more of a heavy-handed psychedelic doom rock vibe, with repetitive Krautrock elements. The track, titled "Yggdrasil" (after the Norse tree that joins Earth, Heaven, and Hell), is a scalding guitar-and-drums based mantra that will simultaneously appeal to fans of drone-rock like Spacemen 3 or doom-metallers alike.
There's not a lot more to say about this, but the track opens up a bit halfway in, allowing some breathing room before it launches into a seething, fiery finale of raved-up astral entropy. Brilliant, transformational, and physically potent work here.
This unauthorized bio covers the Dead's earlier days, as well as presenting a well-researched look at the whole mid-to-late sixties psychedelic scene coming out of San Francisco. As with other Sexy Intellectual releases, a number of critics, musicians, and historians are interviewed, and a plethora of classic footage is highlighted.
Not being a fan of the Grateful Dead, I remained engrossed in this well-done documentary, so anyone interested in the whole counterculture scene and music of the 60s shouldn't be disappointed. Deadheads will certainly revel in this look at the formative days of the world's foremost peacenik "jam" band. Well-done and enjoyable! (Sexy Intellectual/Chrome Dreams)
What this Appalachian (Carolina/Tennessee) psychedelic/metal act does so well, can't be easily pinpointed. They write strong, epic, bewildering rock songs with a bluesy side, but their massive, dense sound aligns them closer to post-rock psychedelia. They are as comfortable writing acoustic mountain folk as they are performing deep, crunchy space-out jams. And that is damned cool. The 13-minute "In The Night" opens with an impressive Hawkwind-meets-SWANS astral dirge. It's a powerful introduction, and a perfect harbinger of what is to come on this 76-minute album that dares to send plumes of smoky drones and lysergic effects into the stratosphere. "Wolf On Anareta" is a feral, tranced-out beast, whereas "Ephraim In The Stars" is a memorable and melodic piece with strings. "The Leonids" is a haunting strings & guitar interlude, and the band amp it up for "Deep Green", which swarms with their powerful noise/drone psychedelia that's both imposing and alluring. "Devil's Flower In Mother Winter" is a woozy folk number with Megham Mulhearn's prominent violin. I could go on an on regarding this album, but suffice to say it's one of my favorites of this year. (Neurot Recordings)
Like a modern-day Hawkwind, Mondo Drag fall from the cosmos with the spaced-out 60's psychedelia of the title track. It's the sound of UFO's visiting an outdoor rock concert with an audience of stoned bikers and damaged post-Pink Floyd space travelers. That is to say, it's great! Moving on from there, "Love Me (Like A Stranger)" dares to meld Black Sabbath with early Syd-era Floyd, to wondrously lysergic sludge-rock effect. "Come Through" is on a similar flight path as the Brian Jonestown Massacre, with it's laid-back blissed-out vibe. "Serpent Shake" revs it up with a driving riff mantra. These are the true children of the bong, and "New Rituals" is a powerhouse stoner-rock album that reaches back to the past and brings it back to the future, bleary-eyed and on a whole different kinda trip. (Alive Natural Sound)
Having heard a number of avante-metal band Neurosis' releases and side projects, I thought I'd had these guys pegged. Then I get this new release from (Neurosis frontman) Steve Von Till, and my preconceptions are blown. And in a wickedly good way. It turns out that this is Von Till's second release as Harvestman, and "In A Dark Tongue" is a trippy, oozing miasma of dark, psychedelic space rock with a healthy dose of krautrock dipped onto the blotter. But before you think I'm describing some kind of retro prog-rock silliness, let it be known that Harvestman's wide-open psilocybin-scapes are positively mind-altering on their own. The lengthy drones and overloaded effects on the 13-minute "By Wind And Sun" become a mantra of epic proportions, enveloping listeners in gauzy noise and guitars like a lava lamp set to "destroy". "Music Of The Dark Torrent" is a stark, layered guitar piece that encircles itself peacefully until a series of disorienting digital tones take over the mix. Weird and otherworldly. "The Hawk Of Achill" brings in Al Cisneros of Sleep/Om fame for a trance-inducing percussive assault that reminds of Amon Duul II-meets-Neu!-gone-evil. Amazing. The journey ends with the ambient electronics of "Centre Of The World", tempering the fires that burned so intensely on this wondrous and truly hallucinogenic rock album. (Neurot Recordings)
Psychedelic music is frequently seen as silly, hippie peacenik stuff. Not so with Portland's Subarachnoid Space. They dispense with that notion with reckless abandon on this, the group's 8th full-lengther. Now, I hadn't heard any of this group's music for probably nearly a decade, so I was surprised to see them still around. "Eight Bells" brings a more song-oriented direction, and also finds them with an even heavier approach than I remember. Leader Melynda Jackson and cohorts lash a ferocious, fuzzed-out, instrumental guitar rock attack with dark, aggressive, and screeching psychedelic effects and an appropriately strong rhythm section -- Jefferson Airplane this ain't, kiddies. "Lilith" opens with an oppressive and scalding series of riffs and rhythms. "Akathesia" dives in for more overloaded and dense guitars with lysergic effects, while "Hunter Seeker" is an ultra-heavy set of doomy, drone-metal riffage and thunderous drums -- a truly heavy psyche track that smokes more than a little reefer, man. Subarachnoid Space's mind-melting, brain-scarring jams are enough to please even the sturdiest metalheads, and spacy enough for fringe travelers anywhere. Unequivocally a wild (and worthy) trip. (Crucial Blast)
Initially seen as a psychedelic 'freak folk' kinda act, and gaining numerous accolades through their previous alliance with M. Gira's esteemed Young God Records, Akron/Family return with a deep, warm, and altogether joyous celebration of sound, vision, and worldliness on the multi-leveled, diverse, and truly wonderful 'Set 'Em Wild'. The guys of AF are, without a doubt, immense fans and consumers of music in all of it's shapes and permutations. Just give a listen to the funky 'Everyone Is Guilty', which goes from James Brown to Hendrix and back, while adding a laid-back summery vibe near the end. It may sound schizophrenic, but somehow it works. Witness the island charms of the accessible 'River', which recalls a lazy, sunny porch scene down South, by way of Jamaica. 'Creatures' brings a dub rhythm to the table, though it's still in essence a classic rock track that screams of long hair and sandals. 'Gravelly Mountains Of The Moon' embraces both gospel and free jazz, while 'MBF' shows their affinity for screeching noise. 'Sun Will Shine (Warmth Of The Sun)' is a throwback to their earlier rural folk, while 'Last Year', which closes the album, is a simple, but effective sing-along for the working class. Basically, the band's 'everything-but-the-kitchen-sink' approach is their greatest trait, and there are enough catchy, lovely pop-songs submerged here that it's almost ridiculous. Sure to be a classic one day, Akron/Family flashes a multi-faceted brilliance consistently. A must-hear. (Dead Oceans)
Taking cues from 60's-era psychedelic/garage rock as well as freaky Japanoise, Steve Krakow (aka Plastic Crimewave) and friends create far-out spacerock gems complete with out-of-control guitar squalls and primitive rhythms. '(I Am) Planet Crushing' is a grungy proto-punk number, while 'Dead Island Boogie' sounds like a gigantic noise/psyche meltdown improv. 'Shockwave Rider' is a hellacious wall of feedback and driving bass/drums ala Chrome, with almost incantational vocals. The final cut, 'The Pasture', comes in 3 parts, and it slows things down a bit to a more meditational, almost Eastern-style mantra. Lovely stuff for heads so inclined to wander the outer perimeters of rock. (Prophase Music)
Reissued from an apparently quite rare mammoth double-LP, this well-stuffed CD revisits a wild and woolly psychedelische-kraut monsterpiece from this Chicago collective. Gathering their farthest out-there guitar drones, noisy garage riffs, and freak-space-punk jams, PCS harvest a rich and deeply visceral strain of darkly-lit stoner head music. If names like Can, Acid Mothers Temple, Amon Duul, or Hawkwind mean anything to you, then this groovy set of tunes will easily satisfy. Guest appearances by new-jack hippie-folksters like Devendra Banhart or Josephine Foster are token, but the real meat and potatoes here are the long, enveloping motorik fuzz-jams that demand head-nodding and suggest some rather wicked altered states. Primal, powerful, and trance-inducing, 'No Wonderland' is a real triumph for you "heads". (Prophase Music)
Six Organs' Ben Chasny is a very busy fellow indeed. In between his gigs as guitarist in psychedelic-rock-mavens Comets On Fire, and his work with such folksters as Current 93, he records solo under the nom-de-plume Six Organs Of Admittance. Taking elements from 60's hippie psyche-folk, avante-garde guitarists like John Fahey, and freeform noise, this project sums up Chasny's headspace better than any of his other involvements. 'Shelter From The Ash' is his 10th studio LP, and it seems to inch a mite closer to actual songs than his past, more experimental offerings. Tracks like 'Strangled Road' or 'Jade Like Wine' are very accessable pop/folk songs with sinister/spooky twists, whereas 'Coming To Get You' is a focused and dynamic assault that grinds and churns with restrained animosity. Overall, this may be Chasny's most satisfying recording to date, and it's already gotten multiple spins on my CD player. So far, one of my top picks of the last year. (Drag City)
