Sula Bassana – Dark Days (2012)

“Entire record is instrumental… Guitar is really psychedelic and the extended guitar improvisation is just awesome and reminds me a bit of older Bevis Frond, both catchy and psychedelic… Spaced out… Surrealistic Journey is just over 20 minutes long and begins slowly and features Pablo on the drums. It begins with some really spaced out organ playing and guitar that builds up slowly, a bit like Electric Orange… It starts off with a really freaked out guitar and bass before a riff starts to develop. This sounds a lot like the jams that Electric Moon play these days until the mellotron like sound kicks in and totally changes the mood. I love the way this track flows from the heavy to mellotron parts. Damn cool. Bright Nights is another 10min space out that starts with delay guitar, organ and a simple drum beat but develops into a heavy Electric Moon style psychedelic trip.”

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Lumerians – Transmissions From Telos Vol. IV (2012)

“Flip it and things get bongier still with a monolithic bit of echoey cosmic synth frippery slicing out huge great yawning voids in your headspace. It’s fully astral, with only the slightest hints of melody to cling onto as they dive headlong into a psychedelic otherworld, eventually joined by distant drum grooves and wailing guitars which drift in and out disconcertingly over metallic grating drones before the rhythm section really starts getting its groove on. Once they do it’s reminiscent of Can once again, but after a while of that the grooves get overtaken by dark ambient static rumbles, which ease down to hisses and whooshes accompanied by metronomic two-note bass, which gradually gets enveloped by slowly developing Moondog-esque polyrhythms to finish. Impressive drug jams throughout.”

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Tommy Bolin & Friends – Live at Ebbets Field – June 3 & 4, 1974 (1996)

“Bolin is know by way too few guitarists and rock fans out there. His playing is simply put, phenomenally versatile and flat-out fun. It seems Bolin never took himself too seriously, easily throwing down the blues, rocking out with the best Hendrixian riffs of his day, and even playing Gomez-styled jazz rock fusion… This recording catches Bolin doing it all, having a blast, and laying down the jams he loved, in the raw, full of Bolin energy and his crazy way with an axe. Bolin’s Echoplex effect screamin’ into an infinity of feedback-looped, echoes before suddenly collapsing upon themselves into abrupt silence is strangely apropos.”

Laddio Bolocko – The Life & Times Of Laddio Bolocko (2002)

“It was very intuitive. A lot of it came just out of jamming. Purely improvised jamming. We were starting to realize, listening back to the improvisations, that they were a lot more fun and a lot more interesting to listen to when we found an idea, hung onto it and played it out… We had developed our own compositional/improvisational language together. I think that was one of the real special things about the band, it came from very organic origins because it was really just spawned from playing… from listening to each other and having that intuitiveness.”

Golden Cup – Vagabond (2012)

“Three tracks of hazy, stoned drifting psychedelia. The opening track takes up the entirety of side one, a slow-burning improvised trance-like piece with Can-style rhythms, wibbly synths and guitars building up to a frenzied finale. Reminicent of all manner of drugged out early ‘70s kraut-jams there’s an oddly Celtic feel to it. Track two is completely different, opening with a heavily echoed bongo-like sound there is fluttering flute and birdsong. Track three is similar with tribal-ish percussion, droney sitars and wandering psych guitars and a drifting, hazy almost underwater vibe. A three track stormer of semi-improvised, tripped out celestial psych-drone to while away these hazy summer evenings.”

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