Category: 2012

Fire! with Oren Ambarchi – In the Mouth – A Hand (2012)

“The thing with Fire! is that, yes, they’re masters of squealing, Brцtzmann-esque blow-outs, but, above all, they’re fun. Their music is frenetic, but filled with boundless enthusiasm, the trio feeding off one another with obvious, exuberant, glee… Werliin releasing his pent-up energy in a torrent of cymbals and Gustafsson’s notes turning into anguished squeals, the Australian barges his way into the limelight with a molten cascade of feedback, Sonic Youth-style, grappling with his bandmates for space before locking into a krautrock groove with Berthling and Werliin, driving over the horizon of Fire!’s free jazz roots with metronomic precision and the kind of noisy funkiness that defined the best early-seventies German bands such as Neu! and Can.”

The Entrance Band – Latitudes (2012)

“Heavy psych gem, a thick low slung bass groove, and ethereal vocals, over chugging guitars, and wild loose drumming, and dense squalls of rad effects heavy shredding, totally drugged out, droney, dreamy psychedelic bliss. The ‘verses’ woozy and slithery, the melodies spidery, the guitars droney and shimmery, slipping into a stretch of muted chuggery before exploding into some epic, soaring, wah wah guitar driven space-psych shred, the rare sort of jammed out heaviness that we could listen to forever.”

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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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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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