I had previously reviewed …As Your Wanderer Taps At The
Invisible Gate when the band self-released it, but thought I would put the
review up again as Worst Bassist Records have given it the vinyl treatment on
some cool looking purple wax.
Nothing sparks my interest in music more than the sentence “new
album that consists of one 37+ minute song” and it’s a journey in to space that
not even the Space X entrepreneur could wrap his brain around.
Previous offerings from the Nashville 3-piece have clocked
in at 9 and 16 minutes but this truly is a trip into the minds of a band that are
taking you to realms beyond. This time the vinyl version splits the 37:35 over
both sides of the record.
Everything starts feeling high up amongst the clouds as the
guitar strums and the slow drum rhythms hypnotically hold you out there.
There’s some keyboards moving in and out of the mix and the guitar begins to
take flight and walk in to the distance reminding me in parts of Sons of Alpha Centauri
and Yawning Man. At around 6 minutes the guitars really kick in and you feel
the deep space like stomping groove as the instruments bend together slowly
over the outer space keyboard effects. Add some soaring guitars to the mix and
you can picture the kaleidoscopes of light in your mind as though they were
playing right in front of you.
The eerie keyboards continue on as the guitar and bass
output gets fuzzier, the elevated guitar work takes on another level and sounds
huge, and they all intertwine for quite some time. The soaring guitars over the
hypnotic drone like wall of fuzz is reminiscent of Electric Moon and Black Moon
Circle, and how they take you from there to an almost dreamy landscape of what
sounds like the sounds behind the atmosphere.
From here on you need to close your eyes and enjoy the trip
as you take a heavy psych ride through the planets of space rock, accompanied
by Ryan Westover (Bass/Synth), Frank Hand (guitar) and Kate Haldrup (Drums).
To add to the mind trip of an experience, an accompanying
video has been produced by Stan Brakhage/Terrence Malick Films that lasts the
full 37:35.
I highly recommend that you check out ElonMusk as they
really have something special in the making here.
I keep saying it more and more and records like this back me
up, and I will say it again, Australia must have a perfect alignment of the
stars, the earth and the moon, as the amount of awesome psychedelic music
coming from down under at the moment is mind blowing.
So here we have Sonic Dhoom, a new two track single from
Melbourne’s The Black Heart Death Cult. I guess this is a taste of what to
expect from their second album Sonic Mantras that will be released later this
year.
Side A’s song Sonic Dhoom is big, glowing and melts away the
deeper you feel yourself being pulled into the next four minutes of finally
crafted 60’s psychedelia. Whilst floating in a trippy dreamlike state, the
wonderful sitar work throughout elevates you to a Middle Eastern time within
another time guided by the trance inducing vocal lines. Definitely a song to
lie back and lose yourself in.
It’s Getting Heavy on the reverse slowly lifts you with its
mix of keyboards that drift in, pick you up and elevate you with a song that
sounds heavenly. By heavenly I mean with its choir like vocals through the
chorus, making the listener imagine bright white skies and some sort of bright
light in the distance that is beckoning you towards it. I can imagine this
being their antidote to a previous 20 minute jam they have just fuzzed out
live.
Salty Dog Records released a run of 150 blue/yellow splatter
7”’s that look stunning, but as quick as they appeared, they disappeared. If
you keep a look out there may be another press. Bandcamp is your saviour
though, so you know where to go and what to do.
Sonic Mantras should hopefully be released later this year
on Kozmic Artifacts.
I was late to the party with the Australian Psych scene but
have had some fun making the time up discovering a long line of killer bands
since, with one of these being Mt. Mountain. They first hooked me in with
Golden Rise and I’ve been a fan ever since and discovering that a limited 7”
with 2 new tracks was imminent, being the predecessor for a new full length to
be released this year.
Knowing that the first batch of the 500 copies went on
pre-sale at 7am UK time, the alarm was set just in case, and I’m glad it was as
minutes after I had ordered my copy it was already sold out.
Reviewing this, I haven’t got the item in my hands yet,
though it looks like a rather special package from the pictures. So thanks to
Bandcamp, here we go.
Tassels starts upbeat with levels of guitars and keyboard
creating an ever growing soundscape that slowly twist away in the back of your
mind. Like on previous records, the vocals quite subtly sit behind the music with
a warm near-hypnotic feel to them. The first half of Tassels hangs off a cool
psychedelic guitar hook backed with lots of cymbals, before the song bends
itself into dreamy hypnotic territory with the organs and synth and the next
few minutes are like a magic carpet ride into the unknown. Tassels is the sort
of song that could play out for 30 or 40 minutes live.
Deluge is much more of a laid back track like a slow and
magic trip into your sub-conscious. The warm dreamy mystical guitar lines walk
you out towards the light backed up with hand played drum beats and it is pure
magic. You can lie back, close your eyes and feel yourself drifting away, it
really is that good. My only complaint is that as quick as it starts, your
journey is already over.
This has really wet my appetite for what Mt. Mountain will
be bringing us later in the year. I am not sure if the band or Six Tonnes De
Chair Records have any copies left, but you need to be getting this from your
usual digital platforms.
One of Portugal’s finest heavy psych export’s Astrodome have
been quiet of late. Hopefully it’s a sign that the instrumentalists are hidden
away some place, jamming out new music. Let’s find out…..
Q. So how is the Covid-19 lockdown and social isolation
working for Astrodome and you as individuals? What restrictions are holding you
back right now?
It's been a tough time for everybody. As a band, we had to
stop jamming and rehearsing like we normally do and started adopting some other
ways of being productive. We also had a show cancelled in our hometown that we
were really excited about, since the last time we played there was quite some
time ago! As individuals, since we are not full time musicians, we try to work
from home as much as we can.
Q. Astrodome have been quiet over the last few months. Does
this mean that you are in the studio or in the writing process for album number
three?
That's right, we are mostly focused on the writing process
of the next album, for this album we decided to not rush things and take our
time, maybe for a next year release, we hope...
Q. How do the 4 members go about writing songs? Do you all
come to the table with ideas or do you just jam it out for hours, feel the flow
and let the music write itself?
We don't have a particular way of writing songs. In the
beginning, we definitely used a lot the classic "jam and let's see what
happens" formula, but that way of making music can sometimes lead to
monotony and repetition, and we are trying to not fall in the mistake of
releasing the same album over and over again. As we get more maturity and
responsibility as a band, we think it's important to start adopting some other
ways of thinking and composing, so, it's not impossible that if someone brings
an awesome and fully structured song to the rehearsal or if the drummer creates
a cool guitar riff, it won't end up being an Astrodome song! There's no
rules...
Q. Do you have “Jam Room” so that you can get the right vibe
when recording?
We do have a rehearsing space or if you wanna call it, a jam
room. It doesn't have the most inspiring vibe ever since it's located in a
basement but it gets the job done... we guess! (haha)
Q. It has been well documented with the mess your previous
record label left you with at the release point for Astrodome II. Did you ever
get all the legal stuff sorted? And on a better note, do you think we will ever
see the record available to buy as it deserves a proper release.
Oh man! That still haunt us to this day! We have sorted most
of the stuff, except for the streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music,
we still couldn't get control over that unfortunately. We also still get
contacted by people who are not aware of the problem and think that we scammed
them. Nightmare...
About the record, we would like to release a new edition of
it and the previous one also, maybe at the same time we release of our third
album? Maybe sooner? Let's see!
Q. Can you tell us a bit about the cool artwork for “II”?
We started working with talented artist Clara Pessanha on
the cover artwork, discussing references for illustration style even before
finishing the album. In a certain way at some point the music, artwork and the
concept of the album were mutually developed, and they're deeply related with
each other.
It represents something like how our perspective on things
changes as we move through space and time. We see a mirage of the Sun, which we
forget as we get into the landscape. As we move forward, we realize the Sun is
there and it is real, so we celebrate it. On the back cover it turns out that,
although it is there, the Sun doesn’t hold itself as we thought, and there is a
titan raising it. It has to do with subjects of curiosity and illusion, scepticism,
belief, devotion, ending with deception, the final surprise revealing that the
truth is different from everything we thought before. This is related to what
happens throughout the music, like its tonality, or root note changes.
Q. “II” was released, like the first album, on cassette. You
must be a fan of the format and enjoy seeing it make a small comeback?
Actually, those releases were just something that happened
naturally. We have a friend, Jonas that had just started a small label and
booking agency called Ya Ya Yeah! and he wanted to start releasing some bands
that he likes on cassette, so he just asked if we wanted to be the first band
and "test the waters". We guess that tape and analogue stuff is one
of those "fetishes" that every band must have, and a cassette is an
awesome piece of memorabilia you can get from a band, so it was a cool thing to
do!
Q. Have other labels approached you to re-release “II” or
release a new record?
When we announced all those problems with our ex-label, we
got contacted by a couple of labels who shared their interest in working with
us but none of them actually said something definitive, we also didn't want to
rush things and end up being in a bad situation again so we decided to let the
things cool down for a while and think about all the possibilities sometime later
when we have our next album...
Q. Can you ever see Astrodome having vocals on a new track
or a song that has a verse/chorus verse/chorus structure to it?
We can't say we don’t see that as a possibility. We try to
impose ourselves less and less on what we can or should do, and we let things
evolve in ways that are not necessarily the same as what we've done so far. We
work on every new track based on an idea that is being built, and the structure
develops accordingly. Someday an idea may justify having vocals, or having
verse / chorus verse / chorus structure, or both. We don't have anything
against that kind of structure.
Q. I haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing Astrodome in
the live setting yet, what would I expect from one of your shows?
We think our live shows are a completely different thing
from our studio albums, at least we try to make it that way and honestly that
is the exciting part of seeing a live concert from a band that you like. When
we have the right conditions, we try to set up a mood that makes it more like
an experience rather than a musical concert, we use lights, drones and sound
effects for an uninterrupted show. Hope we can meet you at one of our concerts
in the future!
Q. Once the world starts to get back to normal, will
Astrodome be hitting the road again to tour?
Unfortunately we are not full time musicians so we have to
carefully manage our time between our jobs, making music, playing live and taking
care of the band’s "office" side. Playing live and doing a good show
requires a lot of practice and planning and we agreed that while working on the
new album, we would play less shows and that's what we are trying to do. We are
really focused on making a good album. We might still play here and there but
we don't think we will hit the road very soon for another big tour.
Q. With festivals like Sonic Blast hosting some awesome
line-ups over the last few years, the psych/stoner music scene in Portugal
looks to be getting bigger. What other Portuguese bands should we all be
checking out?
Sonic Blast is our favorite festival to play and to be as a
fan, and it definitely helped the "scene" getting stronger and we
even risk to say that it influenced many new bands being created! About the
bands suggestion, it's going to be hard to list them all because there's a lot
of amazing stuff happening in the heavy and psych scene, and we are friends
with almost everyone! We recommend the "classic" ones like Black
Bombaim, 10000 Russos, Solar Corona, Stone Dead, Kilimanjaro, Big Red Panda, Black
Wizards, and some of the newer stuff like Jesus the Snake, Fuzzil… There's a
lot happening and we could stay here for days listing them all, and that's
great!
After years of playing in bands such as Hermano and
Orquestra del Desierto, Dandy Brown released his first solo album Scattered Days in 2018, a collection of songs covered in blues and desert rock with a
twist of Southern California. I must still play this album once a week as it
sounds as fresh today as when the songs were written and I still think someone
needs to give it the magic vinyl re-release treatment.
So, role on a couple of years and Dandy is back with a
collaboration of songs with Dawn Brown (nee Rich), now his wife, under the
title The Fizz Fuzz.
Hereby roles in like a classic 70’s convertible heading out
into the heat of the Californian desert. With that laid back grooving guitar
riff that Dandy is so good at writing mixed with Dawn’s more intricate guitar
work and solo’s that really elevate the first four minutes of the album. If I
didn’t already know this was to be the single/video to promote the album, I
would have picked it straight out as the warm fuzzy classic to get people’s
heads nodding.
Collapse continues with the fuzzy guitars and slowly drifts
through the warm night sky with a more trippy psychedelic feel to it. Both
guitars soar in and out, and if you close your eyes you can picture the oil
mixed with coloured water effect as you’re taken out to that place and beyond.
Like in Hereby, you instantly know Dandy’s vocals as they are so distinctive on
their own and when harmonised here sound so good.
If Dark Horse II sounds familiar, that’s because it was original
recorded as a Hermano track. It still has that raw dark feel to it, which would
sit well on a film soundtrack with its acoustic strum that holds the verse’s
together. You can make the comparisons with John Garcia’s vocals, but the vocal
harmonies with Dawn over the chorus really tops the track off. Everything about
the song has you thinking dark grey filmography work.
Following on in the same slow meandering mood is Shame.
Starting off with just vocals and distant guitars, Shame builds into a slow moody
affair with a simple but affective guitar line that goes up then down over the
chorus and vocal harmonies. Then just as you think you know the lay of the
song, both guitars kick the saloon doors open and let rip in style for 90
seconds, before Shame slowly drifts off into the night.
Conditional Love flips a totally different switch with a
lighter, cleaner, uplifting sound with Dawn taking vocal duties. It sounds
positive and paints a picture of new beginnings. Midway through there’s a
really good lighter psych solo that strums along nicely.
I’m really digging Dawn’s vocal whaling throughout Dear Old
that has that desert sound and mixes well over Dandy’s voice. The track has
that warm fuzzy feel again but this time the guitars feel a lot more powerful and
the leading riff really hooks you in and hold’s everything together and is,
again, a real head nodder.
The album closes with Loose Lips and its big soaring guitar
work then the dreamy drifting psychedelic Sunkissed.
I hope I am already preaching to the converted, but if not
Palmyra stands up as a really good album that has that desert sound to it, but
is a variation that is unique to what Dandy and Dawn are doing. They have
managed to mix that gritty “Sons of Anarchy” biker soundtrack feel with a warm red
fuzzy sunshine element to it which to me at least, has that Southern California
big open road feel. The stand out bright red album artwork (produced by Dawn)
may have contributed to this feeling.
The Fizz Fuzz also features performances from David Angstrom
(Hermano/Luna Sol), Steve Earl (Afghan Whigs), Mike Callahan (Hermano/Earshot),
Alice Albertazzi and Gianfranco Romanelli (Alice Tambourine Lover) and Mark
Engel (Orquesta del Desierto).
Due to traffic and road works on the way to Newcastle I managed
to miss The Contact High and I just caught the last few minutes of Cave Suns,
who sounded good and being advertised as Blue Cheer crashing into The
Groundhogs hit the nail on the head.
Dead Otter dropped their record “Bridge of Weird” 6 months
ago, gaining a load of positive feedback. The first time I sat and listened to
the full 35 minutes it was obvious the Glasgow based 4 piece had raised the bar
for British Stoner/Space/Heavy Psych rock. You can’t really pigeon hole them in
to one of these genres but they fit them all in a good way.
They play through 45 minutes of what seems like a well-structured
“jam” that live reminds me of Euro Psych bands such as Rotor and Monkey3.
Closing my eyes and nodding my head I get that repeat feeling of the image of
bright coloured spots of oil being dropped into a dark coloured water and
expanding again and again (I hope you know what I mean). The stoner rock part
drives forward with heavy riffs that have a slight prog feel, and the
psych/space rock have an emotive feel that has you drifting away. They finish
with the 14 minute LP title track “Bridge of Weird” and it really is something
special. You all really need to hear it.
Hailing from Osaka, Hibushibire are really leading their
psych rock scene. They’ve just released “Turn On, Tune In, Freak Out!” hot on
the heels of 2017’s “Freakout Orgasm!”, taking their sound to the next level.
This is the first time I have managed to catch them live. Others have spoken
about how good they are live and I have seen the YouTube clips and listened to
their bootlegs, but nobody told me they were this good.
Freak-out heavy psych rock embedded deep in the 60’s/70’s that
bring together the finest guitar action from Hendrix or Cream or early Deep
Purple with lots of wah-wah and fuzzy madness. Its riff after riff after riff.
The rhythm section of 821 and Takashi just don’t stop and Chang Chang kicks
that leg and off he goes with that guitar wizardry. Just as you think the song
is closing, the drums slow down, the bass rolls in, the pedal is pushed and
away we go again. The Hendrix like finger action of the guitar is something
special.
With the final 23 minutes bringing us the epic “Rollercoaster
of the Universe”, Hibushibire close the night out leading a musical journey,
taking you to several corners of their psychedelic universe. It was something
rather special.
Riot Season Records are dropping some seriously good records
at the moment that all sit musically, somewhere outside the box. Both Hibushibire
and Dead Otter have must own music out on the label. Check it out.
