![](../Home/NewHomeButtonB.gif) |
![](../images/Topline.gif) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
![](../images/Reviews_Hdg_New_Colour5.gif) |
|
=
June 2024 = |
|
|
Thos.
Greenwood & the Talismans |
Brown Acid comp
|
Alula Down
|
Black
Tempest
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
THOMAS
GREENWOOD AND THE TALISMANS - ATES
(LP,
Digital on Subsound
Records (Europe), Echodelick Records (US))
This
record
is a very enjoyable brand of accessible, melodic
psych rock/pop.
Thomas Mascheroni, aka Thomas Greenwood,
hails from Bergamo, Italy, which also happens to
be the home of Terrascope favorites Buck Curran
and Adele H. The
emphasis here is on songwriting; all eight
tracks herein have catchy tunes and fine vocals
by Greenwood. The
songs are tinged with psychedelia, but it’s not
overpowering. There
are very few guitar solos or extended synth
passages, just quality songs.
That
isn’t
to say the band doesn’t have chops.
Greenwood (guitars, vocals) and his
Talismans - Cristian Bona (bass) and Lorenzo
Zenk (drums) - are a tight, proficient squad.
They play with an economy of style, and
the production values like lots of reverb expand
the trio’s performances to fill the soundspace.
The
playing
can occasionally get a little heavier and
riffnocentric (just made up that term), such as
on “Sleepwalker,” “Sunhouse” and “Crack,” but
most of the tracks are mid-tempo and
well-balanced between light and heavy.
There’s
a
concept to the album.
Ates is a fictitious hidden city buried
beneath the mountains of Turkey.
In the story, it’s considered a mystical
locale where legend has it people found refuge
in the past from environmental catastrophes.
The only songs which have a vaguely
Anatolian style are the psychedelic instrumental
“The Road to Ates” and portions of “Crack.”
The rest of the tracks are more typical
western rock oriented.
Album
closer “Crack” is the heaviest track, a nice
piece of blues rock that may get you playing air
guitar along with Greenwood.
The excellent cover art depicting a
mountain range in purplish-red hues has a worn
quality to it – what did they used to call jeans
intentionally made to look threadbare and beat
up – distressed?
Recorded in what was once a barn near
Lake Iseo east of Bergamo, Ates is impressive
song-oriented album-rock done in a universally
appealing style.
More please.
(Mark
Feingold)
|
|
|
|
VARIOUS
ARTISTS – BROWN ACID - THE EIGHTEENTH TRIP
(LP,
CD, Digital on RidingEasy
Records)
Those
Brown
Acid dudes from RidingEasy are back at it.
That would be Daniel Hall and Lance
Barresi, your curators for this living museum of
mostly early Seventies proto-metal/heavy psych
they call ‘Heavy Rock from the Underground
Comedown.’ How
they’ve managed to fill 18 volumes and counting
of one-hit – or make that zero hit – wonders of
premium bummer Rawk is anyone’s guess.
But the well hasn’t run dry yet, and
judging by this collection, we’re not into the
dregs either.
I’ll
just
hit some of the highlights here.
Leading off is St. Louis’s Back Jack,
with “Bridge Waters Dynamite” from 1974.
Coming on something like a head-on
collision between Grand Funk Railroad and
Aerosmith from that period, it’s a head-bobbing
distorted concoction starting with those beloved
kick-off lyrics of yore, ‘people, are you
ready?’ Back
Jack might as well be saying that to you good
listeners about Brown Acid The Eighteenth
Trip.
The
Smokin’
Buku Band proves with “Hot Love” that apparently
you can’t get too shameless trying to sound like
Led Zeppelin. Initially
a big riff on “Communication Breakdown,” the
ditty goes on to be a cornucopia of Zep
references. Atlantis’s
“Moby Shark” is almost a novelty song about
everybody’s favorite blockbuster shark movie
from 1975. I’ve
gotta admit, it would be fun to dance to.
The Chicago Triangle’s “Ripped Off” is a
little like a Brown Acidified version of Van
Halen from when the latter was playing for beer
and weed in backyard parties.
If
The Smokin’ Buku Band brazenly channeled Led
Zeppelin on Side One, Parchment Farm gives a
similar treatment to James Gang on Side Two
opener “Songs of the Dead” from 1971.
Still, the guitar playing on this track
by Paul Cockrum is so simply blazing, it’s one
of the album’s true gems.
The only ‘name’ band, if you could call
it that, which I recognized from the collection
was Cleveland’s The Damnation of Adam Blessing,
here rechristened Glory in a later 1973 variant.
I’d always felt Damnation was one band
who collectively had their shit together, and on
“Nightmare,” they prove it.
This song’s got it all - rousing vocal
harmonies, grinding Hammond, twin lead guitars,
and a band that’s locked in, firing on all
cylinders. “Nightmare”
is the album’s premiere standout track.
On
1968’s
“Realize,” The Pawnbrokers, from Fargo, North
Dakota, offer up a sound not too distant from
what Messrs. Clapton, Bruce and Baker were
conjuring up around that time.
Chicago’s Brothers of the Ghetto close
out the set and bring on the funk rock with
“Rockin’ Chair.”
It’s a hip-shaking groove with bouncy
organ and a squalling guitar solo to get you
moving.
The
Brown
Acid series is alive and well, and as long as
RidingEasy continues dishing ‘em out, we’ll keep
devouring them.
Who knew there were so many bands
churning out quality greasy sleaze back then,
one forgotten single at a time?
If you’re new to the series, brother
you’ve got some catching up to do.
All others, dig this one herewith.
(Mark
Feingold)
|
|
|
|
ALULA
DOWN – THE LEYLINE
(CD
from https://www.reverbworship.com/reverb-worship
and DL
from https://aluladown.bandcamp.com/)
Weirdshire
mainstays Kate Gathercole and Mark Waters
conceived and created Leyline in 2022 on
a journey from the Aegean Sea, along the ancient
and mysterious Michael/Apollo leyline, across
Greece and up through Italy and France. Over 13
tracks bundled into six pieces it depicts places
and experiences, evoking crashing Aegean waves,
droughts, storms and people encountered along
the way.
The
aesthetic resembles that of a stripped-down
United Bible Studies or cosmic country cousins
of Burd Ellen. Found sounds and field recording
of waves, birds, crickets, bells and yer actual
people abound, intermingling with picked and
sawed violin, sonorous plucked double bass,
plinked ukulele, the drone of harmonium and his
and hers vocals. The first voice, heard on the
exquisitely drone-coaxed ‘Walk/Arrive/Escape’,
is Mark’s calming and unpretentious light tenor,
thereafter it is mostly Kate’s engaging tones
that grace the vocal tracks. ‘Delphi’ is quite
possibly the stand-out cut, a celebration of The
Oracle that seems to linger long after the
passage into another time and place; a slice of
sun-drenched acid folk updated and refined for
modern palettes. The instrumental arch-solemnity
of ‘Sacra Di San Michele pt. 1’ and ‘Perugia’s’
parched meditation - it’s repeat spoken word
mantra of ‘water, and the absence of water’
pinpointing the probable cause of the current
eye-watering price of olive oil - meanwhile
contrast nicely with the disarming sung-vocal
offerings.
You
may think that not much happens amidst all the
tranquillity. You’d be mistaken. For all its
languid charm this is a heady and subtly
productive cottage industry. A most evocative
and gratifying travelogue, you’ll want to leave
part of you somewhere on route, irrespective of
any need to leave the comfort of your armchair
for no other reason than to replenish your
glass. There’s nothing here to quell the
arcadian reverie, which suits me fine. You’ll
find me out there on the trail and down with the
lotus eaters. Always better to travel hopefully
than to arrive, and all that.
(Ian
Fraser)
|
|
|
|
BLACK
TEMPEST - ASTRAL
PASTORAL (LP on Echodelick
Records)
Stephen
Bradbury in the guise of Black Tempest has
released many a fine record over the past
several years, making inventive yet highly
accessible electronic psychedelia that touches
and celebrates many influences whilst
cultivating a distinct character. The last
release ‘Psyborg’ was a darker affair affected
strongly by the world of Covid and associated
anxieties. This time around as the title
suggests, ‘Astral Pastoral’ addresses wider
themes of ecology and environment, in large part
an observation on the rolling downs and
heathland of Southern England, drawing strongly
but not exclusively on Kosmische sound and also
weaving in subtle nods to other musical
heritage.
The
key piece on the record is the side long ‘Astral
Pastoral No.9’, which at over 23 minutes
qualifies as an epic. It is a piece of shifting
moods and textures, underpinned by birdsong and
environmental sounds and a very clear sense of
the natural world where electronic sound and
nature harmonise and paint compelling sonic
pictures. It
is also a journey in sound where sometimes
floating and sometimes bubbling or pulsating
melodies, atmospheric tides of synthesized
choral and orchestral textures and delicate
acoustic guitar create a Kosmische grandeur and
conjure echoes of Phaedra and Force Majeure era
Tangerine Dream, Popol Vuh but also the holy
minimalism of Arvo Part or John Taverner. Within
this overall soundscape interludes of percussive
electronic groove with organ colourings create a
pastoral autobahn where movement is perhaps at a
more leisurely pace with observational spoken
word providing commentary. A final section of
more experimental and dissonant sound with
fractured electronic melodies further breaks up
the more bucolic and at times blissful mood of
the opening section. It’s a captivating,
thoughtful and memorable piece of music and
repeat listening will reward you with further
appreciation of its depth and subtleties.
‘Outlier’
follows and is more overtly Eno/Kosmische
influenced with a sense of motion and a
cinematic enveloping sound. It’s an elegant, at
times nocturnal sound but I can also imagine it
soundtracking the awakening of Spring. ‘Skylarks
and Cornflowers’ is a much shorter piece with a
jaunty folk dance inspired melody for plucked
harp and flute with electronic dissonance woven
in which would be a perfect prelude to loading
up your Wicker Man. ‘Pastoral Astral’ has a
darker edge with ritualistic percussion, cosmic
drones and an air of mystery with again a
cinematic yet also partly improvised feel.
‘Hinterland’ is again a shorter, darker piece
where a gentle flute melody is woven into more
abstract electronica with a strong spacey feel.
To finish, the more melodic, uplifting and gently
anthemic ‘Box Hill’ where a lovely circular
guitar and piano melody are again wrapped in
electronic colourings creating a sense of
sunrise or sunset.
This
is an album that takes us on a journey in sound
through a treasured landscape and a natural
diary that celebrates a sense of place and being
there. To call it pastoral Kosmische undersells
what is a well crafted musical travelogue where
each listen reveals more details in the depth of
sound, musical ideas and themes that only
further enhance the listening experience and
fuel the imagination. Strongly recommended for a
satisfying staycation in your preferred
listening bolthole or for soundtracking your
actual journey. Highly recommended.
(Francis
Comyn)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
![](../images/TerrascopePageBottomBit5.gif) |
|