KITCHEN CYNICS & MARGERY DAW - AS THOSE GONE BEFORE

DEEP FADE- FURTHER

 (Cruel Nature Records )

Rapidly becoming a favourite album around here, ‘As Those Gone Before’ is a 14 song collection of psychedelic folk whimsy, each tune a sparkling jewel that together create a magnificent treasure box that will surely become a family heirloom.

    Setting the bar high right from the start, ‘Christopher Tadpole’ is a tale of cruelty, punishment and ultimate redemption, the tune mixing clarinet, kazoo, wonderful vocals and echo coming across like a cautionary children's tale written by Syd Barrett.  Changing the tone, ‘Brimstone’ is a cloud of sound that slowly engulfs you coating you with happiness a drifting flute and whistle reminding me of Jefferson Airplane, whilst ‘The Four Trains That Killed Me’ returns us to the world of cautionary fairy tales, a gently rolling song with the best use of ‘chuff-chuff’ ever.

    One of the many wonders of this album is the way the two voices work together adding an extra dimension to the songs and welcoming you into their surreal world, the instrumentation and arrangements complementing the words and visions.

    Droning and slightly deranged the spoken word/soundscape of ‘MoleMan’ is another highlight, whilst ‘Toy Piano’ is a creepy tale about a haunted toy piano, lovely stuff. Keeping the creepy vibe, ‘Seagull Skull’ is another eerie tale with a pulsing harmonica adding plenty of atmosphere before ‘Breathing’ takes us up into the clouds, a sweet and drifting drone full of imagination and atmosphere.

    Making us smile again, ‘Sticking Out My Tongue’ could be my favourite track, although that tends to change every time i play this album, the clever words matched by the rattling instruments, the whole collection rounded off beautifully by ‘My Double’ an atmospheric lyric surrounded by twinkling instruments creating a gentle ambience that is matched perfectly by the autumnal sunshine outside my window.

   An album that will become a personal favourite to be re-discovered on a regular basis just like the scruffy book of fairy-tales that resides on a shelf upstairs.

Distorted and atmospheric in equal measure, the music of Deep Fade takes you on a journey, a drifting shipwreck lost on foggy seas, the occasional break in the clouds offering a glimpse of sunlight, traces of Neil Young, Acid Mother Temple and Cocteau Twins to be found within its creaking hull.

     Opening track ‘Tidal’ says it all, Mournful vocals, thick guitar lines and funeral percussion creating a dark ambience that settles ominously across the carpet before the 12 minute title track casts you adrift completely, desperately searching for the calm within the maelstrom, and it's there, moments of beauty to be found as your ears tune into the noise, such as the drone that appears early on in the piece before the guitar returns. Indeed, it is these moments of tension that elevate this album, the stop/start, create/release nature of the music keeping the listener focused on the atmospherics found on each track.

    Nestling in the middle of the album, ‘Little Bird’ creates a moment of rest, a softer piece, especially the final drone which spreads calm around it, the peace shattered somewhat by the arrival of the appropriately named ‘Wake Up’, a growling guitar adding menace to a track that becomes denser the more it travels.

    Over 15 minutes, ‘Heartword’ scrapes, squalls and moans, music to get lost in that is followed by the slightly more fragile ‘Fixed and Faded’ a track that finally disintegrates into nothing, ending a fine collection that needs to be listened to closely for full effect.

(Simon Lewis)

VARIOUS - I THINK OF DEMONS: A TRIBUTE TO ROKY ERIKSON VOL 1

(CD/DL from Gruselthon ) 

I’m sure that everyone here is familiar with Roky Erikson, the legendary founder of the 13^th Floor Elevators, garage punk guru and all-round maverick who never seemed to get the breaks he deserved whilst retaining a cult status amongst fans worldwide. On this compilation we get 13 artists covering Mr Erikson's tunes, each retaining the original ambience whilst adding their own sound to the music making for a rather fine collection.

            Opening with gentle, shimmering surf guitar, Bar lead us in softly with their version of ‘Clear Night for Love’ the lovely melody enhanced with some excellent musicianship that adds beauty and melancholy to the song. Adding some rolling electronic beats and bass to the mix, Violet Nox create ambience a-plenty to their cover of ‘Stand for the Fire Demon’, a drifting psychedelic cloud of sound.

            It would be hard to imagine this compilation without a cover of ‘You're Gonna Miss Me’ and, sure enough, up pop Los Buerlecitinos with a nicely fuzzed-up version that is suitably scuzzy and needs to be played loud, rocking out right until the end. In complete contrast Terrascope favourite Allysen Callery puts her delightful twist on ‘I Am’ turning the tune into a ghost folk classic.

            Sounding like a long lost 1968 Beatles track, Birds That Change Colour do remarkable things to ‘Don't Fall Down’ creating a wonderfully arranged psych-pop classic that is one of the best tracks on the compilation. Putting the fuzz back in, Fenton Weills grabs ‘Rollercoaster’ by the throat and gives it a good shake to produce a moody, atmospheric version that climbs into the core of the tune and refuses to come out mixing electronics and guitar perfectly, whilst Shiny Gnomes allow us to sway gently to their version of ‘May The Circle Remain Unbroken’, a tune that lets you drift off to another realm.

            Giving ‘If You Have Ghosts’ a definite Johnny Cash vibe, Giant Crow elevate the tune with great playing and arrangement, Americana with a lysergic twist. Now, you've gotta love a tune called ‘Creature With The Atom Brain’, I do, and I am happy to report that Cosmic Kangaroo do it justice with jangly precision and plenty of energy meaning the volume has gone up again and will stay that way for the electronic pulse of ‘Night of the Vampires’ brought to you by Walker Phillips & Caira Paraval, the duo giving the tune an electro feel that works well and retains plenty of atmospheric charm reminding me of the Dr Who theme in places. Returning to the guitar Aeon Crypt, add chugging metal guitar to their version of ‘Two Headed Dog’ the sound hanging on the edge of feedback for most of the song which is a good thing.

            Taking us back to the Louisiana swamps, the beautiful voice of Kristina Jung dances  wonderfully over a slow and moody version of ‘Cold Night for Alligators’, complete with slide guitar and a seductive ambience that makes you want to reach for that bottle of bourbon and dive right in.

            Rounding things off, the lovely Trappist Afterland (another Terrascope favourite) takes us back to basics with acoustic guitar and voice and leads us out with his version of ‘Mighty Is Our Love’ a fitting way to end an entertaining and joyous celebration of the music of Roky Erikson. Can we have volume 2 please?

(Simon Lewis)

THE OBSCURE RIVER EXPERIMENT – THE ORE

(Digital on psychedelic source records)

The Obscure River Experiment is a recent entry in the long-running series by Hungary’s wonderful psychedelic source records collective.  Sometimes the artist in the collective’s releases is simply called psychedelic source records, and other times there’s a band name, such as this.  The “bands” usually come and go, often lasting an album or two.  The one constant in the collective is mastermind and über-talented multi-instrumentalist Bence Ambrus.  Many of the collective’s releases are enjoyable, if fleeting guitar jams, but sometimes a true enduring gem emerges like this one.

The thing that marks the best of the collective’s work is when Ambrus joins forces with keyboardist/vocalist Krisztina Benus, and it’s on full display all over this album.  The four extended tracks (OK, three since the first track “Soul’s Shiver pt. 1” is just a warmup), are nine-to-twelve-minute pieces in which Ambrus on guitars, bassist Gergely Szabó, and drummer Sándor Nagy lay down psychedelic mood pieces.  Some sections are mellow and floaty, with Ambrus employing a dry guitar tone, treated with lots of reverb, while in others the band goes into full-blown freakout mode, with Ambrus igniting a blistering artillery of pedals and effects, including tons of distortion, wah-wah, and reverb.  Oh yeah, and it gets real loud.  All the while, Benus sings over the top of the racket in her authoritative, icily indifferent vocals like a mythic goddess directing lightning bolt traffic while the earth is torn asunder.  I don’t know what she’s singing, or even what language it is, and I don’t care.  She’s incredible.  The combined effect of Benus’s vocals and Ambrus’s guitar pyrotechnics is thunderous.  It’s a little bit like the combination of The Black Angels’ loud guitar sound and Alex Maas’s vocals, but I’ll give the edge here to The Obscure River Experiment.

It's easy to forget that this is a live album, about the only audio indication being some enthusiastic applause by the small crowd at the very end, plus band introductions, with the announcer nonchalantly noting that the blazing phenomenon you’ve just heard is The Obscure River Experiment’s first performance.  That might seem amazing, but of course these folks have been playing in various and sundry combinations for years.  Will we hear more from them?  Probably in one reincarnation or another from the collective, but whether this outfit that caught lightning in a bottle near an obscure river will continue on is anyone’s guess.  Play it loud.

(Mark Feingold)