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46,000 FIBRES: Cyte Pacific DBLCD
Oh lord - where do you start with this lot - well, it's a history of the band (as opposed to any normal "best of" with mostly previously unreleased or rare tracks, and a hulking great twenty-eight of them spread over two CD's. It details recordings from the earliest recording in 1993 right up to 2003, and celebrates ten years of existence for a band that remained throughout, on this showing anyway, as a band you simply could not "pigeon-hole". Take a track such as 'Glenbrook/Outsiders' from the mid-'90's (presumably) with its thunderously metronomic Liebezeit-esque drumming, shimmering keys and searing guitar/flute/sax - you could be listening to an instrumental early Can and it's just sensational, at just short of ten fantastic minutes. The four minute 'Psircus' from '95 has a more "French" feel to it with stuttering guitar, loping bass and drums, cascading shards of space guitar and warm flowing melodic sax backdrop, sounding more seventies than nineties and way too short for such a wonderful composition - could have done with much more of this. This album isn't so much influenced by the seventies German and French pioneers, more that it just sounds like them, right down to the rustic production (not poor - clear as a bell actually - but somehow sounding from that era) on some of the earlier tracks, where the bass and drums, lead guitars, electronics and occasional sax, all give the feel of a mix of classic Can & Lard Free - and you can't argue with that.
Some tracks start with a more Faust-like feel and air of experimentation, or sometimes things that conform more to Can's 'E.F.S.' series, but they are either short or develop into the aforementioned areas. Towards the late nineties, things started getting a bit spacier, and a track like 'Tantramanic', with ex-Hawkwind member Nik Turner on flute, shows that the mix of space and experimentation could seriously warp your brain as 6 mind-melting minutes testify - and all that's just the first CD!! Between the two sets there's over 2 and a half hours of the stuff, with the band and assorted guests becoming ever more "out on a limb" as CD2 progresses, embracing electronic and experimentation, as well as the more "Krautrock" styles of the first disc, but no less satisfying as a whole. So, if you are adventurous in the field of "out-rock" or "avant-progressive" or whatever tag you car to attach to this unique band, then this CD has to be for you.
GUAPO: Five Suns CD
Now the advertising thing that houses this CD states that it's "for fans of Magma, Boredoms, This Heat, King Crimson & Terry Riley" so you see this and think "yeh rite - sure it is" somewhat cynically. Then you see a quote from a review in Sound Projector magazine that states "on a par with Magma's 'Kohntarkosz' or Univers Zero's 'Ceux Du Dehors'" and you laugh - "no way is this going to be THAT good" you say to yourself, but, what the heck, let's give it a go.
Ten minutes later, you are open-mouthed in amazement, not just because it's all actually true, but because it's actually even better than that.
A UK trio of mellotrons, Fender Rhodes, Harmonium, guitars, electric bass, drums, electronics and percussion, they play an instrumental music that is so potent as to be positively lethal in large doses, but ultimately as addictive as the hardest drug. The 46 minute title track, split into 5 segments, is simply awesome - at many points along the way you will swear you're listening to an early seventies Magma in a parallel universe, with Fender Rhodes, electric bass and drums sounding for all the world like the Widemann-Top-Vander trio only even more fiery, but then it will launch into something right out of the most molten mid-seventies 'Larks Tongues'-era King Crimson handbook, and between the two styles coming right out at you like an express train, all you can do is be transfixed, like a rabbit in the headlights, as this immense bass, skull-crunching drums, virtual keyboard army and searing electric guitar shine like a million suns, let alone five!! The dynamics are every bit as worthy of classic early-mid seventies Magma as you could hope with passages rising to a peak and then dropping down, only to rise once more to even higher peaks. By 25 minutes, you're hooked, mate. Absolutely riveted to an album that you are simply driven to hear all the way through, so utterly hypnotic is the experience you are undergoing, as burning walls of electric and electronic sound come blazing through with electric bass, drums and this wall-shaking river of bass that thunders along the bottom of the mix, all combine to deliver a sea of music you could quite happily drown in. You get the drift! Halfway through the 62 minute album for the second time, you know what's coming and you just want to stick with it - it's SO good you'll want to play it again - and again - and again. Timeless and then some, this is music rooted in the past, played for the present and destined for a long future. Awesome!
NTERSTELLAR CEMENTMIXERS: Dimension Y CD
Brand new 74 minute studio CD and it's another triumph. Featuring three lengthy and five shorter tracks, it is the most varied and most satisfying of their albums to date. Starts with this five minute track, 'Blue Brick', where a huge swirling electronic drone weaves all around the soundscape as echoed drums and percussives, squalls of electronics and layers of drones all combine to produce a setting that is pure early Cluster, circa the legendary 'Cluster II' on the Brain label, and this whole album can rightly be viewed as equal to anything on that album, similar in feel, fuller in sound, greater on ideas and just as fantastic to hear. 'Underwater Inferno' provides us with a multitude of deep, resonant, excellently produced drones and electronic textures where nothing stands still, and extra layers are constantly coming in and out, as the heart of the composition drives on, no rhythm, no melody, no tunes, buty way more than mere "space" or "cosmic" music, although this sums up the essence that was the highly regarded "Kosmische Musik" movement that came out of the seventies German underground, in all, eight minutes of strong soundscapes that are dark, Kraut and Kosmik in nature - just superb. The 18 minute 'Methane Collision' is a giant among soundscapes, conjuring the very essence of the early seventies electronic pioneers such as Cluster & Tangerine Dream, with a myriad shifting soundscapes, drones, layers, textures and more, in a dense, incredibly sounding multi-electronic environment. All the other tracks are up to this standard of composition and playing, each with its own unique set of sounds, layers and drones, each a sea of "real" exploratory, inventive and strong-sounding Kosmik Musik, and every one utterly engaging. As I said, a gem of an album from a band who can do no wrong.
RICHARD PINHAS: Tranzition CD
Oh yes - easily the finest album he's done in years - and why? - the drums, my friend - the drums! Of the five tracks on the album, four feature the drum work of Antoine Paganotti, and the difference this makes to Pinhas' sound worlds of Fripp & Eno-styled loops, cosmic electronic horizons and guitar textures, is nothing short of mind-expanding, as this lurching and driving drum work cuts through the heart of the huge-sounding layers of trademark Pinhas loud, cosmic and multi-layered sonic soundscaping. On the 10 minute Moumoune Girl', the first half is slowly building layers and textures before the whole thing takes off on a tidal wave of guitars, electronics and drums to produce a five minute end section that will make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck, every time you play it - just awesome and then some.
The ten minute title track features drums and percussion that drives and rattles all around the mix as heavenly sounding sonic soup of electronics, textures, guitars and loops covers the horizon and the track just marches forward, twisting and turning, but with so much depth as to be almost bottomless. Not only that but, like the rest of the album, there's such a feeling of emotion and real spark to the compositions and playing, so much so that it becomes so easy to get completely caught up in the driving compositions that unfold. The near seven minutes of 'Aboulafia Blues' starts with soundscaping and deep, dense electronic and guitar textures, slowly leading to a spiralling climax of these layers plus those magnificently strong drums. With all the strength and intensity that preceded it, you'd think that if I told you that the final track, 25 minutes of 'Metatron' had dropped the drums purely to concentrate on the soundscaping, you might think you were in for a bit of respite, but you'd be wrong. Firmly sounding like a way more layered, more intense version of Fripp & Eno's 'No Pussyfooting' soundscapes for the new era, it's a track that simply sucks you in and covers you in layer upon layer of gloriously loud electronic cosmic textures that are pure Heldon/Pinhas and take you on a trip through every non-rhythmic, Pinhas- delivered track you've heard down the years. As I said, the most awesome album he's done in ages, and perfection from start to finish.
PRPGROUP: Babylard & Beyond LTD 2CD
Never heard of this band before? Oh, believe me, you will now - and then some. For this - THIS - is the finest new UK band on the planet right now - and you have to get this album. It's fierce - fierce to the point of brain overload, but in such a way that you become totally addicted to it. Influences? Similarities? Try Can, Hawkwind, Magma, Brotzmann, Amon Duul, Velvet Underground, Kluster, Metabolist - that's just the main ones!!! - and you can probably lay odds on the fact that the musicians have never heard most of them! Music? Awesome - just awesome. This debut album consists of all the music on two double CDEP's that they sent to me and which I requested as a single album, something the band duly obliged to do - and the result is nothing short of jaw-dropping. The first six tracks are from the 'Babylard' and 'Penfruit' EP's and to say that this music will blow you away is a massive understatement. Across six tracks and 37 minutes of music, the band create their own brand of music that fires holes in the best that "Krautrock", space-rock and "Le Rock Francais" ever had to offer.
'Cascade' opens proceedings with this driving rhythm from the bass and drums, over which electric guitar chords do rapid-fire cascade riffing as the track bursts into life and takes you along with it, almost like a meeting of 'True Wheel'-style Eno and Metabolist, only harder and faster, with the drummer pounding away like the kit is about to explode and the sound just sensational. Yet, unbelievably, this is only the starter course - the main course erupts into life on track two, 'Tombola', where things REALLY start to take hold, opening with this amazingly deep, resonant electronic bass drone that climbs and climbs as a mix of 'You Shouldn't Do That'-style Hawkwind and 'Halleluwah'-style Can, mix to perfection as the two drive alongside each other and the whole feel and sound of that era Hawkwind is right there in front of you, only way more powerful, with generator space effects, Turner-like intonations, driving guitars, punishing bass and thunderous drums, the bass and drums veering amazingly close to 'You Doo Right' style Can before the guitar suddenly spews forth a welter of chords and steaming leads that takes the piece into an even more amazing dimension that what you've heard so far, and all the time that bass and drums are pounding away like the devil was playing them. It's just THE most amazing sound I've heard in years and so addictive - it's the musical equivalent of a hard drug (I would imagine!!). Once heard, you just want more!!! Luckily, even though this track is only 7 minutes long, you do get more - but not right away. 'Ebola' arrives with an electronic drone that would annoy cattle at a distance of miles, sounding for all the world like an amplified electric shaver - and THEN you get what you want!! The drums pile in, the bass powers up, and the rhythm team hurtles into the sun. Then, if that wasn't enough already, the bass goes up several notches and this amazing mix of driving drums, growling bass and electronics races ahead - only to stop and go into industrial space music mode for over a minute before the rhythm section returns and the track dives towards a massively powerful blistering end as the sun sucks it in for the last time.
Then it's the turn of the 'Penfruit' EP's tracks to come into play, as 'qqq' starts things off with lurching, fast-ish, powerful rhythms, again the electric bass taking a pivotal role as the guitar chords are located deep down in the mix, the drums taking centre stage in classic Jaki Liebezeit fashion, and then the whole band comes in - and the piece stops abruptly. 'Dinky Little Rings' opens with electronic blips, twittering percussion and electronic backdrops before, very quickly, the mix of driving drums, bass and space-electronics enters, and the whole thing powers onwards like a mix of classic early seventies Can with the space-rock sensibilities of Hawkwind and the bass power of vintage Magma, the band creating a sound that is just mind-blowing, especially when turned up really loud, ass this combination of shearing guitar riffs, shards of guitars chords and muscular rhythms flames into life and fuels your imagination to a degree you'd never have thought possible. Finally, for this segment, it's 'tchds' and here, if things haven't already taken over your head with musical magic, they will now, as the band really let loose and this time the bass threatens to take your house with it, while the drums crunch ever on and the electric guitar swirls, snarls and sears like a thing possessed, but always the guitar keeping within structured limits, powerful but never overly upfront, the rest as if not more important to the overall sound. Ending on a finale of THE most awesome bass sound you've heard in years allied to searing electric guitar and massively lurching drums, this is simply breathtaking and then some - and the best bit is that, allowing for the bonus EP, you're still less than halfway through!!!! Next up it's the turn of the 'Snib' EP as twenty-two minutes of tracks follow in easily as good a vein as everything that's gone before, so you can be sure that the standard and consistency of the awesome music you've previously heard, is maintained and, if anything, improved, as the sonic hurricane continues, again, more incredible work from the drums, bass, guitar and electronics making each track something that is just one sensational experience after another.
The album ends with the one 17 minute track that was EP number four, a track called 'Sunpie In A Custard Sky' and if you thought that the bass work, drums, and guitar off something like 'De Futura' was awesome, just wait until you hear the electric bass that takes centre stage for the first few minutes of this track - you WILL be transfixed and utterly blown away as the lurching drums, driving drum, guitar splinters and distant electronics create a melting pot over which this massive growling bass slowly drives, as the guitars strike out and peel off in all directions, the whole thing turning into a blazing musical supernova of almighty proportions and still, you are less than five minutes into a 17 minute track. This amazing section continues to the nine minute point before the melting pot moves down from boiling point as twittering electronics, slowly pounding bass and rolling drums conjure a mix of Can & Magma, Metabolist & Brotzmann in a spacey black hole. Around 12 minutes, the electric bass gets put on "maximum" and lays waste to everything in its path as, together with the extraordinary guitar chords that are pouring out of the speakers, the massive bass, the slow, deliberate Can-like drums all just roll unstoppably onwards to an amazing end point when they all just……end. That's it - the main album - the end - the end of everything - all you can do now is go back and relive it - for there is nothing like this experience around today.
HOWEVER……if you're lucky, you'll be able to carry on with the bonus EP that comes with the album in the form of the incendiary twenty-two minutes that is the 'Soilpipe' EP, and if you thought you'd heard the band at its most intense up to now, then think again, because some of the action on this EP is the equivalent of being hit by a runaway truck as the bass, drums and guitars are all turned right up and the compositions go for the jugular in no uncertain terms. Massive and not a second out of place.
So, you know what I think - you owe it to yourself to experience this album a heady trip that you'll want to repeat and repeat from now till kingdom come - one seriously awesome set of music.
QUARKSPACE: Node In Peril CD
The brand new, seventy minute, studio album for 2004, complete with 16 page comic booklet by renowned underground artist, Matt Howarth. All instrumental, this album is very much in keeping with the immaculate 'Spacefolds' series of releases. This time we're talking space-rock, or probably to be more precise, cosmic-rock, for most of the tracks, while possessing slow to mid-paced rhythmic backings, and founded on beds of ever-present electric bass and distant drums, are taken at a pace more befitting something like the more rhythmic excursions of the first two classic Cosmic Jokers albums, and it is with those albums that this epic journey shares more than a passing similarity. Built on layers and textures of synths, mellotrons, electric guitars and the aforementioned rhythm backings, the whole thing is a wonderfully constructed and warm analogue-sounding voyage through the heart of space, with that whole seventies feel very much prevalent throughout. The music and layers change constantly while the music moves on so that you are always engaged by the unfolding delights. The layers and textures shift effortlessly, and the effect is magical, the sound full and the body of the music solid and substantial yet at the same time cosmic and atmospheric. If you like the Cosmic Jokers albums, the previous 'Spacefolds' series of Quarkspace albums or anything that mixes slow space-rock with seventies sounding electronic Krautrock, then this will be on your CD player for years to come - it's just brilliant and so repeat playable on every level. Their finest CD so far and essential listening.
RADIO DYSTOPIA: Beyond The Radar CD
Oh, now this is getting silly - another CD that is simply awesome but which I couldn't describe in detail without still being here this time tomorrow. Musically, it's just so addictive, and has strong elements of Gunther Schicket (the cyclical guitarist), Gottsching, Namlook & La Neu!, as its seven tracks and forty-plus minutes of music illustrate. The electronic drum rhythms are heavy, crunchy and resonant, where featured, while that cyclical spacey guitar work swirls around, although the presence of some red hot electric guitar soloing only adds to the mighty effect. The sound is always taken up with a myriad layers and textures, rhythms and samples, and in many ways, you could almost imagine it being a UK-based, Krautrock-influenced answer to something like Arthur Loves Plastic. The tracks are all consistently excellent, instrumental and full of guitars, rhythms, bass, electronics and synths, but decidedly in a "parallel-world-meets-Krautrock" style of things. Highly recommended!!!
SMOKE & MIRRORS: The Perfume Of Creosote CD
Now it's not often that I'm flummoxed, but this thing's got me beaten - what on earth category do you put it in? Is it prog-rock - or psychedelic - or ambient - or contemporary - or what? It's got all those and more across a staggering twenty-three tracks over 78 minutes of instrumental music. Bearing in mind I don't have the time to do a track-by-track breakdown, it's then very difficult to describe it as a whole. First off, it's rhythmic throughout, with chunky drums and deep bass that you'd find on something resembling a mix of Can, Banco de Gaia & early Ozrics. Then there's the melodies - lots and lots of layers of synths, keyboards and guitars, all presented in easily digestible chunks that are incredibly addictive, tunes like prog, atmospheres like ambience, powerful like Krautrock and heady like psychedelia - yet all so clean and full-sounding in terms of arrangements and production. I have to say that I loved every minute of it, but who out there is going to buy it without a great leap of faith in my - and others - review, I really couldn't say. Something so different shouldn't be this good - but it is.
TEK-SAN: Radio Tek-San CD
Don't you DARE ask me to "pigeon-hole" this album - I wouldn't know where to start - and I can categorise most things!! What is it? Well, sort of prog in a Crimson-ish vein, psychedelic, Krautrock, ambient, jazzy - I mean, that's just part of it. The first track, 'Bosphorus' is quite atmospheric but with electronic drum rhythms as squalls of electric guitar, echoed flute, effects, layers and textures are all added to create this bubbling cauldron of ambient-psych-jazz-Krautrock that is fantastically brooding and out of this world, totally unlike anything else around. But if that was good for starters, wait till you hit 'Transmolecularization Dub' as this IMMENSE Tony Levin-like bass rumbles away on the bottom, aided by some chunky drum programming, and over which this echoed trumpet squall soars and dives like some mental seagull, while all around more electronic textures are layered. Then, if that wasn't enough, this Hillage-like echoed guitar figure comes out of nowhere then disappears, the drums becoming ever more chunky, the bass still rumbling on, the sound still full of subtleties and nuances., but so beefy as to be untrue. All of this, guitar and all, continues to fire up as it goes, creating a piece that will surely take your breath away, time after time, ten minutes of heaven.
'Hieroglyphics' begins with more sampled rhythms of an electronic drum-sounding nature, only this time the bass is altogether more restrained but no less funky, while all around the sonic arena, carefully crafted effects, guitar figures, sampled voices and more give the whole piece an almost ambient-world-prog-Kraut feel, as the rhythms chug away, the soundscapes are stripped bare and the almost alien nature of the music is left, highly rhythmic, very atmospheric and positively tribal, slowly building the layers as it resumes its travels. After this, each of the further four mid-length tracks revolves around setting up a myriad of soundscapes and textures above, behind and around the central core rhythmic framework that is created on the sampled, programmed drums and electronic drums, the whole effect being absolutely mesmerizing, original and simply excellent music, nothing challenging, but nothing obvious at the same time. The signpost to "new music" will have a copy of this CD's cover firmly stapled to it.
WILDHOUSE: Ficca EP CD
Around thirty minutes of music, with 3 short tracks and 1 eighteen minute monster of a track. Musically we're talking Can-Neu-Velvet Underground, not only at their finest, but even eclipsed. Opening with the title track, you hear Sheila's massive drumming, here working on two floor-mounted drums and drumming standing up, that immediately grabs your attention as you'll swear you've come into some lost vintage Neu or Can album. Over this, a swirling sea of guitar layers, textures, chords and chimes is heard from the two guitarists, the band being simply a trio of two guitarists and drummer. Over this, a brief male vocal wafts in sounding like the guy out of New Order, and just perfect in context of the music, but then the vocal stops while the drumming intensity continues, the guitars soar and climb, then out of nowhere this searing electric lead guitar scorches into view with a solo that will have the hairs standing on the back of your neck, as all around the drumming and guitars cruise towards the all-too-soon final moments. The even shorter 'String Theory' is similar, only less guitar intense, here with a more early Velvets quality to another, even briefer vocal, Sheila's drumming on fire and on top, while the sound of chiming Neu-esque guitars suddenly becomes enveloped in a glorious squall of feedback, this whole section coming around again after, and ending in a blaze of lead guitar, fuzzed guitar howl, feedback and massive drumming thunder - simply awesome and the best three minutes you'll hear.
If all this didn't have you in raptures, the next track will leave you a dribbling wreck, as the full might of the band is unleashed on the 18 minute 'Vanilla' where the combination of acres upon acres of guitars - textural, layered, squalls, fuzzed, sonic Krautrock attack, feedback howls and fiery leads - soar, dive and flow over the monumental drumming attack that is unleashed, and as musical cauldrons go, this one is red hot, on fire and infinitely enjoyable. The drumming pace starts at thunderous, decelerates, then drives even faster before alternating rhythmic intensity as the guitars soar, layers unfold and disappear to leave wondrously chiming, melodic sections, as the pace picks up once more, the guitars gather strength and the whole thing builds to boiling point, while your head is a smoking ruin somewhere between heaven and the endless depths of the universe. Dinger, Rother, Liebezeit and all, in their most intense outings, would surely have killed to have been able to sound like this - it's utter musical nirvana, and turned way up loud has an effect like no other. If you like this, then you have got to see the band live, because it's this magnified a hundred times - and is the most awesome sound you'll come across in this musical context. The final track on the EP is a complete contrast, as a two minute slice of early seventies Dead-meets-Velvets style alt-country ensues, but even this is founded on that solid drumming as the chiming Byrds-like guitars cruise over the Garcia-like vocal and female backing vocal, again just perfect in the context and feel of a truly groundbreaking, remarkable and timeless musical tour-de-force that is this EP -stunning doesn't even come close!!!
YETI: Volume Obliteration Transcendence CD
A new studio album - following the amazing instrumental Magma-influenced debut - and this one's even better. A trio playing mainly bass, drums and guitars, with added mellotrons and synths for extra textures, this remains a huge behemoth of a band, playing muscular music founded in the finest "Zeuhl" traditions and simply amazing to hear from start to finish. With just four tracks in 53 minutes, you'll hear some of th most intence and amazing instrumental work from this awesome sounding band, as giant electric bass colludes with crunching, rolling drums as searing electric guitar leads fly off like rockets and the synth effects put the final colour in the painting. The 12 minute 'Cusp of something you don't understand' really opens the album by going for the jugular, while the 15 minute 'Strangled by light' is even more Magma-esque with similar sounding background vocals that take you right into the heart of seventies Magma, only this time a Magma with skull-grinding bass and drums, scorching guitar riffs, but here an added mellotron choir and swirling space synths, all making for a track that builds and builds, drives and explodes, and one incredible piece of music that no Magma fan should even consider living without. The 6 minute 'Blood Lotus' strides out with bass upfront, guitar red hot and rolling drums while the album ends with a 19 minute track that starts quietly, begins to build on a bed of mellotron, synth and electric bass - a sound that is breathtaking - that rises to the 9 minute point before the band erupts and this immense wall of guitars, bass and drums comes howling out at you like a rabid dog. The intensity just increases and increases to the 15 minute mark when the whole thing implodes to reveal this amazing Magma-sounding strident rhythm over which the electric guitar just ignites.