It was towards the end of last year I discovered these ‘dogs of the Western Jazz society, looking for dope,’ probably around the time I got into the Villagers of Ioannina City – not that I was consciously going after rock music from the balkans; sometimes this stuff just happens that way.
What we are hearing is a kind of prog-psych fusion, at least to my ears. The meat of their music is repetitive, heavy and long, with doses of chanting vocals thrown in – there’s something very masculine about it all. What is more, they are single-handedly seeing to the death AND resurrection of krautrock, a decidedly dangerous task only to be even contemplated by the hardiest of musical shamen.
All their stuff is worth hearing, but my personal favourite – and hence the one I’m going to embed – is the collaboration they did with Kawabata Makoto of Acid Mothers Temple, called The Men From Dystopia. Imagine what I’ve typed above but with added space noises and freakouts – now go away and clean yourself up, dirty boy.
This one really is not for the short of attention span, but if you’re familiar with AMT then I don’t suppose shortness of duration is part of the expectation, anyway.
Expect trance, firsthand.
Soundbergs 