Menimals

Well, now, here’s a thing.

After being hat tipped by the mighty Heathen, I went to the Riot Season bandcamp, I did, and checked out the teaser tune. And I quite liked it, but wanted to hear more before deciding whether I wanted to buy it or not. So I rooted around (alright, then, I looked slightly further down the results page) and found the Menimals original bandcamp page which also has a self titled album on it, with the same opening track. And the whole damn thing was listenable, and the whole damn thing was mighty fine indeed.

But here’s the aforementioned thing: apart from the opening track, the tracklistings on these two self titled albums do not match. Are they actually different albums?

I hope so, because self titled number one is just so darn good. Dark and menacing, to be sure, this isn’t an uplifting set of music. Not guaranteed to break the ice at parties. Imagine The Bad Seeds doing the mid-90s Bristol sound – Tricky at his most menacing, perhaps. One of the songs had me thinking of Underworld doing The Bad Seeds with the latter’s instrumentation, and the final song becomes really intense, a bit like Hey Colossus in their sludgier days. I also find myself reminded of the intersection of jazz with electronica and trip hop, for example The Lifeforce Trio and Triosk, although that may be more due to atmospheric reasons.

Anywho, I’ve embedded the original one since you can listen to all of that. And if you look at the artists description on the page…

Lamagaia

After I last hat-tipped Backseat Mafia, I wandered around their psych section again and came up with this little beauty. Totally a band after my own heart.

As far as I can tell, we’re talking about some friends in Sweden who get together and jam out some music. I think they do it quite regularly, and they make alot of it available on their website to simply download. They’ve made a few available on youtube too. Finally, you also are able to actually buy one of their songs on vinyl, which would probably be dead good for those of you who can play vinyl.

They’re not afraid of the long form jam, hence why I love ’em so much! The grooves are compelling. They remind me somewhat of Inutuli although not as abrasive, and what I especially like about them is the fact that almost all of their tunes seem to have vocals, which can be quite a rarity within the ‘jam-band’ genre (the wonderful Electric Moon are another example).
I’ve only explored about a third of the downloads available so far, and am totally looking forward to the rest. There are some ace pics, though. A band I would love to be jamming in, and no mistake (actually, when I was in Sons of Itto and we had our own rehearsal room, we very often created similar vibes to some of the pics with minimal lighting, lavalamps and stuff. good times).

Dreamtime

In more ways than one.

Actually, I’m writing about a band from Australia called Dreamtime, at least on this occasion. Very good they are too. Come to my attention, they have, because Captcha records are putting their two albums out on vinyl about two or three days ago, but don’t be fooled into thinking my finger has accidentally stumbled into the vicinity of the pulse as these things have been out a while digitally. And the irony is, I don’t have a vinyl player so won’t be buying the vinyl. Or at least, probably won’t. And actually, that’s not what irony is. I think. I personally don’t care if my clothes are creased.

It has a quite 70s sunny, west coast vibe to the music. There are some really good hypnotic riffs, and the overall atmosphere is nice and chilled. Some ears may think there are experimental elements here – certainly they are quite varied and clearly unafraid to try different approaches. There seems to be a male and a female vocalist, either is happy to take the lead. They also do instrumentals, utilise drones and do the raga thing when it suits. And all of the foregoing are really good.

I had a real tip of the tongue moment when listening to the ‘Sun’ album just now about who it put me most in mind of, but unfortunately it never left the tip of my tongue so I can’t use it as a sign post. Maybe if you like Carlton Melton you may like Dreamtime? I like Carlton Melton and I like Dreamtime.

 

Flowers Must Die

It’s about time I wrote of something relatively contemporary this year, although the argument can be made that if something is turning you on now, then it is contemporary, regardless of when it was made. Fashion – there’s the door. Don’t slam it. I’m listening to Flowers Must Die.

Hat tip goes to the Psych Insight column over at Backseat Mafia.

They’re a Swedish band, and the Parson Sound influence is obvious, particularly on the ‘Greatest Hits (live)’ album (I love that they called it that) which most definitely qualifies as music my brother wouldn’t like as the shortest song is 8 minutes, and the longest is 54. This is music to properly get lost in. As the title suggests, these are live recordings. I think music of this nature really benefits from being captured live.

The tunes on Psykjunta/Parsonligt Sound are much shorter, and also more uptempo. The other release I can tell you about is Hoga Nord which is back in the realm of the longer, more meditative tunage that I personally find so appealing, with Eastern influences more prevalent. There are other releases too. I love when bands do that. I shall check them out whenever I check them out, and tell you about the good ones in one of my updates.

Phil Cohran & Legacy – African Skies

Despite the fact that I don’t think I need to discover anything ‘new’ for at least 16 years now to give me time to absorb all the music I have come to know, I nevertheless find myself being a sucker for lists of other artists recommendations, even if I don’t really listen to the music of that artist in question. Case in point – the recent listed feature by Rhyton over at Dusted in Exile contains some good tunes, but it introduced me to this beautiful album by Kelan Phil Cohran, alumni from Sun Ra’s majestic school of thinking freely who composed this tribute after Sun Ra’s death.

I am at even more of a loss for words than is usual with this album. It is simply stunning. One of the albums I would play to any visiting alien as the an example of the superlative best that humanity can offer. Big words, I know, and I don’t usually like that sort of hyperbole. It sounds completely timeless, genre-less – a meditation on life, perhaps.

The nearest frame of reference I can give you from things that I know would be Alice Coltrane, perhaps the Journey in Satchidananda, which I have just discovered features Pharoah Sanders, whose work I cannot recommend too  much – if this cosmic jazz vibe that I’m laying on you is to your taste then seek out his work too.

The CD is available here, although you can’t actually listen to any of it there which is odd for bandcamp. Maybe a licensing thing. So here’s another youtube: