I only have three* words for this.
This is brilliant.
Actually, make that four.
This is fucking brilliant.
Vinyl is available here.
*(I realise there are actually more than four words above. Thank you. You can see yourself out).
We interrupt this day at work to write a hasty blog post in my tea break about this group who have just been brought to my attention courtesy of Isiah Mitchell’s Trippy Jam blog, which may go long periods without updates but is guaranteed to drop some gems your way if you keep it on your radar.
3rd Ear Experience do that improvisational space rock cosmic groove thing that you need in your life. I’m reminded of Our Solar System, whom I obvioulsy love in a way mere words cannot capture, and also (a mellower) Ozric Tentacles. These are not short tunes. They are recorded on the outskirts of a desert, and a desert has no time for pop music as any fule kno.
The particular album I’ve embedded is a couple of years old, and doesn’t have the tune that was on the Trippy Jam post, so I’ll be trying to track that down in order to wistfully stare at it too.
Also, 3rd Ear Experience number Doug Pinnick from Kings X among their ranks. Now, I used to listen to Gretchen Goes to Nebraska quite a lot back in the early 90s, round about the same era that I listened to Tribe a lot. Around the time I did the Tribe post I did also wonder about Kings X. Obviously it’s a complete coincidence that this should land, then. Obviously. A. Complete. Coincidence.
Really like this, though, and will be checking out what other stuff I can find by them.
Coming from the same band naming tradition as Mr Mister, Aussie band Mt. Mountain bring you a far more palatable laid back groove.
Dust is four tracks of fairly mellow psych-desert sounds, with one explosive exception around 11 minutes into the opening title track, itself an epic 17 minutes long and clearly the centre-piece and foundation of the album. The build-up is one of my favourite musical things, the pulse and the groove are really good. It’s laid back, but not in a sleepy way – you can definitely feel the impending climax. It actually reminds me a bit of certain 90s Goa-style sounds at their more ambient end. Before the guitars kick in, anyway.
The most obvious reference point to these ears is The Myrrors, so if you like them, do check these out.
Methinks somebody has been reading their Carlos Castaneda.
Sonora are from Russia, which also plays home to Gnoomes, who my friend loves in an unhealthy way, and also the artist of the next post that will follow this one in some time frame or other, depending on how interrupted I get by the kids.
Musically, this is a very spacey, desert-rock sort of vibe. I’m mostly put in mind of a slightly crunchier The Myrrors without the flutes, or a mellower Dreamtime, with the circular and cyclical riffs that play such a large role. It’s instrumental, and that means it has to have something about it in my book. And it is a perfect accompaniment for a slightly bleary-eyed Saturday morning.
The second of the three promos I mentioned what were dead good, like. This is a split release, combining an a group with whom I am totally unfamiliar with a group of whom I am more than slightly familiar.
Centralstodet have been described as Prog rock and as space rock in the whole two reviews I’ve sought out on t’net; I myself put them in that ‘jam band’ genre on the basis of the tunes included here. I might think differently when I hear some of the other stuff. There’s a bit of an edge to what they do, though one man’s edge is another man’s middle, as I once saw a self of mine write. For example, Colour Horizon called an earlier release of theirs ‘harsh,’ but I wonder if he’s ever seen Merzbow live? I have.
The Myrrors only contribute one track, but that one track is 20 minutes of possibly their finest recorded music to date. It is wonderfully spacious, meditative and hypnotic, and I reckon it would soundtrack a mellow initiation ritual in the desert, were such things ever to happen, because obviously assigning such judgements is my area of expertise (I’ve never been to a real desert, though I have been to something called an outback, I don’t think it’s the same thing as there were grasses and bushes and everything).
You can get this on vinyl, if you do vinyl, here.
So I went to see The Myrrors last night at Duffy’s Bar, a very enjoyable night which reminded me I hadn’t flagged to the world that I love Arena Negra, their album from earlier this year. So this post is really to rectify that.
But anywho, whilst there I was talking to my long time friend in musical explorations about how I rarely dive into a bands back catalogue now, unlike when I was younger and tended to go full completist on everything (there are a couple of current exceptions – guess who? and well, obviously).
So when starting this post I decided to see what else they had.
On the strength of last nights wonderful music, I am therefore going to give all of these things a listen. Those of you unfamiliar with The Myrrors would do well to check out the embedded album below, for I love it very much. These are one of a few bands who are noticeably beginning to channel the wonderful Parson Sound (another being the awesome Les Sorciers du Theil), a band who history will soon regard as the true godfathers of psychedelic rock. I’m going to dedicate a post to Parson Sound soon, actually.
But they do very much their own thing. You can hear the desert in their music, so much space is there (I find the same thing with many of the desert blues acts of North Africa, particularly Tinariwen). There is also a hint of tribal rhythms, and I could easily imagine listening / jamming to this round an actual campfire, probably in the desert (the only desert I’ve seen or been to is the one in Australia; admittedly it’s not a small one, although technically it might actually be an ‘outback’). Don’t know what we’d use for electricity, though. Maybe we could plug into a salamander? I’ve heard those things have juice.
Soundbergs 