Karamika (self titled)

There’s about 10 shows I listen to regularly that make my wishlist increase every time, and so much enjoyment am I having going through their old shows that I haven’t actually listened to the full albums in question yet…

So I did this one, and despite it being at the more expensive end of the digital albums available, I’m still seriously considering bumping this to the head of the queue. It ticks all those buttons that make music conducive to catatonia, I mean, it’s trancey as all fuck.

This is one of those albums where you actually can just refer to each track by its number. I mean, the whole thing works as a cohesive whole, but say you wanted to highlight, say, track 5, you don’t have to worry about remembering the title.

There may be a whole academic treatise available to someone in this observation – back when I bought vinyl, I used to know the name of every song on every album I bought, same with tapes. Once I moved into CDs, that became slightly less perfect. Now I’m digital only, I struggle to remember song names at all until I’ve heard them about 20 times unless the name jumps out, and that’s just the albums in English. Quantity may have something to do with it, but there’s something else at play as well. I remember reading some while back the suggestion that human memory started to atrophy with the advent of writing because before we could write things down somewhere we needed to have epic memories in order to remember things. As the amount of storage for memory has increased over the years, with books and then TV/Film, and then digital with all dem server farms, so we don’t need to remember anything any more, we can all just look it up. And then forget what we just looked up. Did someone say progress?

Anyway, ignore my ramblings and listen to the music.

One Unique Signal – Aether

So a while ago I bought ‘The Drift‘ by these (did I post about it? I don’t remember doing so) which is wonderfully hypnotic and is kind of my go-to album for when my playlist only takes until about 20 minutes before I hit the hay; it’s a perfect EP for that sort of gap, especially the closing track.

But this is an entirely different beast. I suspect the line-up was different. Maybe they were jamming with peak-Oneida, as that’s who I kept thinking of when I was listening to it. And because of that, I love it. I think it might be one for more in the midst of a hectic playlist, though, rather than the wind-down before bedtime.

And I love the cover.

Sula Bassana .​.​.​And The Nasoni Pop Art Experimental Band​-​Vol​.​1

This here dates from 2006 and is a remastered version, though I would be lying if I said I knew about the original.

This can be filed under ‘psych-rock’ for those of you who like to file things under headings. It’s not much like Electric Moon or most of his solo stuff; indeed, this seems to be a kind of super-group of the era, although you can label any musical collective where the members all have different histories a super-group if you want to. Do you want to? I’m not going to. That way madness lies. Also, this is how words/phrases lose their meaning.

The title, of course, implies at least another volume.

Wasted Cathedral – I’m Gonna Love You ‘Til The End Of Time

I’m probably the last person to comment on the incongruity of artist name versus album title. I actually have nothing useful to say, other than that, to me, the combination is incongruous.

Meh. Regardless, the album is really rather good, and by really rather good, I mean excellent. My only minor quibble is that the short pieces are good enough ideas in their own right to be fleshed out further than they are, but as long as they’re good, right? Right.

The longer pieces are well trancey, which is something I’ve rattled on about loads before so I won’t again, except to say that if you want to lose youself in some monging drone, then this here is for you.

Dude here also does other things – The Switching Yard, The Radiation Flowers, and Shooting Guns.

I actually meant to post this the other day with those other two posts I did, but my mind went blank. There was also another one too, but that isn’t actually released til the 23rd of this month and you all know how I feel about posting stuff that isn’t actually available yet. I’ll try and remember on the 23rd.

Oriente Lux (self titled)

So, that thing I was saying the other day, about seeming like a proper fanboy. Well, I must seem like a PR plant for Valerio Cosi sometimes. Or, at least I would if Soundbergs had a following.

Here Valerio collaborates with Brad Rose, something that took longer than a decade to bear fruit. It is a truly sturdy resulting flower of music, as eclectic as I’ve come to expect, and as difficult to describe. (Cue rambling old man rant about how music shouldn’t be described because it can’t be described, just experienced).

Gnod – Easy to build, hard to destroy

Because I mentioned this to Chris on Saturday. This is probably my go to Gnod album at the moment. This is them doing trance and repetition unto infinity.

For those unfamiliar, this is a compilation of tracks, jams and grooves from earlier in their history. These days they tend to the louder and angrier, and whilst it’s still good, I always preferred this approach.

I mentioned on one of my posts yesterday about Tony’s First Communion, amongst my fave ever tunes. Well, there’s a kind of proto-version of it on here. It’s not the the same as the one on Crystal Pagoda, which is also well worth your time.

Valerio Cosi – Heavy Electronic Pacific Rock

This album title may make you expect something other than you will get. One more reason to love it.

See, this album has been a part of my life for well over a decade, now. I posted it not long after starting Soundbergs using a Youtube link. However, the great man has now added it to his bandcamp, remastered.

Simply put, this is among my very favourite albums ever. Despite the length of time it’s been in my collection, it still gets played regularly. The opener in particular has a strong claim to ‘favourite peice of music, ever’ (although I don’t believe in absolute favourites and would never dream of compiling some kind of all time top ten or any other arbitrary number).

This music is trance in its purest form, and absolutely ecstatic at that.

Amon Acid – Ψ

Although, as any fule know, assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups, I’m going to assume that what they mean by Ψ is Psychology, as when I did my degree in that we used that symbol as a shorthand rather than writing psychology all the time. Yes, Writing. This was in the 90s. We still wrote things then.

I initially found the vocals a bit difficult to live with but by the time the album finished I was at one with their place in the sound. I quite like the descriptor of ‘space rock world music’ though this should sit well in any neo-psych fans headspace.

I note they’ve been busy of late (or just made a heap of stuff available on Bandcamp in a short space of time) so there’s more of their grooves to check out too should this be to your liking.

Stara Rzeka and M. Takara – Live at CCSP

Both of these gentlemen have visited the ‘bergs before and by rights should probably visit more often but I’m not conscientious enough in doing new posts. Blame it on the new post-editing software which isn’t quite as intuitive as it claims itself to be.

So this release is a recording of a show they did after having only jammed for 90 minutes prior. The music itself is the best kind of improvisational maelstrom, hypnotic as all fuck. If you was down with the recent Gnod & João Pais Filipe collaboration, this may well be your thang.

Abronia – The Whole of Each Eye

I reckon I was Spanish, or at least mediterranean, in a previous life (totally a thing). That period of an afternoon between 1ish and 4ish is just not me at my best. It’s just coming up to 4pm now and I’m beginning to perk up a bit. Do you know how hard it is to stay awake and look at spreadsheets at the same time in normal circumstances? Well, what about when you should be having a siesta? What’s worse, I think I picked the wrong time to suggest that we Brits might want to consider some more European levels of humanity in our working lives…

None of which has anything to do with the music at hand. The music at hand is by someone who’s been here before. They’re just as good this time, if not more so.