Opossum Sun Trail – Death Raga Run​-​on Sentence

I don’t remember how I came across this one but it was on one of my tabs this morning when I turned the PC on so I listened to it. And now I’m posting it.

I always have my browsers open on the tabs they were closed on exactly so I can leave stuff open that I intend to come back to. This does have the downside of meaning that some things that can be on there weeks before I get round to it. On this PC, most of the tabs are actually Youtube videos that the kids last watched, or Roblox games that the kids last played. Tuesday morning before my later than normal start is pretty much the only time I get to catch up, barring the occasional Sunday afternoon.

 

 

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.

 

Sungod

It is one of the ironies of doing this blog that nearly every post is written whilst at work, usually in an environment when I can’t listen to the music that my researches throw up alongside my subject of the day (in other words, on the service desk in a library in between enquiries). 

So I (re)discovered Sungod as a result of trawling the 2015 year end lists, I can’t remember which – I don’t think they had a place on said list, more that they were referenced. The album that I checked out was Contackt from 2013, and I am here to tell you that it fair blew my mind much more effectively than the howling winds that have been such a feature of the UK’s weather these last few months. My particular favourite track is ‘Smell of Physiqal’ which marries monstrous riffing a la Sleep with late 90s Goa style trance-techno, and definitely ranks as my discovery of the year so far. In fact, that description could be profitably used for much of the album, inasmuch as words have any value at all when describing music.

Turns out that buried somewhere on my hard drive was Cuts from the Ether which someone must have copied for me some time back. Turns out that’s nearly as good.

May I also commend to you Vision Space which features extra free jazz into the mix, as they cover a composition of Sun Ra, and which is also a very pleasurable listening experience? I can? Good.

So going back to my opening paragraph, I learn that Sungod now release music via Holodeck records, the home of a previous subject of mine, the marvellous Thousand Foot Whale Claw. So this makes the dipping into of their catalogue a task which I now add to the many other sonic tasks ahead of me, most of which I’m trying to accomplish back at my desk whilst at work, because home life is almost exclusively One Dog Clapping now once the kids are in bed. I also find the now neglected but nonetheless containing of intriguing links which is Sungod’s blog so there be some other stuff that my instinct tells me I must check… fun times! As I mentioned before, this is a brilliant problem to have. Would I rather there was a dearth of good music just so I could keep on top of it?

Crow Tongue

I promised loud, and actually this is… intense.

Much like the album from Valerio Cosi that I bigged up some posts back, Ghost : Eye : Seeker doesn’t seem to be fully listenable online anywhere so you’re going to have to take my word for it, although you can listen to a couple of the tracks here and here.

For those of us who have some experiences amongst altered states of consciousness (although technically watching TV is an alteration of your consciousness, albeit reducing its scope; I mean in the way our culture currently understands the term) this album is a route into a different way of seeing that requires no extra inputs. Playing this album in the background is a waste of electricity; you have to engage and listen to it. It will put you in a trance-like state every time. Well, it does me.

Other people have used words like raga, drone, avant-garde, free noise, improvisation in trying to describe this. Certainly those words make sense once you’ve heard it, but they are not complete descriptors (can any words be? This attempt by Julian Cope, much as I respect him and his music, represents exactly why I don’t want to try too hard to describe music myself… although I am fully on board with the sentiment). All I can say is thank the lord for random fans putting up songs on Youtube so that you can listen to at least some of it, although the second clip I linked has to have pretty much the least relevant image to accompany a song I’ve ever seen.

As for why I’ve categorised this as experimental psychedelia, I personally ‘define’ music as psychedelic due to the effect it may have on my consciousness rather than whatever stylistic conventions it may follow. I shall get more into this on part 3 of my ‘passion or pastiche‘ series.