Impossible Colours - Circleoflies

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Here’s a nice little offering from our German friends: a three song long EP offering a look at fuzzed out, classical stoner/psychedelic rock with a more concise, melodic edge, complete with lyrics, choruses, solos, codas and all the standard song structures. The cover doesn’t give any clue, but this EP will have you thinking of hot women (or men, depending on sex/orientation, this is an all-friendly blog ;) ), even hotter American classic muscle cars and, most of all, sweet sweet sticky dank buds. Check out the groovy bass licks and the relaxing organ workouts in “Dunerider”, for example. Or the fuzzed-out guitar solo in “Circus of Life”. Man, makes me miss the 70’s even though I was born in the late 80’s.

http://www.impossiblecolours.com

Impossible Colours - Circleoflies (MP3 320kbps) 

Impossible Colours - Circleoflies (WAV, CD quality)

Review: Datashock - Live.Love.Data$

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(Cassette, Eiderdown Records, 2013)

Is the title of the newest cassette by the German grusekraut collective Datashock an obvious reference to the album by the NYC rapper A$AP Rocky? Yes, it is.

Are there any similarities between that album and the Eiderdown cassette? No, there aren’t. Well, actually, if someone would look real hard, they would probably draw a connection between the band’s calmer moments and the ambient-infused work of producer Clams Casino, but let’s not get that far. If there are any parallels that can be drawn between A$AP Rocky and Datashock, it is their mutual love for the sweet leaf (and while the Germans never explicitly mention it anywhere, their music speaks for themselves).

Let’s stay with the cold, hard facts: Datashock, similaringly to their psychedelic Japanese forefathers Acid Mothers Temple, like to refer to other/more known artists and albums in their own albums. They both embrace the atmosphere of freedom and don’t prefer to limit themselves to a tight, closely-knit rules of what constitues a musical composition or a song. Recorded while making the stellar “Pyramiden von Gießen” LP, the two lengthy tracks hit the similar vibe of hippie commune abandon and drugged out freedom that should be the staple of every freewheeling psychedelic collecitve.

The first few opening minutes of “Into the Abyss” is almost ambient: a drumless, somewhat melancholic and slowly unfolding vista with faraway synth notes and droning, ritualstic vocals and an electric guitar that is just barely there, only to remind the listener of its existence with shyly played notes. The break comes around the 8th minute mark, with the bass kicking in to lock a groove, the electric guitar that provides sparse, yet crucial blasts and some drums to finally provide a sense of rhythm. From that moment on, the jam gains power and gets more amplified, to get to the stonery, fuzzy end much in the vein of the electric-guitar oriented Kraftwerk on their one of a kind “Bremen K4 Radio” live recording.

Side B’s “Noch ein bisschen Erbs” also begins slowly, but in a more liquidy, almost aquatic way, with the gentle guitar tremolo and the bubbling synths sounding like a meeting point of Super Minerals and Bee Mask. Wordless vocals also reign here, with a disembodied whine or wail once in a while and the rough violin occasionally emerging, like a sound that lost its way in a Velvet Underground jam and went all the way to the Datashock jam. This one also gets faster and more dynamic on the way, with the drums kicking in and the electric guitar getting more presence (finally!), but without getting to the rocking gem. Instead, the second piece is slightly more meditative and desert-friendly, like a Barn Owl piece that decided to grow some balls and rock out a lil’ more.

Long.Live.Data$!

Datashock - Para Dieswärts Dull

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In an obvious nod to “Paradieswärts Düül” by the legendary communal krautrockers Amon Düül (the first one), those modern-day psychedelic nomads gather together to give you almost 60 minutes of slowly-rolling, lo-fi and hazy freak rock jams. It’s thick, dense and wanders in all directions at once. Don’t mind the “Dull” in the name, because those caveman improvisations are never dull. Recommended! And stay tuned for the review of Datashock’s newest release, “Live.Love.Data$”, coming real soon!

Review: Jealousy Mountain Duo - No_2

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(CD / Vinyl LP, Blunoise Records, 2012)

If that old 70’s jazz drumset mentioned by the musicians from Jealousy Mountain Duo on their Bandcamp page hasn’t taken a beating in its previous life, with its previous owners then if definitely took one with the drummer of this incredible free improv duo. The German micro-ensemble Jealousy Moutain Duo stormed the scene (and became Weed Temple’s favorites) back in 2011 with their highly energetic debut vinyl record, channeling the post-rock sensibilties through seemingly disjointed free jazz structures. Their newest release, titled simply “No_2” tries to one-up the previous album, by trying to sound even more energetic and spastic. And more melodic.

The opening “The Home of Easy Credit” unveils the intention of JMD very well: it is chaotic at first, but gradually exposes the scraps of pleasant, bucolic melody in a series of violent jerks punctuated by cymbal crashes and amphetaminic drum breaks, all submissive to the irregular, jagged rhythm filling almost every free space left. The guitar and the drums complement each other graeatly: while the strings remain largely ascetic in nature, rarely breaking into the spotlight, rather going for minimalistic strumming with mathematical precision, the drums keep growing in one explosion after another; never going mute or stale, always on the move, like a caged wild animal, seeking release from tension.

Tension is one of the main constructive forces behind the duo; the whole album is 95% keeping it, barely harnessing the power of instruments and 5% release. And when the release finally comes, it is THE RELEASE, in capital fucking letters, blowing up straight into the listener’s face (or in this case: ears), getting off the hook and losing all limits. This is when the post-rock deconstruction transforms itself into a noise rock monster. Like in the shortie-but-goodie “All Day Blizzard”, in which from a series of false starts and sudden jerks rises an atomic monster of a riff, only to be stopped seconds later and forced into free improv again. “All Day Blizzard” is a personal favorite of mine, showing what the duo can do once they leave the constraints of improvisation for a moment and go for a more traditional riff - the power of those few micro-riffs appear to parallel and challenge even those of Lightning Bolt or Hella, which shows the band’s incredible expertise in displaying power.

They are hiding their power well, but I hope one day they just won’t keep the tension any longer and will make a truly explosive album with those superpowers of theirs.

El Straffo - Live​@​MespotineSessions

This minimalistic & heavy as fuck duo of bass & drums (as they shamelessly describe their sound in an e-mail, as “Bass & Drums, like Om”)  plows forward on this bassy, bossy monster of an album, storming the listener with doomy, droning riffs, slow-paced yet machine-like drumming and screaming, somewhat distant vocals. This is stoner rock/metal reduced to its bare basics, kept within tight bass riffs and precise drumming. If only it was recorded at a better quality, it would have become a hit. Otherwise, a very promising proposal of heavy psych by these Mexican (or maybe German…?) bassstoners.

Vintage Cucumber - Mc Goyl Style

Don’t be too distracted by the “high psychedelic ambient” description on Vintage Cucumber’s Bandcamp site. While it’s definitely “high” and “psychedelic”, it’s quite far from the blurry, indefinite inertia of ambient music. Rather, it sounds like a slow-paced, peaceful communal psych folk/rock build-up for the wild, frenetic jam sessions that never comes. Instead, Vintage Cucumber takes relief in peaceful guitar strumming, spaced-out synth drones and economical drumming. Another fine psychedelic release from the fertile soil of German outsider music. Highly recommended!

Review: Strange Forces - I’d Rather Listen to the Bloody Birds

(LP, Self-released, 2012)

The German psych rock collective Strange Forces does their best to follow the rebellious spirit of the original krautrockers with the opening speech sample of a man declaring he would “rather listen to the bloody birds” than all the politicians, experts, and other self-proclaimed “all knowing” bastards that sometimes seem to exist for the sole purpose to add chaos to our everyday lives. Psychedelic rock, as a music genre, seems to exist above all the political-everyday life blabber (although I’m sure if you look hard enough, you’ll find some politically-charged psych rock bands, hell, take the later Jefferson Airplane for example), and Strange Forces make a strong point out of that.

But let’s steer away from politics, or any kind of ideology at all, right here. Strange Forces’ newest album is a purely instrumental deal of spaced out, garage-like clusterfuck of jam, played freely and without restraints, with a happy, free spirit of an original hippie commune and a knack for creating melodies that sound like nuggets taken from the height of 80’s/90’s neo-psychedelic revival bands. The catchy hooks mix with droning, reverb-heavy atmospherics. The best example of this is the best track on the album, “Maybe We Could Meditate Together or Something”: a lightning path of a jam, gradually gaining control over the hypnotizing motorik rhythm and progressing into a flowering guitar line that makes you wish it doesn’t ever end makes you want to live inside of it and all the other wonderful things you might have done with that masterful riff.

Strange Forces’ newest album might be hard to describe because it might give an impression of sounding like thousands of psych rock albums before that. It might be true, however, Strange Forces possess a rather rare (for many more jam-oriented bands) gift of weaving an actual, catchy melody into the beatific, lysergic guitar noodling. They reach back the most melodic moments of the previous decades’ love for psych and come back with glorious results.

Cosmic Winnetou on Bandcamp

Good news, you esoteric sound aficionados! Günter Schlienz’ Stuttgart label, Cosmic Winnetou, has put its entire first batch for free streaming and download on Bandcamp. Now you can drown yourself in the waves of ethereal ambience or dusted krautrock grooves for free (or pay the man, if you feel like, he deserves it)! Oh, and a heads up - another batch is coming soon, this time with Mark Bradley and Sylvia Monnier. Stay tuned!

Review: Skullorian - Kozmosz Punci (Kimberly Dawn, 2011)

German sound skullptor (see what I did there?) Thomas Gerendás gracefully smears the borders between the original samples and recontextualizes them for the new, mapless territories of sound. Hailing from Cologne, the breeding ground of forward thinkers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen or Can, Gerendás uses the rich tradition of electronic experimentation for his own means, to mold some sort of musique concrete for the 21st century.

Kicking off from the foggy start, Skullorian gives us a fertile package - out of five compositions four range from 14 to 20 minutes, and the shortest one is nearly 9 minutes long. Which means we’re in for a deep trip. Because for those who aren’t already familiar with the German shaman, the mass of seemingly sourceless and shapeless sounds might appear a bit pretty overwhelming - but after a few repeated listens a sense of order and actual compositions is starting to emerge, accenting changes in rhythm, or the change of hazily convoluted “movement” - or anything that comes at least slightly close to be called an actual movement. For example, the opening self-titled track gradually uncovers a funky, bouncing beat, slightly Lynchian, like Amon Tobin quoting Angelo Badalamenti on Tobin’s trademark album Permutation, emerging from the sea of heavy, sinister cosmic drones.

The jazzy and funky elements hidden under ominous, thick cloud work as strangely relaxing elements that seems to exist for the sole fact of reminding the listener that they’re still listening to something made by an actual human. Or maybe rather, elements of old human transmission accidentally caught up in a non-human chaos of accidental, hostile sounds. The vintage samples sounds like the mere tools in the hands of a far more powerful, unknown power which crushes those human sounds and proves how the “normal” music is fragile and vulnerable to the crushing power of this otherworldly mess. Without any drugs, Gerendás replicates the hazy, murky effects of powerful psychedelics, creating an atmosphere of dense immersion filled with sourceless sounds that might be coming from anywhere at once. But with Skullorian’s music, the druggy effects are directed more towards the “bad trip” areas.

Buy the CD-R at Kimberly Dawn or at Skullorian’s blog.

Review: e Jugend - Live at Bühl (Cosmic Winnetou, 2012)

One day, I received the first batch of tapes from a mysterious new cassette label named Cosmic Winnetou. It turned out that the German ambientalist and a 1/2 of Navel, namely Guenter Schlienz, has started his own label. And despite its humble beginning (each of the four tapes is limited to 25 copies only), I can feel that there is a lot of good stuff still to come.

Live at Bühl by the post-kraut unit e Jugend failed to grab my attention at first. It seemed to quiet, too slowly unfolding and slightly lo-fi to become any sort of rewarding, psychedelic listen. I largely ignored it (or rather: didn’t give it much of a chance) until one night, when I wanted to listen to some tapes when falling asleep. I decided to pop this in my walkman, and holy shit, it clicked. Hard. And this is where the interesting stuff starts: according to the liner notes, the material on the cassette was recorded during the exhibition “Things Could Be Different, But They’re Not” by German artist Jyrgen Ueberschär in… 1986. Which is impossible, because after a bit of research I found out Ueberschär was born in 1978, so he would be 8 years old in 1986. Such an exhibition indeed took place, but in 2010. I can only wonder whether the false date in the liner notes was just an error, or a clever “test” to see whether journalists and bloggers will actually put effort into researching their facts or just blindly copy the information just as it’s written. In fact, the album’s description is filled with dubious information reminding me of disorienting techniques used by many bands who want to stay as mysterious as possible, such as declining a 21 thousand pound advertisement offer from a real estate company or their devotion to exercise children’s football skills.

While the material may (or may not) have been recorded in 2010, the sound of Live at Bühl is very 80’s-like indeed. Both sides go with endlessly delayed, reverbed silky guitar improvisations that unfold at a glacial pace, in a manner similar to the most ambientalized, drifting moments of Spacemen 3 (think Dreamweapon), building slight waves of cosmic ambience using guitars and little more than various effects. While the first side of the cassette sounds like an actual ambient/psychedelic compositions, channeling the spirits of Ash Ra Tempel’s “Traummaschine” in a series of gently droning, deeply trippy guitar strums and delicate chords, the other side is much more “polluted”, being closer to an experimental sound installation filled with people chatting and laughing on top of ethereal guitar ambience. But even this faint ambience is cut short later, being replaced by what appears to be an art-related lecture in German (still in the same performance space) ended with enthusiastic applause, which seems to be directed both at the artists and the musicians who performed during the exhibition.

Out of nowhere came one of my favorite tapes, with beatific, rolling guitar ambience from two “nobodies”, who prefer to refer to themselves simply as “No. 5” and “No 9”. At least according to the Cosmic Winnetou blurb. But can you trust them?