Blaak Heat Release Shifting Mirrors May 13
Not saying I’ve heard it yet or anything, but the new Blaak Heat record smokes. I’ll admit to some skepticism on my part on hearing that Matt Hyde was producing, since I tend to be wary of commercial/hard rock producers working on heavy rock albums, but Shifting Mirrors retains its sense of space and natural feel even as the Los Angeles three-piece push deeper into Eastern scales, space rock, heavy psychedelic jazz, and of course, a healthy dose of desert groove. They’re getting weirder. I like that, and rather than hinder that process, Hyde seems to present it in full-breadth. It’s a better pairing than I expected.
Not that I’ve heard it yet or anything.
Shifting Mirrors is out May 13 through Tee Pee with another (I guess earlier?) release date through Svart Records. The PR wire has album details below, and you can also see their recently unveiled video for “Sword of Hakim” beneath that:
BLAAK HEAT to Release New Album, Shifting Mirrors, May 13
Third Album from California via Paris Triad an Altar to Heavy Riffage, Mind Expansion and Social Insurgencies
Los Angeles avant-garde psych rock band BLAAK HEAT (formerly Blaak Heat Shujaa) will release its new album, Shifting Mirrors, on May 13 via Tee Pee Records. Recorded with Grammy Award winning producer Matt Hyde (Slayer, Deftones), at Megawatt Recording (Santana, Tool), the record builds on the band’s self-coined “Arabian fuzz” and is the follow-up to the trio’s 2013 Scott Reeder-produced full-length, The Edge of an Era.
BLAAK HEAT’s intercontinental desert rock engulfs your mind in images of mystic castle mirages, slamming both body and soul into an ocean of reverb fuzz. Formed in Paris by guitarist / vocalist Thomas Bellier (ex-Spindrift) in 2008, the band relocated to Los Angeles in 2012. The transcendental tension between the group’s heavy rock roots and its organic inclination to drift towards psychedelia pays homage to the vast collection of mind-expanding sounds the trio grew up on: neo-psychedelia, surf rock, spaghetti westerns, Middle Eastern scales and Far Eastern melodies. Shifting Mirrors’ is an album that is both intriguing and unrelenting, featuring 10 tracks that explore a range of tonalities, tempos and traditional soundscapes.
“We took our favorite Middle Eastern tonalities and reinterpreted them through the prism of our cultural baggage; weird European psychedelia, a healthy dose of vintage hard rock and some experimental jazz,” says Bellier. “With producer Matt Hyde, we were able to mix loud fuzz guitar tones with traditional acoustic instruments, such as the Oud and the Kanun. For example, the track ‘Mola Mamad Djan’ is an Afghan folk song for which we reworked the arrangement into something more rocking.”
Track listing:
1.) Anatolia
2.) Sword of Hakim
3.) The Approach To Al-Mu’tasim
4.) Taqsim
5.) Ballad of Zeta Brown
6.) Black Hawk
7.) Mola Mamad Djan
8.) Tamazgha
9.) The Peace Within
10.) Danse Nomade
In addition to Bellier, BLAAK HEAT features Mike Amster (drums) and Henry Evans (bass).
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