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Causa Sui, Live in Copenhagen: Flight from Ground

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The three-word title of Causa Sui‘s Live in Copenhagen, while accurate, hardly conveys the true scope of what’s contained on the release. One expects a certain amount of breadth from the Danish heavy psych masters at this point, especially after their last couple studio offerings, 2013’s Euporie Tide and 2016’s Return to Sky (review here), but across three discs, a span of three years and a total runtime of nearly three hours — two hours and 40 minutes, anyhow — Live in Copenhagen finds Causa Sui at their most exploratory on stage. 2014’s Live at Freak Valley (review here) might be considered a precursor, but even that collection didn’t bring in the temporal dimension the way Live in Copenhagen does, feeling more like a compendium as it captures the release shows for both Euporie Tide at Dragens Hule and Return to Sky at Jazzhouse.

Presented via their own El Paraiso Records as a limited 3LP box set, Live in Copenhagen then is more of an audio documentary than a a standard from-the-stage offering, and both the quality of the recordings — mic’ed, mixed and mastered by the band’s own guitarist Jonas Munk — guest spots from Papir guitarist Nicklas Sørensen and saxophonist Johan Riedenlow (who appears at both shows), a cover of Agitation Free and a 17-minute take on/homage to John Coltrane‘s “A Love Supreme” to close out the Dragens Hule set only further the there’s-something-special-happening-here vibe of the included material, and so there truly seems to be. As someone who’s never had the pleasure of watching Causa Sui perform on stage, Live in Copenhagen obviously brings forth more than the standard show would, but nonetheless offers an immersive representation of their range, chemistry and flow.

No second is wasted in demonstrating precisely those aspects as the Dragons Hule set — which comprises the first two of the three platters of the release — begins with a 13-minute rendition of Euporie Tide closer “Eternal Flow.” Causa Sui immediately signal their will to use their studio material as a launch point rather than something to be directly emulated, and so they vibe their way through that song and all that follows, whether it’s the subsequent “El Paraiso” from their 2005 self-titled debut (released by Nasoni), the drift-into-noise-wash-into-drift-into-noise-wash of “Mireille” or the 15-minute megajam “Portixeddu / Tropic of Capricorn,” which brings forth Riedenlow‘s sax for a first appearance. Ideas are fluidly engaged and followed, and while one might expect that, at a release show, they’d play what was then the new album front-to-back or at least in full, only “Eternal Flow,” “Mireille,” “Homage” and “Euporie” represent Euporie Tide, as the band’s interests clearly lie in pursuing something greater than promoting a single release.

Can’t fault them the outcome, and as Munk, drummer Jakob Skøtt, keyboardist Rasmus Rasmussen and bassist Jess Kahr bring out Sørensen and Riedenlow throughout the proceedings, they lose nothing of the blissful atmosphere they’re able to harness on their own. In fact, it’s “Portixeddu / Tropic of Capricorn” and the subsequent dreamscape of Agitation Free‘s “First Communication” that finds them at their most dug in, though I won’t take anything away from the funked-up fusion experimentalism of “A Love Supreme” either — parts of it work, parts seem like they’re about to dismantle themselves; that’s the point of the song — but as they go, they keep a steady balance through the relatively grounded “Homage” and the Summer Sessions roller “Red Valley” leading into “Euporie” and the aforementioned Coltrane classic. By the time they’ve gotten there and are rounding out the Dragons Hule set en route to the Jazzhouse, it’s little wonder they started out with “Eternal Flow” what already seems like eons and light-years ago; that track would seem to be a mission statement as much as hypnotic beginning to a spellbinding psychedelic convocation. Or, to be blunt about it: one hell of a show.

A couple years later sees Causa Sui and Riedenlow back on stage together, this time at the Jazzhouse, to mark the arrival of Return to Sky. No minor occasion, as that record could easily be argued as the band’s most stylistically expansive to-date, as though they brought the jazz-minded twists of “A Love Supreme” to their own next batch of material. I suspect the venue they chose for the release show isn’t a coincidence either, and as the setlist is a little more representative of the most recent work, with “The Source, “Dawn Passage” and “Mondo Buzzo” included along with Summer Sessions pieces “Rip Tide” and “Eugenie” before they close with “Ju-Ju Blues” from Euporie Tide, the feeling is a little more forward in its intent than it had been at Dragons Hule. Pieces on the whole shorter individually though still marked as Causa Sui‘s own thanks to the significant flow conjured throughout, and wherever they head, the care they put into their execution comes through without taking away from the naturalism on which their style is built.

To wit, they’re no less at home in the full-on fuzz push of “The Source” than they are in the patient and otherworldly progressive nuance of “Dawn Passage,” and while the Jazzhouse set is less expansive time-wise than Dragons Hule at 57 minutes, the approach that Causa Sui bring to the second of the two included shows here is all the more sure-headed for the years that have passed since the prior release gig. Similar to the jump from one album to the next, the jump from one show to the next on this release sees them become a more established and mature outfit. One could easily make the argument that going into Euporie Tide, the four-piece were well in control of their direction — and I’d definitely agree with that — but Return to Sky found them even more so making conscious decisions on how to expand their palette, and the ease with which Riedenlow slides his sax lines into “Eugenie” at the Jazzhouse reaffirms the success of these efforts. To once again be blunt about it: another hell of a show. Perhaps even more so than its predecessor for how vital and engaged the band sounds in the work they’re doing.

After more than two and a half hours’ worth of live Causa Sui, frankly, the thought of more seems needlessly greedy. Still, there’s a part of me that can’t help but wonder how they’ll sound at the release show for their next studio offering. There’s no date set for another release or anything, and I’d think it’s probably more likely they’ll dig into a collaboration or a jam-type outing before they actually get there — following this or that exploratory whim as they’re prone to do — but whenever they get there, how the progressive arc one can trace from Dragons Hule to the Jazzhouse might continue to flourish along what seems to be a developmental trajectory no less palpable than that from one full-length to the following. I wouldn’t speculate as to whether or not they’ll commit to the notion of putting out a corresponding live album for whatever release show they end up next playing, if they do one at all — we live in a universe of infinite possibilities — but between the laughable understatement that Live in Copenhagen‘s title highlights and the expanses contained within the release itself, it’s difficult to hear Causa Sui sound so manifest, so realized as a group, and not still think of the potential they have going forward.

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