Mythic Sunship Announce 2LP Another Shape of Psychedelic Music Due Oct. 5
Unlikely that the Ornette Coleman reference in the use of the word ‘shape’ in the title Another Shape of Psychedelic Music is a coincidence. Given Copenhagen four-piece Mythic Sunship‘s jazz-psych proclivities, The Shape of Jazz to Come is probably right on the record shelf next to Coltrane‘s A Love Supreme and assorted concurrent outings from Miles Davis, Sun Ra and others. Fair enough. Throw in some classic exploratory instrumentalist psychedelia from the likes of Causa Sui — whose Jonas Munk produced the six-tracker and appears on two of its cuts, in addition to releasing it through Causa Sui‘s respected imprint, El Paraiso Records — and you get a beginning understanding of the blend of soaring sax and airy guitar that permeates, flowing easy in some places and off at a sprint in others but always immersive for the 67-minute duration. As the direct follow-up to earlier-2018’s Upheaval (review here) and 2017’s Land Between Rivers (review here), the album does indeed offer another shape, and that shape seems to change throughout according to the band’s will.
I’ll hope to have more to come on this one, but it’s out Oct. 5 on El Paraiso, as the PR wire affirms:
Mythic Sunship to Release New LP, ‘Another Shape of Psychedelic Music’, October 5
Explorative Copenhagen Quartet Delivers Deep Dive Into Incendiary Cosmic Rock with Blazing New Double Album
Danish progressive space rock band Mythic Sunship will release its new LP, Another Shape of Psychedelic Music, on October 5 via El Paraiso Records. The fearless group creates epic music — cataclysmic and complex — that pulls from ‘60’s blues-rock, jazz-rock fusion and the golden era of ’70’s prog rock, bursting with improvisation and an avant-garde spirit. A six track double LP, Another Shape of Psychedelic Music, follows Mythic Sunship’s Upheaval, a critically lauded LP released earlier this year.
With a band name mingled from album titles by John Coltrane and Sun Ra one might expect Mythic Sunship to be a jazz band. However, this is not quite the case, although the quartet shares a similar sense of exploration and general untamedness with that of the two masters of cosmic jazz.
Spiritually, Mythic Sunship seems connected to present day So Cal psych-rock. Frederik Denning’s ferocious drum pounding and Rasmus ‘Cleaver’ Christensen’s thick, Geezer Butler-esque basslines add fuel to an endless pyre of blazed-out, dual lead guitars that Kasper Stougaard Andersen and Emil Thorenfeldt play with extraordinary dexterity, and intensity, dished out with the revolutionary fervor of the MC5. Think Earthless rip-roaring at Mach 10 over a live performance of Miles Davis’ landmark ‘Bitches Brew’. This stuff is wild.
Recorded in the winter of 2017 with producer / musician Jonas Munk (Causa Sui, Ulrich Schnauss), Another Shape of Psychedelic Music sees Mythic Sunship continue to build its mesmeric framework with the addition of saxophonist Søren Skov, a Coltrane-like player whose leads snake through the group’s gargantuan grooves and add an unquantifiable surrealism to its sound. The band’s instinctual talents unfurl across passages of light and dark, fast and furious before each composition sluices into an incredible roar of war machine-like power, cacophony and heavy metal ambient insanity. It’s like Blue Cheer attempting New Age music, and how cool of an idea is that?
Mythic Sunship creates music that dances with a level of forward-thinking freshness so immediate that it reminds us that the best music, —like the best theater, the best art—always does something you don’t expect, in a way that you don’t expect. It doesn’t have to be radical, it doesn’t have to be a wholly new invention, but is has to surprise you in some way.
Prepare to be surprised.
Track listing:
1.) Resolution
2.) Backyard Ritual (feat. Jonas Munk)
3.) Last Exit
4.) Way Ahead
5.) Out There (feat. Jonas Munk)
6.) Elevation
Mythic Sunship features Kasper Stougaard Andersen (guitar), Emil Thorenfeldt (guitar), Rasmus ‘Cleaver’ Christensen (bass), Frederik Denning (drums), with Søren Skov (saxophone) and Jonas Munk.
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