Somehow it feels longer than it’s actually been. Yeah, a year’s changed over, but it’s really only been about a month since the last Quarterly Review installment, which I said at the time was only half of the full proceedings. I’ve started the count over at 1-50, but in my head, this is really a continuation of that five-day stretch more than something separate. It’s been booked out I think since before the last round of 50 was done, if that tells you anything. Should tell you 2021 was a busy year and 2022 looks like it’ll be more of the same in that regard. Also a few other regards, but let’s keep it optimistic, hmm?

We start today fresh with a wide swath of stuff for digging and, well, I hope you dig it. Let’s go.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

Zack Oakley, Badlands

Apparently I’ve been spelling Zack Oakley‘s name wrong for the better part of a decade. Zack with a ‘k’ instead of an ‘h’ at the end. I feel like a jerk. By any spelling, dude both shreds and can write a song. Known for his work in Joy, Pharlee, Volcano, etc., he brings vibrant classic heavy to the fore on his solo debut, Badlands, sounding like a one-man San Diego scene on “I’m the One” only after declaring his own genre in opener “Freedom Rock.” “Mexico” vibes on harmonica-laced heavy blues and the acoustic-led “Looking High Searching Low” follows suit with slide, but there’s tinge of psych on the catchy “Desert Shack,” and “Fever” stomps out in pure Hendrix style without sounding ridiculous, which is not an achievement to be understated. Closing duo “Acid Rain” and “Badlands” meet at the place where the ’60s ended and the ’70s started, swaggering through time with more hooks and a sound that might be garage if your garage had a really nice studio in it. I’ll take more of this anytime Mr. Oakley wants to belt it out.

Zack Oakley website

Kommune Records on Bandcamp

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Vøuhl, Vøuhl

Issued by Shawn Pelata — also known as Pælãtä Shåvvn, with an apparent thing for accent marks — the self-titled debut from Vøuhl mixes industrial-style experimentalism, dark ambience and a strong cinematic current across a still-relatively-unassuming five-songs and 23 minutes, hitting a resonant minimalism at the ending of “Evvûl” while building to a fuller-sounding progression on the subsequent “Välle.” Drones, echoing, looped beats and thoughtfully executed synth let Pelata construct each atmosphere as an individual piece, but with the attention obviously paid to the presentation of the whole, there’s nothing that keeps one piece from tying into the next either, so whether one approaches Vøuhl‘s Vøuhl as an EP or a short album, the impression of a deep-running soundscape is made one way or the other. What seems to be speech samples in “Aurô” and noise-laced closer “ßlasste” — thoroughly manipulated — may hint at things to come, but I hope not entirely at the expense of the percussive urgency of opener “Dùste” here.

Vøuhl on Facebook

Stone Groove Records website

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White Manna, First Welcome

At first you’re all like, “yeah this is right on I can handle it” and then all of a sudden White Manna are about four minutes into the freakery of “Light Cones” opening up their latest opus First Welcome and you’re starting to panic because you took too much and you’re couchlocked. The heretofore undervalued Calipsych weirdos are out-out-out on their new eight-songer, done in an LP-ready 39 minutes but drippy droppy through an interdimensional swap-meet of renegade noises and melted-down aesthetics. Maybe you heard 2020’s ARC (review here) and thereby got on board, or maybe you don’t know them at all. Doesn’t matter. The thing is they’re already in your brain and by the time you’re done with the triumph-boogie of “Lions of Fire” you realize you’re one with the vibrating universe and only then are you ready to meet the “Monogamous Cassanova” in krautrock purgatory before the swirling “Milk Symposium” spreads itself out like a blanket over the sun. Too trippy for everything, and so just. fucking. right. If you can hang with this, I wanna be friends.

White Manna on Facebook

Cardinal Fuzz webstore

Centripetal Force Records website

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Daily Thompson, God of Spinoza

In 2022, German heavy rockers Daily Thompson mark a decade since their founding. God of Spinoza is their fifth full-length, and in songs like “Cantaloupe Melon,” “Golden Desert Child,” and “Muaratic Acid,” the reliability one has come to expect from them is only reinforced. Their sound hinges on psychedelia, but complements that with an abiding sense of grunge and a patience in songwriting. They’ve done heavy blues and straight-up rock in the past, so neither is out of the trio’s wheelhouse — the penultimate “Midnight Soldier” is a breakout here — but the title-track’s drawn-out “yeah”s and slacker-nod rhythm seem to draw more directly from the Alice in Chains school of making material sound slow without actually having it crawl or sacrifice accessibility. I’d give them points regardless for calling a song “I Saw Jesus in a Taco Bell,” but the closer is a genuine highlight on God of Spinoza turning a long stretch of disaffection to immersive fuzz with a deftness befitting a band on their fifth record who know precisely who they are. Like I said, reliable.

Daily Thompson on Facebook

Noisolution website

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Headless Monarch, Titan Slug

Founded by guitarist/bassist Collin Green, Headless Monarch released their first demo in 2013 and their most recent EP, Nothing on the Horizon, in 2016. Five years later, Green and drummer Brandon Zackey offer the late-2021 debut full-length, Titan Slug, working in collaboration for the first time with vocalist and producer Otu Suurmunne of Moonic Productions — who mostly goes by Otu — across a richly executed collection of six tracks, three new, three from prior outings. Not sure if Otu is a hired gun as a singer working alongside the other two, but there’s little arguing with the results they glean as a trio across a song like “Fever Dream” or “Sleeper Now Rise,” the latter taken from Headless Monarch‘s 2015 two-songer and positioned in a more aggressive stance overall. The newer songs come across as more fleshed out, but even “Eight Minutes of Light” from the first demo has atmospheric reach to go with its clarity of focus and noteworthy heft. One only hopes the collaboration continues and inspires further work along these lines.

Headless Monarch on Instagram

Headless Monarch on Bandcamp

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Some Pills for Ayala, Space Octopus

Technically speaking, you had me at Space Octopus. After releasing a self-titled EP under the somewhat-troubling moniker (one hopes it’s not too many) Some Pills for Ayala, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and producer Néstor Ayala Cortés of At Devil Dirt returns with this two-songer, comprised of its 11-minute title-cut and the shorter “It’s Been a Long Trip.” The lead track is duly dream-drifty in its procession, a subtle build underway across its span but pushing more for hypnosis than impact and getting there to be sure, even as the second half grows thicker in tone. At 3:48, “It’s Been a Long Trip” comes across more as an experiment in technique captured and used as the foundation for Cortés‘ soft, wide echoing vocals. Lysergic and adventurous in kind, the 15-minute EP is nonetheless serene in its presence and soothing overall. Could be that Cortés might push deeper into folk as he goes forward, but the acidy foundation he’s working from will only add to that.

Some Pills for Ayala on Instagram

Some Pills for Ayala on Bandcamp

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Il Mostro, Occult Practices

It’s a quick in-out from Boston heavy punkers Il Mostro on the Occult Practices EP. Four songs, the last of which is a cover of T.S.O.L.‘s “Black Magic,” nothing over three minutes long, all fits neatly on a 7″. For what they’re doing, that makes sense, taking the high-velocity ethic of Motörhead or Peter Pan Speedrock (if you need a second plays-fast-punk-derived-and-rocks band) and delivering with an appropriately straightforward thrust. Opener “Firewitch” ends with giggling, and that’s fair enough to convey the overarching lack of pretense throughout, but they do well with the cover and have a righteous balance between control and chaos in the relatively-mid-paced “Trial” and the sprinter “Faith in Ghosts,” which follows. Is cult punk a thing? I guess you could ask the Misfits that question, but Il Mostro mostly avoid sounding like that Jersey band, and it’s easy enough to imagine them bashing walls at any number of Beantown havens or bathed under the telltale red lights of O’Brien’s as they tear into a set. So be it, punkers.

Il Mostro on Facebook

Il Mostro on Bandcamp

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Carmen Sea, Hiss

Should it come as a surprise that an EP of violin-laced/led instrumentalist progressive post-rock, willfully working against genre convention in order to cross between metal, rock and more atmospheric fare includes an element of self-indulgence? Nope. How could it be otherwise? The five-track Hiss from Parisian four-piece Carmen Sea is a heady outing indeed, but at just 29 minutes, the band doesn’t actually lose themselves in what they’re doing, and the surprises they offer along the way like the electronic turns in “Black Echoes” or the quiet drone stretch in the first half of 11-minute closer “Glow in Space” — which gets plenty tense soon enough — provide welcome defiance of expectation. That is to say, whatever else they are, Carmen Sea are not predictable, and that serves them well here and will continue to. “Frames” begins jarring and strutting, but finds its strength in its more floating movement, though the later bridge of classical and weighted musics feels like the realization that might’ve led to creating the band in the first place. There’s potential in toying with that balance.

Carmen Sea on Facebook

Carmen Sea Distrokid

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Trip Hill, Ain’t Trip Ceremony

Florence’s Fabrizio Cecchi has vibe to spare with his solo-project Trip Hill, and Denmark’s Bad Afro Records has stepped forward to issue the 2020 offering, Ain’t Trip Ceremony, toward broader consciousness. The eight-song/39-minute long-player is duly dug-in, and its psychedelic reach comes with a humility of craft that makes the songs likewise peaceful and exploratory and entrancing. Repetition is key for the latter, but Cecchi also manages to keep things moving across the album, with a fuzzy cut like “Spam Mind” seeming to build on top of loops and shifting into a not-overblown space rock, hardly mellow, but more acknowledging the vastness of the cosmos than one might expect. The more densely-fuzzed “Ralph’s Heart Attack” leads into the guitar-focused “Pan” ahead of the finale “What Happened to Will,” but that’s after “Tame Ùkhan” has gone a-wandering and decided to stay that way and the seven-minute “Trái tim Thán Yêu” has singlehandedly justified the vinyl release in its blend of percussive urgency and psychedelic shimmer. Go in with an open mind and you won’t go wrong.

Trip Hill on Facebook

Bad Afro Records on Bandcamp

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Yanomamo & Slomatics, Split 7″

Yanomamo begin their Iommium Records two-song split 7″ with Slomatics by harshly delivering a deceptively positive message: “If you’re going to seek revenge/Might as well dig two graves/He who holds resentment is already digging his own.” Fair enough. The Sydney, Australia, and Belfast, Northern Ireland, outfits offer about 10 and a half minutes of material between them, but complement each other well, with the thickness of the latter building off the raw presentation of the former, Yanomamo‘s guttural portrayal of bitterness offered in scream-topped sludge crash on “Dig Two Graves” that builds in momentum toward the end while Slomatics‘ “Griefhound” offers the futurist tonal density and expanse of vocal echo typifying their latter-day work and turns a quiet, chugging bridge into a consciousness-slamming payoff. Neither act is really out of their comfort zone, but established listeners will revel in the chance to hear them alongside each other, and if you hear complaints about either of these cuts, they won’t be from me.

Yanomamo on Facebook

Slomatics on Facebook

Iommium Records on Bandcamp

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Stare hard enough at the Rachel Duffy cover art for White Manna‘s seventh album, ARC, and it starts to make a fittingly weird kind of sense in conjunction with the music itself. Collage assembled as a totem, a kind of monolith built from different colors and textures. A watch, a couple slices of fruit, and is that a coffin with clouds on it? Either way, it is evocative, and much the same is true of what occurs sonically on the record’s nine tracks. The follow-up to 2019’s Ape on Sunday (review here) arrives via Centripetal Force and Cardinal Fuzz and is largely a departure from the record preceding, as returning guitarist/vocalist/keyboardists David Johnson and Anthony Taibi, bassist Johnny Webb and drummer/vocalist Tavan Anderson bring aboard Dominic Talvola and Charlie Love, presumably to also handle synth or the other electronic elements that are so prevalent across ARC‘s 38-minute span.

Experimentalism and improvisation aren’t my any means new for the Arcata, California-based White Manna, who made their self-titled debut in 2012 through Holy Mountain, but the pieces that comprise ARC feel particularly exploratory of the far-in as much as the far-out, beginning with the opening title-track’s eight-minute pulse of electronically driven krautery. It is as though the band — who recorded with Taibi at the helm at his own 3D Light Studios — decided it was high time someone recast jazz in their own image and then set about the task with a spacial focus, not letting themselves be hindered either by their own expectations of what psychedelia is or should be, let alone anyone else’s. The resulting material is not necessarily warm or comforting, but neither is it intended that way. Rather, it is a challenge directed inward, a sort of burst of individualism as White Manna push themselves to do new things and explore their methods in ways and with direction that they never have before. If it’s space rock — and I’d argue that at least some of it is — then it’s deep-space rock, and the places it goes may have been touched by humans before, but the footprint White Manna leave in the cosmic dust is undeniably their own.

Special mention as to go to Anderson on drums. The bulk of ARC is instrumental. There is sax or synth-as-sax peppered here and there, as on the later 10-minute kinda-finale “Surfer Moron,” but whether it’s there or on the out-of-nowhere all-go garage-galaxy-punk blast of “Zosser” earlier — as close to a traditional “song” as White Manna here get — Anderson‘s drumming shines as a creative element, not trying to anchor the proceedings to a structure or define where one off-time measure ends and the next one starts, but instead standing in line and on the same mission as the guitars, bass, synth, etc., in pushing outward beyond the common reaches of genre. Even on side A’s 49-second “Pollen Ball,” which is little more than a captured swirl in a jar, the insistence of the snare hits gives more personality and evocative vibe to what accompanies, and though the drums are just one piece of what brings White Manna to such a place of avant garde reach, they’re nonetheless crucial to that outcome from the echoing outset of the Hawkwind-as-heard-in-another-dimension “ARC” onward, its echoing vocals vague and accompanied by far back guitar, cymbal wash and who the hell even knows what else.

A wash of noise emerges and is manipulated. Sax arrives and departs and arrives again, and even the motorik beat eventually splits out, leaving the residual soundscaping to finish the job of keeping the universe on its toes heading into the more electronically purposed “Mythic Salon.” There are vocals there too, but they’re subsumed into the atmosphere as the horns/keys tap out jazzy jabs in interstellar bop, waiting to go on a tear but restraining for the moment at least until “Pilgrim’s Progress” pushes the noise freakout to its most abrasive cast on the record. Scorch, pure and simple, only without the simple. There’s a wide breadth happening but it’s less about that than the consumption of everything around, and all of it — yes, all of it — seems to be swallowed at the last. After that, the relatively minimal “Pollen Ball” feels like a well-earned comedown, and though “Painted Cakes” adds more tension with a John Carpenter-esque synth throb, the presumed end of side A is still a rescue by comparison.

So be it. “Zosser” blasts off immediately from “Painted Cakes” and is righteous in its forward momentum, heavy like Stooges but expansive, and with thrusters on full. The 1:48 dronescape “Soft Apocalypse” follows and is probably its own best description, though there is something urban about its doppler-feeling undulations. Like a slow siren however many city blocks away, the keys that have been there all along become more prominent in the fadeout, from which “Surfer Moron” picks up as the longest single inclusion on ARC and the final argument White Manna make in their thesis on psych-jazz progressivism. The very nature of a record like this — something purposefully constructed as a willful act of exploration on the part of the band; a kind of “we’re going on an adventure and you can come” — means there’s some manner of indulgence happening throughout, and of course that’s the case in “Surfer Moron” as much as anywhere else, but the hypnotic sphere in which it lands is engrossing just the same. Atop a slow-rolling beat, horn peppers notes circa 6:30 that are a gorgeous and ethereal, and the energy uptick from there manages to be a linear build and not predictable as it shifts from its apex smoothly to the epilogue of “Sailing Stones,” the keys, drums and whatever else finishing the swirl before fading out after about a minute.

What the hell just happened? I don’t know, but consider again the totem of the cover art, how its varied ideas come together to express a single idea. With ARC, that idea is White Manna pursuing a space beyond genre and of themselves. It is weird — with glee, weird — and there are moments that come across as playful, but the goal to which they’re driven isn’t just about screwing around and seeing what happens. It’s about seeing how far they can push this thing before it all comes apart. It never does here.

White Manna on Facebook

White Manna on Instagram

White Manna on Bandcamp

Cardinal Fuzz on Facebook

Cardinal Fuzz webstore

Centripetal Force Records on Facebook

Centripetal Force Records on Instagram

Centripetal Force Records website

Record rules. I mean it. The psychedelic experimentation, synths, keyboards and all that, has progressed to different levels of space and pretty much what happened with krautrock back during the original krautrock movement birthing electronic pop is happening again with White Manna, only weirder and thus more awesome. It’s the band’s seventh album and I’m not gonna say I was Johnny Groundfloor on these guys — I wasn’t — but I’ve been on board for a couple records at this point and they haven’t let me down in terms of what they bring to prog, psych and spaced-out vibes. I’ve got more digging to do with the all-caps ARC, but if you want my initial impression, it’s right there in the first sentence.

Vinyl info and more background follows, as per the PR wire, as well as the streaming tracks “Mythic Salon” and “Zosser” for your perusal.

So peruse:

NEW RELEASE: White Manna – ARC – 8/28/20

Centripetal Force (in conjunction with Cardinal Fuzz for UK/Europe) presents the seventh full length album from veteran psychonauts White Manna. Long recognized as one of the leaders of the modern psychedelic movement, White Manna’s ARC builds upon an already impressive discography and further develops the band’s always evolving approach to sound and songwriting. This nine song journey sees the band exploring new directions that are more meditative in nature, a welcome development in light of the current state of world affairs. The song “Mythic Salon” certainly demonstrates such intent, as well as growth.

ARC, the band’s first release since last year’s Ape on Sunday, was recorded at guitarist Anthony Taibi’s 3D Light Studios in Humboldt County, California. The songwriting this time around took on more of an inward process, both musically and thematically.This shift allowed for more spontaneity and improvisation than their previous efforts. This was especially true when it came to translating musical passages that had already become part of the band’s live repertoire. ARC is not a concept album per se, but its focus on such an omnipresent icon certainly leaves the listener a variety of avenues for interpretation, making this the most daring and unique album in the White Manna discography.

– 500 copy pressing, 200 cream and 300 black.

– Record comes housed in a 350 gram gloss laminated sleeve with download code.

– Mastered by Chris Hardman. Cover art by Rachel Duffy.

– In addition to the theme of ARChetypes, John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress and the works of Robert Anton Wilson play a role in shaping the themes and direction of the album.

White Manna is:
David J
Anthony Taibi
Johnny Webb
Tavan Anderson
Dominic Talvola
Charlie Love

https://www.facebook.com/whitemanna/
https://www.instagram.com/whitemanna/
https://whitemanna.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/centripetalforcerecords
https://www.instagram.com/centripetalforcerecords/
https://www.centripetalforcerecords.com/
https://www.facebook.com/CardinalFuzz/
cardinalfuzz.bigcartel.com/

White Manna, ARC (2020)

As though beamed in from some dimension rife with all the colors humans can’t see shining in pools of lysergic applesauce, White Manna‘s sixth album, Ape on Sunday, immediately enters the kosmiche foray with its seven-minute opening title-track. Also the longest inclusion (immediate points) at 7:10, it is immersive and exploratory in kind, a sweeping space rock mover that captures the attention and doesn’t so much hold it as toss it back and forth between hands, reshaping and kneading consciousness like so much stiff dough that’s been sitting around for too long. The proceedings call to order via Cardinal Fuzz around the four-piece of guitarist/vocalist/keyboardists David Johnson and Anthony Taibi, bassist Johnny Webb and drummer/vocalist Tavan Anderson, and the LP presents a don’t-want-to-take-up-too-much-of-your-time-microwaving-your-brain 34 minutes across which unfold seven tracks each one component in the purpose of sonic adventure and expression.

Mike Dieter adds synth to the mix as well (is he in the band full-time? I don’t know, man, is anyone? Are you? Are we all?) and the Arcata, California-based troupe put it to excellent use — if that’s what I’m hearing — in “O Captain,” which follows behind “Spirit of St. Louis,” the second and second to longest cut (secondary points) which unfurls almost direct from the leadoff with swirls and stick-click percussion. I think I hear a tambourine far back in there, but can’t be sure if I’m imagining it. Neither of the two tracks in the opening salvo really delve into lost-control freakoutery — “Ape on Sunday” is too solid in its space rock push, and “Spirit of St. Louis” has a cyclical bassline that holds it together — but there’s headphone-worthy fare just the same as White Manna slowly and patiently build on the space-jazz wash that capped “Ape on Sunday” with “Spirit of St. Louis,” a change in the drum pattern just before the three-minute mark signaling the turn to the even bouncier vibe that takes hold, then fades out to let manipulated and sampled-sounding organ and other sundries finish. Two songs and 13 and a half minutes deep, Ape on Sunday shimmers bright and feels purposeful in its jammy foundations.

Not that a band six records deep shouldn’t know what they want to do, but sometimes not knowing exactly where a piece is headed is fun too. The mood shifts markedly with the aforementioned “O Captain,” which is shorter at 3:35 and, though it’s also the likely closer of side A, comes paired in the tracklisting with the 3:56 “Night in Lisbon” as the next of Ape on Sunday‘s three two-song movements, completed by the three-minute closer “More More More” at the end, which works twice as well because despite its title, it’s the only such movement without a second song. Around mellow keys and post-prog drama-drumming, “O Captain” feels still compared to the title-track and “Spirit of St. Louis” before it, and that seems to be intentional, not to much in a stop-and-rest vein but more like an arrival at a different place, from which “Night in Lisbon” — hey, that’s a place! — takes hold with a quickly manifest fuzz overload and echoing vocals overlaid, the effects ringing outward into intertwining layers of guitar and synth and once again it’s Anderson tasked with holding it all together, which he does ably with (more?) tambourine and a mantra of tom hits. “Night in Lisbon” doesn’t really shove into any kind of grand payoff or anything, but White Manna let it breathe instrumentally in its final two minutes, fading out long until only residual swirl remains.

A quick howl of guitar volume swell and emergence of bass and drums and (soon enough) synth and keys signal the arrival of “Eye in the Cloud that Serves as Thunder,” which feels more spacious in its mix despite the immediacy of the drum line and tape-loop-sounding whatnot surrounding. The tension is such that White Manna seem to be signaling something’s gotta give, and what does is reality, as the band dive headfirst into an angular proggy noodle that comes apart amid maddening let-it-all-go a bit of either sax or sax sounds in the fade, the leftover echoes of which extend into “Zodiak Spree,” which is entrancing drone and soundscaping that’s like New Age if New Age had ever been any good. The synthesizer oozes in and out over a consistent low-end drone and guitars gently enter and exit as well while the hypnotic figures play. There’s no verse, no chorus, no lyrics, no real “parts” as such, but at five-minutes long, “Zodiak Spree” seems to speak to the same feeling of arrival — not necessarily in Portugal or, for that matter, anywhere else — as “O Captain,” rounding out the third pairing on Ape on Sunday with resonant chill.

That leaves just “More More More” to act as the keystone move on its own for White Manna, and it does so as also the shortest track at 3:03, a twisted jangle of guitar noise, garage rock drumming, synth, keys, whatever. Someone is speaking or making noise or just kind of laughing, but there’s a momentary cast to the jam wherein it takes a bodily presence around a Hendrixian guitar line circa two-minutes in and locks down a groove for, a measure or two. That one part could’ve lasted probably 10 minutes, but that’s not White Manna‘s trip this time around. Instead, it cuts itself short and leaves the guitar hanging and the synth running outward, coming apart quicker than some of the other pieces but staying consistent in doing so anyhow. It’s gone before they hit three minutes, which is fair enough as by that time, Ape on Sunday has already traversed up, down and between spaces of sound and let its audience come along for the brief but wide-ranging and evocative ride.

Some of the more cinematic aspects of the synth in “O Captain” or even “Eye in the Could that Serves as Thunder” add further breadth to the whole experience, but the truth is that White Manna are going where they’re going whether they know how to get there or not. That’s part of what makes Ape on Sunday so exciting a listen as the communion of exploration takes on so many forms.

White Manna, Ape on Sunday (2019)

White Manna on Thee Facebooks

White Manna on Bandcamp

Cardinal Fuzz on Thee Facebooks

Cardinal Fuzz webstore

I was like, ‘Oh hey White Manna have a new album coming out, I’ve written about them before’ — they’ve been in year-end poll lists and a couple news stories here and there probably much like this one — then I hit their Bandcamp to check out the tunes and I was reminded why I’d written about White Manna before. The place they call home, Arcata, California, is just about the halfway point along the US West Coast, so they’re pretty far removed from the San Diego and San Francisco scenes to the south and likewise the Portland/Seattle stuff to the north. Accordingly, the wash they craft is their own, and as they move toward the release of their sixth album, Ape on Sunday — out June 28 through Cardinal Fuzz — they seem to draw from all sides with a fluid of groove and a manifestation of psychedelia true to tradition and their own intent alike.

That’s going by two songs, but something tells me the rest of this one isn’t exactly a dud. Keep an eye out.

Here’s PR wire info, links and audio:

Cardinal Fuzz are proud to present to you ‘Ape On Sunday’ – the 6th Long Player from Arcataa, California’s White Manna. Recorded over a period of time that saw front man David Johnson return home to Massachusetts to spend time with his family after a traumatic event. While away Dave and Anthony (back on board fully for this new lp) tackled the recordings they had started while Tavan and Johnny laid down the drum and bass tracks and Mike Dieter also rejoined White Manna to lay down some synth parts (honing a Klaus Schulze vibe) . When Dave returned to Humboldt they at long last got down to finishing the LP. ‘Ape On Sunday’ takes its inspiration and title from a Robert Zimmerman poem in his poetry book/novel – ‘Tarantula’ – a stream of conscious / cut up style prose from ’66.

You can feel how the life experiences over the last year have seeped, shaped and informed ‘Ape On Sunday’ which is the bands most intimate release since ‘Come Down Safari’. It’s a heady hypnotic mix that at times plays like psychedelic meditations and at others like music for a post apocalyptic movie. The Redwood canopies of Northern California’s Emerald Triangle still influence White Manna but there sound here is heading out in a more experimental direction where the music is more kosmische in style with sounds wreathed in mist and vapours, droning synths and shimmering guitars. ‘Ape On Sunday’ finds White Manna re-entering the stratosphere and floating back down to the dense redwood forest of their homeland.

Housed in a 350gsm Gloss Laminated Sleeve with a full colour insert and download code.

Tracklisting:
1. Ape On Sunday 07:10
2. Spirit Of St. Louis
3. O Captain
4. Night In Lisbon
5. Eye In The Cloud That Serves As Thunder
6. Zodiak Spree
7. More More More

https://www.facebook.com/whitemanna/
https://whitemanna.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/CardinalFuzz/
cardinalfuzz.bigcartel.com/

White Manna, Ape on Sunday (2019)

02.24.14 — 10:28PM Pacific — Monday night — Quality Inn, Arcata, CA

“Fuckin’ giant octopus…” — Aaron Bumpus

Today I saw the sun for the first time in what seemed like at least four months, and I’m not sure I can properly explain how good it felt. Not just the last two days of rain in the Pacific Northwest, but just the whole winter back home has been so soul-retchingly grim. It’s February and I stood outside today without a hoodie on. Whatever else happened, the day was going to be a win from the word go. The tour had an off-date, but with last night having been Portland and tomorrow being San Francisco, it was travel the whole day. That’s not the last time that’s going to happen on this run.

Wasn’t terrible, in any case. Most of the drive I spent nerding out on the landscape, which was deeply, richly beautiful, with tree-lined mountains, properties cut into the forest in straight lines like a border about to be eaten by a wave. So fucking cool. Mountains all over the place, people nowhere. Wonderful, gorgeous land. One hardly thinks of loading into a sprinter van with six other dudes as a way to feel refreshed, but that’s where I was at this afternoon as we made our way south through Oregon. Here we are, rolled into a truck stop in the middle of nowhere. There’s the Subway, there’s the Pilot, there’s the porn shack, there’s Kings Destroy picking up a sixer for the road, and here’s me taking pictures in the parking lot like it’s National Geographic. Still, the sky and the mountains had me well enamored.

Jim Pitts had his work cut out for him on the drive, though Steve took over for a while as well after signing a form, taking a picture of it on his phone and sending it to who knows where. We came south down the 205 out of Portland, romantic visions of the Hawthorne Theatre and surrounding area still lingering in my head to go with my ringing ears, then picked up 99 to 199 in Grant’s Pass, which looked like a cool little town. Sort of these hippie enclaves along the way, people for whom getting away from other people was clearly a priority. Very secluded, some small shops outside of town. One place that made custom treehouses that were particularly righteous. I’m not sure that I’d be able to give up my kneejerk New Jersey prick bred-in anger and restlessness long enough to live that way for any real stretch of time, but it’s a lifestyle I envy.

Late afternoon/early evening found the van on winding roads in the hills, headed toward the coast. The kinds of turns you either take slow or slam into the side of a mountain. By the time we got into California and picked up the 101 at around exit 800, about five hours after starting out, I was starting to drag a bit, but a quick pit stop after coming through some crazy mountain tunnel provided respite. I think everyone got increasingly worn down from there by the drive, but best to keep going. Saw some redwood trunks in the forest, but it was dark by then, so not much more, and nothing really of the water except the blackness where it would’ve been by day and stars overhead. We got to this motel in Arcata, CA, a little bit before 8:30PM, checked in, ate at the Mexican place next door — which officially closed at nine, but were very accommodating all the same — for food and drink. Flautas and iced tea. West Coast Mexican food demolishes the vast majority of what’s available back home, though obviously there are exceptions on both sides. As a general rule though, the standard is higher. The East Coast has pizza though, which isn’t nothing. Talk was of hardcore days gone by, bands, shows, people, scenes, etc. I know next to nothing about any of it, but it’s interesting.

Steve had said something about hitting a beach early in the morning and I think C-Wolf and Jim Pitts were going to go as well, but I’m more inclined to crash out for as long as possible. I got to sleep after four last night and the fire alarm at the motel in Portland went off a little after seven because some doofus left his waffle in the iron too long. Sleep in the van is just about out of the question so far, though I was dozing by the time we pulled into Arcata, so I’ll take what I can get however I can get it. Tomorrow night is DNA Lounge in San Fran, and then on to Albuquerque. I’m looking forward to seeing the Pacific coast again during the day and to the show as well. It’s not an insubstantial trip, but it’s going fast. Tomorrow is Tuesday already and we leave on Saturday. Between, more mountains, forest, desert, rock and roll. I feel lucky to be here, immensely thankful to have been invited.