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Friday Full-Length: Montibus Communitas, The Pilgrim to the Absolute

Posted in Bootleg Theater on December 31st, 2021 by JJ Koczan

If you know this one, you already know. If you don’t, take a breath before you get introduced. Then take another. And another. Be aware of those breaths.

The meditative nature of the sounds is writ large across Montibus Communitas‘ The Pilgrim to the Absolute, the 2014 second-ish-and-what-do-numbers-matter-when-we-have-the-cosmos-as-our-playground full-length from the Lima, Peru, exploratory collective. It’s a record of multiple paths. You can be the pilgrim, decked out in travel gear, walking stick and headphones, making your way every step through the six-song/43-minute progression, from “The Pilgrim Under Stars” at the outset to “The Pilgrim to the Absolute” itself at the finish, the ‘Absolute’ itself providing both the pilgrim’s destination and the next path you can take. You can be the absolute. You can leave the details to the details, revel in the nighttime crickets and moving percussion of “The Pilgrim at the Shrine,” violin and drums reverbed out in distant what-did-I-take-and-how-much fashion as the music begins to shift about three minutes in, and spread mind-presence like pouring water in the memories of “The Pilgrim to the Source of Love and Life” and the droning resolution in “The Pilgrim and the Light Masters” and the concluding title-track. Closed eyes, you don’t have to see your steps because you know it doesn’t matter, if you slip you’ll just fly.

Or I guess you can be you, and that’s also fine.

There aren’t lyrics — so don’t expect any — but to call The Pilgrim to the Absolute anything but narrative does it an injustice. The titles, with “…Under Stars,” “…to the Woods,” “…at the Shrine,” and so on providing clear stages of the pilgrim’s journey toward what seems to be some kind of resonant oneness. And whether you listen like you’re the one doing the going or like you’re the destination, or even like you’re one of the light masters in “The Pilgrim to the Light Masters,” what ultimately matters is your willingness to give The Pilgrim to the Absolute the attention it deserves. It is not always easy. Somewhat ironically, this is not driving music. It’s very definitely an on-foot pilgrimage, sonically speaking.

But it’s also a ceremony in itself, and you can hear that in the experimentalism, the realization of “The Pilgrim to the Source of Love and Life” and the ethereality that ties the entire album together, one piece into the next. There’s gorgeous melodic shimmer, but it’s always in interaction with sounds from the natural world, and of all the dream-acid music one might encounter using birdsong to its atmospheric advantage, I’ve never heard a group do it with montibus-communitas-the-pilgrim-to-the-absolutethe same kind of character as Montibus Communitas do here, or come out with the same kind of moment-capture in the end result.

The three longer-form chapters, or stages, or levels, or whatever you might want to call them, help give The Pilgrim to the Absolute its shape. And they’re arranged shortest-to-longest in themselves. That’s the aforementioned opener, “The Pilgrim Under Stars” (8:22), the vinyl side-A closer “The Pilgrim at the Shrine” (10:14), and the side B finale “The Pilgrim to the Absolute” (13:46). They are the stops along the way, though it’s noteworthy that the last of them is “…to the Absolute” rather than “at” it, which would seem to imply another journey being undertaken.

To that end, there’s a fair amount about Montibus Communitas and The Pilgrim to the Absolute that’s still not really out there to know. For example, why they never made a follow-up to this record. And also who they were. I know there was some common membership between Montibus Communitas and the multi-national collective We Here Now, who put their The Chikipunk Years (discussed here) album in 2019 through Elektrohasch, but that’s about as much as I have to go on. The Pilgrim to the Absolute didn’t come out of nowhere, of course — it was issued through Beyond Beyond is Beyond after being self-released by the band — and it’s certainly not a thing I “discovered” in some kind of aesthetic colonialist fashion. All of the work the band did (that I know of) was between 2011 and 2014 — kind of hard to know where studio releases end and live ones begin, but again, whatever — and so far as I know, The Pilgrim to the Absolute is the last of it.

You can insert your own story here about the band having transcended to the plane of existence portrayed in their music if you want — say what you (I) will about echo and reverb and dreams and alternate dimensions, there’s a constant human presence in these songs — but one way or another, they’re not the first or last to make their way into something really special sound-wise and then not be heard from again in the same form. Sometimes that makes a record like this more special for the time it captures in the first place.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

The day isn’t really over, huh? Maryland Doom Fest is set to announce its lineup at 8PM, and I’ve still got to get that post ready as well as some other stuff that I hope to have up before this. We’ll see if that happens.

I was away for part of this week, Tuesday into yesterday evening, house/dog-sitting for The Patient Mrs.’ mother and sister in Connecticut. I probably wouldn’t have gone to Clutch at Starland Ballroom anyway, what with the amount of people who’d be there, but it was convenient to have another valid excuse to give myself, if parenting an unvaccinated kid wasn’t enough of one. Someday they’ll have a shot for the under-five set. I hope he’s not seven by the time they get there.

But who cares, right? I hear omicron isn’t that bad, and so what if it’s like half a mil cases per day. Haven’t you ever heard of a bad cold season? Mask this, big government!

Quite an age we live in.

On that note, Happy New Year 2022. The Patient Mrs. and I discussed last night how we would ring it in and it was mutually decided we’d watch Star Trek on the couch and then go to bed, probably before 9PM. With the bulk of the day ahead of me, I’ll say I’m looking very much forward to it.

Whatever you’re up to, be safe and have fun. On Monday the poll results will go up. Tuesday I think is a premiere? I gotta look. I’m going to try to review the new Earthless though after that, or whenever the next open day is. I’ll check the notes and get back to you, or, more likely, not get back to you and just post what I can when I can, because these days that’s about as much time as I have. To wit, I’m writing this now on my phone while The Pecan paints rocks from a craft kit he just got. Week later he’s still getting Xmas payout. Pretty impressive.

In any case, don’t forget to hydrate and watch your head. I’ll be back with more on Monday and so on into the great unknown of January.

Thanks again for reading. Please buy a t-shirt and/or some sweatpants so I can invariably spend the money on whoever is closing out next week’s Bandcamp. Ha.

FRM.

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The Obelisk Presents: The Top 20 Short Releases of 2017

Posted in Features on December 22nd, 2017 by JJ Koczan

the obelisk top 20 short releases

Please note: This post is not culled in any way from the Year-End Poll, which is ongoing. If you haven’t yet contributed your favorites of 2017 to that, please do.

This is the hardest list to put together, no question. Don’t get me wrong, I put way too much thought into all of them, but this one is damn near impossible to keep up with. Every digital single, every demo, every EP, every 7″, 10″ one-sided 12″, whatever it is. There’s just too much. I’m not going to claim to have heard everything. Hell, that’s what the comments are for. Let me know what I missed. Invariably, something.

So while the headers might look similar, assuming I can ever remember which fonts I use from one to the next, this list has a much different personality than, say, the one that went up earlier this week with the top 20 debuts of 2017. Not that I heard everyone’s first record either, but we’re talking relative ratios here. The bottom line is please just understand I’ve done my best to hear as much as possible. I’m only one person, and there are only so many hours in the day. Eventually your brain turns into riffy mush.

With that caveat out of the way, I’m happy to present the following roundup of some of what I thought were 2017’s best short releases. That’s EPs, singles, demos, splits — pretty much anything that wasn’t a full-length album, and maybe one or two things that were right on the border of being one. As between genres, the lines are blurry these days. That’s part of what makes it fun.

Okay, enough dawdling. Here we go:

lo-pan-in-tensions

The Obelisk Presents: The Top 20 Short Releases of 2017

1. Lo-Pan, In Tensions
2. Godhunter, Codex Narco
3. Year of the Cobra, Burn Your Dead
4. Shroud Eater, Three Curses
5. Stubb, Burning Moon
6. Canyon, Canyon
7. Solace, Bird of Ill Omen
8. Kings Destroy, None More
9. Tarpit Boogie, Couldn’t Handle… The Heavy Jam
10. Supersonic Blues, Supersonic Blues Theme
11. Come to Grief, The Worst of Times EP
12. Rope Trick, Red Tape
13. Eternal Black, Live at WFMU
14. IAH, IAH
15. Bong Wish, Bong Wish EP
16. Rattlesnake, Outlaw Boogie Demo
17. Hollow Leg, Murder
18. Mars Red Sky, Myramyd
19. Avon, Six Wheeled Action Man Tank 7″
20. Wretch, Bastards Born

Honorable Mention

Across Tundras, Blood for the Sun / Hearts for the Rain
The Discussion, Tour EP
Fungus Hill, Creatures
Switchblade Jesus & Fuzz Evil, The Second Coming of Heavy – Chapter Seven
The Grand Astoria, The Fuzz of Destiny
Test Meat, Demo
Blood Mist, Blood Mist
Sweat Lodge, Tokens for Hell
Dautha, Den Foerste
Scuzzy Yeti, Scuzzy Yeti
Howling Giant, Black Hole Space Wizard Part 2
Decasia, The Lord is Gone
Bible of the Devil/Leeches of Lore, Split 7″

I can’t imagine I won’t add a name or two or five to this section over the next few days as I think of other things and people remind me of stuff and so on, so keep an eye out, but the point is there’s way more than just what made the top 20. That Across Tundras single would probably be on the list proper just on principle, but I heard it like a week ago and it doesn’t seem fair. Speaking of unfair, The Discussion, Howling Giant, The Grand Astoria and the Bible of the Devil/Leeches of Lore split all deserve numbered placement easily. I might have to make this a top 30 in 2018, just to assuage my own guilt at not being able to include everything I want to include. For now though, yeah, this is just the tip of the doomberg.

Notes

To be totally honest with you, that Lo-Pan EP came out Jan. 13 and pretty much had the year wrapped up in my head from that point on. It was going to be hard for anything to top In Tensions, and the Godhunter swansong EP came close for the sense of stylistic adventurousness it wrought alone, and ditto that for Year of the Cobra’s bold aesthetic expansions on Burn Your Dead and Shroud Eater’s droning Three Cvrses, but every time I heard Jeff Martin singing “Pathfinder,” I knew it was Lo-Pan’s year and all doubt left my mind. Of course, for the Ohio four-piece, In Tensions is something of a one-off with the departure already of guitarist Adrian Zambrano, but I still have high hopes for their next record. It would be hard not to.

The top five is rounded out by Stubb’s extended jam/single “Burning Moon,” which was a spacey delight and new ground for them to cover. The self-titled debut EP from Philly psych rockers Canyon, which they’ve already followed up, is next. I haven’t had the chance to hear the new one yet, but Canyon hit a sweet spot of psychedelia and heavy garage that made me look forward to how they might develop, so I’ll get there sooner or later. Solace’s return was nothing to balk at with their cassingle “Bird of Ill Omen” and the Sabbath cover with which they paired it, and though Kings Destroy weirded out suitably on the 14-minute single-song EP None More, I hear even greater departures are in store with their impending fourth LP, currently in progress.

A couple former bandmates of mine feature in Tarpit Boogie in guitarist George Pierro and bassist John Eager, and both are top dudes to be sure, but even if we didn’t have that history, it would be hard to ignore the tonal statement they made on their Couldn’t Handle… The Heavy Jam EP. If you didn’t hear it, go chase it down on Bandcamp. Speaking of statements, Supersonic Blues’ Supersonic Blues Theme 7″ was a hell of an opening salvo of classic boogie that I considered to be one of the most potential-laden offerings of the year. Really. Such warmth to their sound, but still brimming with energy in the most encouraging of ways. Another one that has to be heard to be believed.

The dudes are hardly newcomers, but Grief offshoot Come to Grief sounded pretty fresh — and raw — on their The Worst of Times EP, and the Massachusetts extremists check in right ahead of fellow New Englangers Rope Trick, who are an offshoot themselves of drone experimentalists Queen Elephantine. Red Tape was a demo in the demo tradition, and pretty formative sounding, but seemed to give them plenty of ground on which to develop their aesthetic going forward, and I wouldn’t ask more of it than that.

Eternal Black gave a much-appreciated preview of their Bleed the Days debut long-player with Live at WFMU and earned bonus points for recording it at my favorite radio station, while Argentine trio IAH probably went under a lot of people’s radar with their self-titled EP but sent a fervent reminder that that country’s heavy scene is as vibrant as ever. Boston-based psych/indie folk outfit Bong Wish were just the right combination of strange, melodic and acid-washed to keep me coming back to their self-titled EP on Beyond Beyond is Beyond, and as Adam Kriney of The Golden Grass debuted his new project Rattlesnake with the Outlaw Boogie demo, the consistency of his songcraft continued to deliver a classic feel. Another one to watch out for going into the New Year.

I wasn’t sure if it was fair to include Hollow Leg’s Murder or not since it wound up getting paired with a special release of their latest album, but figured screw it, dudes do good work and no one’s likely to yell about their inclusion here. If you want to quibble, shoot me a comment and quibble away. Mars Red Sky only released Myramyd on vinyl — no CD, no digital — and I never got one, but heard a private stream at one point and dug that enough to include them here anyway. They remain perennial favorites.

Avon, who have a new record out early in 2018 on Heavy Psych Sounds, delivered one of the year’s catchiest tracks with the “Six Wheeled Action Man Tank” single. I feel like I’ve had that song stuck in my head for the last two months, mostly because I have. And Wretch may or may not be defunct at this point — I saw word that drummer Chris Gordon was leaving the band but post that seems to have disappeared now, so the situation may be in flux — but their three-songer Bastards Born EP was a welcome arrival either way. They round out the top 20 because, well, doom. Would be awesome to get another LP out of them, but we’ll see I guess.

One hopes that nothing too egregious was left off, but one again, if there’s something you feel like should be here that isn’t, please consider the invitation to leave a comment open and let me know about it. Hell, you know what? Give me your favorites either way, whether you agree with this list or not. It’s list season, do it up. I know there’s the Year-End Poll going, and you should definitely contribute to that if you haven’t, but what was your favorite EP of the year? The top five? Top 10? I’m genuinely curious. Let’s talk about it.

Whether you have a pick or not (and I hope you do), thanks as always for reading. May the assault of short releases continue unabated in 2018 and beyond.

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The Myrrors Release Hasta la Victoria June 30; Track Streaming Now

Posted in Whathaveyou on June 20th, 2017 by JJ Koczan

the myrrors

The Myrrors‘ new album, Hasta la Victoria, is due out June 30 via Beyond Beyond is Beyond Records, and its venerable, purpose-driven psychedelia would seem to exist on that horizon line where the flat desert earth meets the nighttime sky indistinguishable from outer space itself. Can you see it? If not, you might want to check out the winding krautjazz of “Organ Mantra” when the time comes or simply dig into on “Somos la Resistencia” below. The track is streaming ahead of the release and has been for some time, but if you haven’t caught it yet, its neo-psych intensity speaks to some of the urgency of the themes the Tucson-based outfit are tackling with the record while still holding onto the vastness of the landscape that surrounds them. Vibe? Yeah, they got vibe.

Info and audio follow, courtesy of the PR wire:

the-myrrors-hasta-la-victoria

Tucson psych band The Myrrors – new album ‘Hasta La Victoria’ out 6/30 on Beyond Beyond is Beyond

If you turn your eyes to gaze even momentarily at the current state of our shared human environment, you’ll be forgiven for thinking it may be an unusual time to spend much time in consideration of “victory.” The forces that seek to stall progress and the forces that seek to pollute progress are intertwined, the path to progress choked, gasping for the breath of new ideas. It’s against this backdrop that we reconnect with the The Myrrors, and their beautiful, bewildering new album, “Hasta La Victoria.

Of course, you’ll also be forgiven if you’ve not been privy to pay attention to the path of progress pursued by these largely indefinable desert defenders—though it’s not that The Myrrors haven’t given listeners plenty of chances to reflect. “Hasta La Victoria” comes just one year after the band’s previous “Entranced Earth,” and serves as more than an enthralling companion piece. In scope and sound, this group of Arizona arhats has developed their own, altered and all-encompassing definition of “victory.”

On “Hasta La Victoria,” The Myrrors win the fight by largely giving up, so to speak. By almost completely abandoning traditional electric guitar sounds, the band lives to fight another day and sounds all the stronger for it. Minimalist influences perfume the surroundings of the album as a whole, transforming the proceedings into a transformative platter in which sun-soaked dervishes ascend and descend, informed by interlocking influences, and instruments as well. “Hasta La Victoria,” in name and deed, embraces and is endowed by the potency of this unbounded approach, merging the sounds of Arizonan and Afghani heads into a single, satisfying whole.

And yet, not a moment of the album’s thirty-seven minutes ever feels anything short of natural, or even remotely rushed. Indeed, in the best possible way, “Hasta La Victoria” sounds like The Myrrors couldn’t be doing anything else—and by continuing to forge their own path, it’s further proof that the band has never done anything less. Perhaps it’s not the word “victory” in the album’s title that should focus our attention; perhaps it’s the persistent, propulsive “until.”

“Organ Mantra” opens the album in an appropriately mystical manner, ten minutes of The Myrrors shining at their brightest, somehow exhibiting the grace and power of a freely flowing river. “Somos La Resistencia” follows at a fraction of the length, but with no reduction in impact, its declaration that “we are the lost that want truth” understandable in any language. “Tea House Music” and “El Aleph” follow, sister-songs in solidarity with the solidly transcendental terrain traveled on the album. The title track, at nearly fifteen minutes in length, ends the album on a high note – if by “high” you’re referring to the daily waking consciousness of, say, Neem Karoli Baba. Because it brings the album to a close, it’s unfair to call the song the album’s “centerpiece.” But it certainly stands as the album’s emotional and musical core – unrefined, unrestrained and unforgettable.

Throughout “Hasta La Victoria,” the band sounds utterly propelled by an invisible force, by the indelible impression that their actions – as a band, as artists, as people. Be here now or be here later, but there’s little doubt that The Myrrors will be continuing to pursue the path at whatever time you arrive. – Ryan Muldoon

https://www.facebook.com/themyrrors.az/
https://twitter.com/the_myrrors
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The Myrrors New Album Entranced Earth out Now

Posted in Whathaveyou on May 31st, 2016 by JJ Koczan

the myrrors

Tucson-based psychedelic soundscapers The Myrrors have released their new album, Entranced Earth, via Beyond Beyond is Beyond. Their third long-player, it’s a record of noteworthy expanse and patience and sopping wet with trippy fervor, but not staid or indulgent more than the material seems to warrant. The vinyl is a black and white spatter, but the music itself works in a wide array of colors and shapes, and as the empty, rolling landscape on the album cover hints, it’s all very open, sparse at times, but teeming with life under the surface.

It’s streaming in full (of course it is; it’s the future!), so you can dive into info and audio below:

the myrrors entranced earth

THE MYRRORS’ STUNNING NEW LP “ENTRANCED EARTH” IS OUT NOW…

There’s a confounding nature to the comfort constructed by The Myrrors throughout the flawless forty minutes of “Entranced Earth,” the third full-length album from the transcendentally-tuned, Tuscon-tied desert die-hards (and their second for Beyond Beyond Is Beyond Records).

Those looking for terra firma – for ground not given to staggering shifts, for easily grasped handholds, for the force of gravity as we know it – are likely to find the album an often-groundless experience. But for listeners willing to give themselves over to the landscape presented on “Entranced Earth,” the reward lies in the discovery of new lands, and the sound of a band operating at the peak of their powers.

When last we saw the reflection of The Myrrors, it was in the form of their previous release, “Arena Negra,” an album that announced its presence immediately and with high dosage of the appropriate amplification. “Entranced Earth,” by contrast, gives indication of The Myrrors entering an altogether different atmosphere, taking on an altogether higher climb, shorn of all hesitation and allowing their freak flags to unfurl and fly like never before.

Still, it’s difficult (and altogether unnecessary) to pin down “Entranced Earth” beyond the spires of sonic smoke that the album seems to generate at will. So subtle is the album- opening invocation of “Mountain Mourning” that it threatens to never descend from its sky-bound view, leaving the track that follows, “Liberty Is In the Street,” to offer the album’s first, fading glimpse of solid ground. “On your feet or on your knees” goes the mantra-like vocal drone, though the effect is likely to bring to mind the Moody Blues more than Blue O?yster Cult (at least, the path of The Myrrors seems to include traces of the footprints left by the one-time Harvard professor given an early eulogy by the Blues on “Legend of a Mind”). By the time that “No Clear Light” – a torch-lit, dust-crusted dirge that can be felt as the beating heart of the album overall – leads listeners toward the nearly nine-minute title track and album centerpiece, there are doubtlessly many more wanderers pledging allegiance to The Myrrors unnamed cult.

Guitars of six and twelve strings, harmonium, tablas, alto sax, bulbul tarang – these are the tools of The Myrrors all-consuming quest, expertly applied for maximum elevation. Enter the realm of “Entranced Earth,” sit still and let the ground disappear beneath your feet. – Ryan Muldoon

https://www.facebook.com/themyrrors.az/
https://themyrrorsbbib.bandcamp.com/album/entranced-earth
https://www.facebook.com/beyondbeyondisbeyond
http://beyondbeyondisbeyond.com/

The Myrrors, Entranced Earth (2016)

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Heaters Release Holy Water Pool Sept. 25

Posted in Whathaveyou on August 17th, 2015 by JJ Koczan

heaters

Grand Rapids, Michigan, psychedelic rock trio Heaters are in the midst of wrapping up a pretty extensive, get-out-there-and-sleep-on-floors-style summer tour. They’ll release their new album — is it their second? their first? I don’t know; why you gotta label everything? — which is titled Holy Water Pool on Sept. 25 via Beyond Beyond is Beyond, and if clicking play below on the stream of their earlier-2015 single Mean Green is too much work for you, I’ll save you the trouble and just say it’s got that ’60s garage jangle with reverb to spare and swing enough to avoid any shoegaze tag one might be tempted to toss its way thanks to the drawling vocals. I’d expect they get up to some serious groove on the record, but you know me, I’m not one to speculate.

Art and details and audio, off the PR wire and painstakingly assembled for your convenient consumption:

heaters holy water pool

Michigan psych trio Heaters (Beyond Beyond is Beyond Records)/‘Holy Water Pool’ out 9/25

In the year 2015, it may be that only foolishness or forgetfulness can excuse being surprised by the pace and power of a rock and roll machine coming out of the holy state of Michigan. Yet such is the power of the perpetual energy expressed throughout Holy Water Pool, the new full-length album by Heaters on Beyond Beyond Is Beyond.

If there’s an offer of salvation within Holy Water Pool, its one that comes with a catch: you have to risk drowning. Drowning in this case brought on by the rapid-rush of these eleven songs over forty-one minutes, creating an album that consistently offers explosion while also always keeping its fuse lit. “Kamizake” is the suitably deadly opener, as much an invocation of the ghosts of reverb past as it is a song. Broken shards of the Bo Diddley beat, detritus left behind by the three-eyed men of the Elevators, the amplifier-abuse-turned-illumination of The Warlocks – all feed the rich soil from which Holy Water Pool emerges. And perhaps nowhere on Holy Water Pool is the fruit of that soil better served than on “Master Splinter,” an instantly-under-your-skin gallop of greatness that lays bare both the unbridled joy and teeth-gnashing distress of what we like to call rock and roll.

Moments of Holy Water Pool threaten to turn into a wave pool, holy or not, given Heaters almost incongruous surf-city leanings. Sonically, this is more than the sum of its parts (and more than the sum of second-hand Ventures records, too) in the way it colors the band’s sound, with their relatively defined palette expanding to a depth that’s deceptively broad and ultimately breathtaking. “Gum Drop” is perhaps the albums sweetest treat, here the pace slowed to a somnambulistic shuffle, with the band threatening to disintegrate completely into the sound that grows ever more cavernous at every turn, tethered to reality only by the siren sound of saxophone. On the album ending “Dune Ripper,” our eyes initially crossed and read the title as “Duane Ripper,” as in the million-dollar twang delivered by Duane Eddy. It’s a ripper, for sure, and leaves little doubt that this dose of “Holy Water,” delivered with chilling efficiency by Heaters, has had its intended impact on our ears.

Onward flows the Holy Water Pool, the rambunctious and replenished flow of rock and roll, inviting all for a cleansing, refreshing dip. Jump in.

TOUR DATES
8/17 – Phoenix, AZ – Valley Bar
8/18 – Albuquerque, NM – The Mountain
8/19 – Marfa, TX – El Cosmico
8/20 – Dallas, TX – Lola’s Saloon
8/21 – Austin, TX – Swan Dive
8/22 – San Antonio, TX – Hitones
8/23 – New Orleans, LA – Siberia
8/24 – Atlanta, GA – 529
8/25 – Charlotte, NC – Snug Harbor
8/26 – Nashville, TN – Stone Fox
8/27 – Chicago, IL – Subterranean
9/4 – Grand Rapids, MI – The Pyramid Scheme
September 25th, 2015 Alphaville Brooklyn, NY

https://www.facebook.com/heatersss
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http://heaters.bandcamp.com/
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Heaters, Mean Green 7″ (2015)

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Montibus Communitas, The Pilgrim to the Absolute: Warmth in Light

Posted in Reviews on December 4th, 2014 by JJ Koczan

montibus communitas the pilgrim to the absolute

Depending on what you count as a live record and what you count as a studio album, The Pilgrim to the Absolute is either the fourth or fifth full-length from Peruvian psychedelic collective Montibus Communitas. Either way, it is a gorgeous, lush work guided by masterful hands crafting spacious drone explorations, and a true sense of wandering and being carried by music that both suits the narrative given to the six included tracks and hones in on a feel that, if it weren’t sincere, would fall utterly flat. Released on CD and clear, black and glow-in-the-dark vinyl by Brooklyn-based imprint Beyond Beyond is Beyond, The Pilgrim to the Absolute is full-sounding even at its most minimal, using nature sounds — birdsong, crickets — to flesh out material somewhere between psych-folk and jam-based meandering. Instrumental and varied to the point of amorphousness, it’s these organic elements that serve to tie the 44-minute instrumental progression together, their changes mirroring shifts in the narrative that the band — a lineup of up to nine people that seems to be no less nebulous than the sounds they make — has constructed for the album’s progression, as can be read in the names of the tracks, which just so we can keep it all straight, I’ll put here:

1. The Pilgrim under Stars (8:22)
2. The Pilgrim to the Woods (3:50)
3. The Pilgrim at the Shrine (10:14)
4. The Pilgrim to the Source (4:04)
5. The Pilgrim and the Light Masters (3:16)
6. The Pilgrim to the Absolute (13:46)

Certain aspects of the arc are immediately clear from the titles. We know we’re following a character called “The Pilgrim.” In looking at the prepositions and remainders of the titles, we learn more about the journey. The album portrays a pilgrimage. The pilgrim begins under the stars of a night sky, treks through woods to arrive at a shrine, moves to the source, meets the Light Masters and, finally, discovers the Absolute, which is either a physical place, or — what seems more likely in the context of the music itself on the 13-minute closing title-track — a state of enlightenment attained. Set in longer and shorter progressions, The Pilgrim to the Absolute is a work of transience and destinations, but whatever duration each piece has and wherever it leads, there’s substance to be found, whether it’s the immersive tribal-style percussion of “The Pilgrim at the Shrine” set to strings and insect noise, or the improvised-feeling drone and bird calls of “The Pilgrim and the Light Masters,” which fades out on running water to lead into the title-track. Water is a recurring theme throughout and appears at the beginning of “The Pilgrim under Stars” as well, serving as the foundation on which an initial swell of birdsong and warm-toned guitar and drone is built. Some speech either sampled or off mic echoes in the mix and otherworldly flute acts as a guide as the first of the album’s six stages patiently draws the listener further into its course — encompassing, psychedelic and beautiful.

Montibus Communitas

Quite clearly, The Pilgrim to the Absolute is meant to be taken as a whole, and the shifts between songs — birds and running water on side A, running water and birds on side B — bears that out, even with the fade to silence after the chanting and insistent percussion provides a dissonant apex to “The Pilgrim at the Shrine” to close the first half of the album, but some of Montibus Communitas‘ most satisfying moments come in those shorter tracks, “The Pilgrim at the Woods” bordering on Earth-style drone and “The Pilgrim and the Light Masters” providing an emphasis on experimentalism and spaciousness as well as setting up the engrossing scope of the closer. Likewise, “The Pilgrim at the Source” begins side B on what seems to be the morning after the nighttime ritual culminating “The Pilgrim at the Shrine,” some tension and dread worked into the residual rhythmic push. Are we running? I don’t know, but the music — guitars, hand drums, flute, birds — remains evocative throughout, the ultra-organic soundscape contrasting some of the effects-laden droning that arrives with the subsequent “The Pilgrim and the Light Masters,” though many of the other basic factors in the construction remain the same. The penultimate cut is a prelude of sorts, transitional in the sense of leading us from the “source” to the “absolute,” but it derives further function in expanding the context of the album as a whole as well, its drone, as alluded, being echoed in the final wash of “The Pilgrim to the Absolute,” which is unmistakably the payoff for the voyage undertaken by “The Pilgrim” and the listener alike.

Within its first two minutes, “The Pilgrim to the Absolute” has established much of what constitutes its course. The nature-sound themes persist and a drone works its way into the recesses of the mix, only to come forward as the song plays out. It’s not a build, necessarily, as though Montibus Communitas were about to conjure enlightenment out of a wall of distortion and try to make it believable. Rather, a sweet-toned, bright-sounding guitar figure makes its way in with the other sounds calls to mind a feeling of inner peace at the conclusion of the story. It is the fullest that the collective sounds on The Pilgrim to the Absolute, and little mystery why they’d choose the final chapter as the title for the album, since “The Pilgrim to the Absolute,” the track itself, manages to speak to everything that came before it while also adding this new texture, and true to form, the satisfying exhalation that seems to be taking place instrumentally comes across in the listener’s mindset as well. As the last guitar strums and the drone-wash gently fade, with the running water behind, it’s hard not to feel like you, and the band, and everyone, are the pilgrim in question, and that what’s just taken place is life itself. Whether that’s what Montibus Communitas intended to convey or not, I don’t know, but it’s worth considering in terms of just how resonant the material on The Pilgrim to the Absolute is and just how wondrous the journey can be if you’re willing to go with it. Recommended.

Montibus Communitas, The Pilgrim to the Absolute (2014)

Montibus Communitas on Thee Facebooks

Montibus Communitas on Bandcamp

The Pilgrim to the Absolute at Beyond Beyond is Beyond

Beyond Beyond is Beyond on Bandcamp

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