Fungal Abyss will release their new album, Benevolent Malevolence, next Monday, Sept. 24, through Adansonia Records. It is at least the third long-player for the Seattle-based cosmic doom experimentalist collective, arriving behind 2016’s Karma Suture (review here) and 2011’s Bardo Abgrund Temple (reissue review here), though the improvisational, mostly-instrumental outfit may well have snuck one or two others in there while no one was looking. With four-fifths of doomly doom purveyors Lesbian in their ranks, Fungal Abyss reach outward into an interstellar creative wash, finding the background noise of the galaxy and channeling it through max-volume wah in order to convey their exploratory sense. Comprised of two songs, each consuming an entire vinyl side, in “Croak Toke Parallax” (20:59) and “Chaos Condor” (22:08) — kudos to whoever in the band comes up with titles — it’s a noisier brand of heavy psych than one jams of the form often bring, and has a darker undertone of mood than one often expects from even the most churning of tripped-out improv.

So what’s happening and what’s happened? So what’s the now all about? Hell if I know, but Fungal Abyss proffer alternate-dimension — but not alt-dimension, because fuck that shit — lysergics with an admirable sense of freedom.  The ol’ “Croak Toke Parallax” starts out with soft chiming bells and echoing voices in tribalist ritualization, unfolding an ambience à la fellow PNW go-anywheres Master Musicians of Bukkake, and soon consumes itself in a swell of guitar noise and percussive awakening. Five minutes deep and the drone is up to your eyeballs and what good was reality anyway? Ten and there’s a march and searing lead lines and drums and still-offbeat percussion whatnots and you’re post-some sample that shows up like someone left the tv on, but you’re also post-just about everything else, so let it go. They’re headed somewhere and that’s into a full-on build-into-wash that plays out in increasing volume and surge to extreme levels of both over the next eight minutes, and there’s a while there where it’s just fucking madness, but they kind of even it out before drawing down into a noisy fade with a couple quiet measures of guitar ending off, as if to be like, “Oh yeah, sorry we just melted your eyeballs, here you go. We made you some new ones that see better colors.”

We’re back in the drone at the start of “Chaos Condor,” and you can almost hear the winged beast itself soaring overhead of the loops and swirls and tambourine and sundry banged-on-stuff. Keys? Maybe. Definitely synth. But at 3:30 there’s a deceptive amount going on and none of it seems to be interested in bourgeois interpretation. Like a data rod shot out of an interstellar probe, “Chaos Condor” carries its message in casual antigravity, with mounting feedback about six and seven minutes on that set the tone for the soon-unfolded fuckall (allfuck?). Maddening atmospherics ensue. It’s a more internal vibe that “Croak Toke Parallax,” but no less spacious, and it too finds its way — albeit later — into a reaching jam. It’s the drums that start the push, somewhere in the 11th minute, and we all know immediately where we’re headed but man there’s just not stopping what’s coming. The noise is even more biting the second time around, with the scorch going all the way to carbon before it blows itself apart and drones to a long finish, the chaos having long since been condored. At the end of the 43-minute run, what’s left? Out-of-body psychedelia and the prevailing feeling of stomach discomfort? Physical affect? Fucking right on.

They’re building altars here. Two of them. And the challenge is on you whether or not you can get down. They’re like handing you your first joint and telling you all the cool kids are doing it. Or eating mushrooms and playing Dungeons and Dragons. You get the idea.

Go.

Listen:

For these sessions, the collective spent two long days set up at the Killroom in Seattle keeping the tape rolling nearly the whole time as members came and went as the mood stuck or the drugs kicked in. These two half-hour tracks Croak Toke Parallax and Chaos Condor, capture some of the best moments of the various ensembles formed during this marathon improvisation.

Players from this session include: Benjamin Thomas-Kennedy, Arran McInnis, Dorando Hodous, Daniel LaRochelle, Nathan Smurthwaite, Andrew McInnis, B.R.A.D. Mowen, Sam Yoder, and Jim Davis.

The band will be celebrating the release of the album on October 12th at the Parliament Tavern in West Seattle with Nosretep and guests.

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