Posted in Whathaveyou on September 5th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Having recently engaged with Orango‘s upcoming album, it feels inevitable that, when it comes to Wizrd‘s autocorrect-defying classic-heavy-informed, harmony-prone and patiently wrought material as represented by “Lessons” — the opener and first streaming single from Wizrd‘s Karisma Records debut, Seasons — that’s kind of where my head goes, but the difference of what Wizrd offer is down to the specifically prog take “Lessons” would seem to demonstrate. The band — who will release the album on Oct. 21, preorders now, blah blah — boast connections to the likes of Spidergawd, Krokofant, Soft Ffog, and in the production end, Jaga Jazzist, and if those names mean nothing to you, that’s your next week’s worth of exploration sorted, but while you’re here, you may as well check out the song posted below.
If you’re learning about who these people are and what they’ve done in the past and what they’re doing now, in other words, “Lessons” can be a good way to start.
And while you’re processing the emotional trauma of that play on words, I’ll direct you to the smoothly executed copy of the PR wire for refuge:
Norwegian Rockers WIZRD Reveal Details and Single from Upcoming Album Seasons!
Having learned their craft at the Jazz Conservatory in Trondheim, WIZRD have completed work on their new album Seasons, and Karisma Records have today released the track Lessons from the album.
Lessons is a track that gives an insight into what we can expect from the debut album from this talented Norwegian quartet, consisting of Hallvard Gaardløs (SPIDERGAWD, DRAKEN and more) on bass and lead vocals, Karl Bjorå (MEGALODON COLLECTIVE and more) on guitar and vocals, Vegard Lien Bjerkan (SOFT FFOG and more) on keyboards and vocals and Axel Skalstad (KROKOFANT, SOFT FFOG and more) on drums.
The band’s Hallvard Gaardløs explains: “Lessons is somewhat the quintessential WIZRD song, at least for me. It is a good representation of what we intend to do on this album, mixing progressive and improvisational elements with rock & pop sensibilities. The lyrics are about the New Age movement, and the fact that I find it rather silly. I’m kind of just making fun of it all, comparing yoga to a sacrificing ritual for Satan. With that said, I practice yoga sometimes myself, so I guess that makes me a demon worshipper.. Oh well, why not! Hail Satan!”
The single Lessons can be downloaded or streamed from a variety of services:
Seasons itself, is set for release on the 21st October, and showcases how WIZRD are more than happy to test their limits with a sound that encompasses Rock and Indie to Jazz and Prog, whilst breaking a few rules along the way. The end result is a masterclass in how to produce a catchy album that is filled with beautiful vocal harmonies, stunning melodies, quirky jazz grooves and a rock’n’roll drive to die for.
Produced by Norwegian film score composer and JAGA JAZZIST drummer Martin Horntveth, Seasons was recorded at the Studio Paradiso in Oslo by Marcus Forsgren (BROR FORSGREN, JAGA JAZZIST) and Horntveth, and mixed by Bergen based musician and producer Matias Tellez (YOUNG DREAMS, GIRL IN RED).
With artwork by Steph Hope, Seasons will be available in CD, Digital and a Limited Edition LP in transparent magenta vinyl formats, and can now be pre-ordered from: https://www.karismarecords.no/shop/
Tracklist 1. Lessons 2. Free Will 3. Spitfire 4. All Is As It Should Be 5. Show Me What You Got 6. Fire & Water 7. Divine 8. When You Call
WIZRD are: Hallvard Gaardløs (SPIDERGAWD, DRAKEN and more) – bass/lead vocals Karl Bjorå (MEGALODON COLLECTIVE and more) – guitar/vocals Vegard Lien Bjerkan (SOFT FFOG and more) – keys/vocals Axel Skalstad (KROKOFANT, SOFT FFOG and more) – drums
Today’s Friday, and in most but a decreasing number of circumstances, that means a Quarterly Review is over. Not this one. Remember, doublewide means it goes to 100 albums. The really crazy part? It could go longer. I could add another day. It could go to 11! Have I done that before?
Probably. That Spinal Tap reference is too obvious for me to have never made it. In any case, I’ve got something booked for Monday after next already, so I won’t be adding another day, but I could just on the releases that came in over the last couple days. Onto the list for next time. Late September/early October, I think.
If you’re hurting for Quarterly Review in the meantime? Yeah, stick around. There’s a whole other week coming up. That’s what I’ve been saying. Have a great weekend and we’ll pick back up on Monday with another 10 records.
Quarterly Review #41-50:
The John Denver Airport Conspiracy, Something’s Gotta Give
Hail Toronto psych. The John Denver Airport Conspiracy released Something’s Gotta Give as a 16-tracker name-your-price Bandcamp download nearly a year ago, and vinyl delays give squares like yours truly who missed it at the time another opportunity to get on board. The 14-song LP edition runs 42 minutes, and it’s time well spent in being out of its own time, a pedal steel Americana-fying the ’60s drift of “Comin’ Through” while “Jeff Bezos Actually Works for Me” pairs garage strum-and-strut with a cavernous echo for an effect like shoegaze that looked up. “2000 November” and closer “The Lab” dares proto-punk shimmy and “Green Chair” has that B3 organ sound and lazy jangle that one can’t help but associate with 1967, “Ya, I Wonder” perhaps a few years before that, but “The Big Greaser” works in less directly temporal spaces, and the whole album is united by an overarching mellow spirit, not totally in a fog because actually the structures on some of these songs are pretty tight — as they were in the 1960s — but they’ve definitely and purposefully kept a few screws loose. Their sound may solidify over time and it may not, but as a debut album, Something’s Gotta Give is deceptively rich in its purpose and engaging in its craft and style alike. I wish I’d heard it earlier, I’m glad to have heard it now.
Clara Engel‘s experimentalist folk songwriting moves into and across and over and through various traditions and methods, but their voice is as resonant, human and unifying as ever, and that’s true from “O Human Child” through the softly echoing guitar pieces “Golden Egg” and “High Alien Priest,” the more ethereal “Glass Mountain,” and so on, while excursions like “I Drink the Rain,” “Cryptid Bop” and “Dead Tree March” earlier add not only instrumental flourish but an avant garde sensibility consistent with Engel‘s past work, even if as songs they remain resoundingly cohesive. That is to say, while founded on experimentalist principles, they are built into songs rather than presented in their rawest form. The inclusion of organ in finale “The Devils are Snoring” is striking and complements the minimalist vocals and backing drone, but by then Engel has long established their ability to put the listener where they wants, with the image of “Rowing Home Through a Sea of Golden Leaves” duly poetic to suit the music as demonstration. Gorgeous, impassioned, hurt but striving and ever moving forward creatively. Engel‘s work remains a treasure for those with ears to hear it. “I Drink the Rain” is an album unto itself.
Though the initial push of doomer riffing and melodic vocals in the post-intro title-track “Weird Tales” reminds a bit of Apostle of Solitude, the hooky brand of heavy wrought by Chilean three-piece Cormano — vocalist/guitarist Aaron Saavedra, bassist/backing vocalist Claudio Bobadilla, drummer/backing vocalist Rodrigo Jiménez — on their debut full-length is more about rock than such morose proceedings, and in fact it’s the prior intro “La Marcha del Desierto” that makes that plain. They’ll delve into psychedelic airiness in “El Caleuche” — the bassline underneath a highlight on its own — and if you read “Bury Me With My Money” as a capitalist critique, it’s almost fun instead of tragic, but their swing in “Urknall” and the roll of “Rise From Your Grave” (second Altered Beast reference of this Quarterly Review; pure coincidence) act as precursor to the thickened unfurling of “Futuere” and “A Boy and His Dog,” a closing pair that reinforce Cormano‘s ultimate direction as anything but settled, the latter featuring a pointedly heavy crash before a surprisingly gentle finish. Will be curious to see where their impulses lead them, but Weird Tales is that much stronger for the variety currently in their influences.
Like the rest of reality, Baltimorean heavy psychedelic blues rockers Black Lung have undergone a few significant changes in the last three years. Guitarist/vocalist Dave Cavalier (also Mellotron) and drummer/synthesist Elias Schutzman (also Revvnant, ex-The Flying Eyes) bid farewell to fellow founding member Adam Bufano (guitar, also ex-The Flying Eyes) and brought in Dave Fullerton to fill the role, while also, for the first time, adding a bassist in Charles Braese. Thus, their first record for Heavy Psych Sounds, the J. Robbins-produced/Kurt Ballou-mixed Dark Waves is a notable departure in form from 2019’s Ancients (review here), even if the band’s core methodology and aesthetic are the same. The sound is fuller, richer, and more able to hold the various Mellotrons and other flourishes, as well as the cello in “Hollow Dreams” and guest vocals on “Death Grip” and guest keys on “The Cog” and “The Path.” Taking inspiration from modern global uncertainties sociopolitical, medical and otherwise, the band put you in a mind of living through the current moment, thankfully without inducing the level of anxiety that seems to define it. Small favors amid big riffs. With shades of All Them Witches and further psychedelic exploring transposed onto their already-a-given level of songwriting, Black Lung sound like they’re making a second debut.
Make a big space and fill it with righteousness. Finland’s Slowenya are born out of an experimentalist hotbed in Turku, and the three-piece do justice to an expectation of far-out tendencies across the nonetheless-concise 31 minutes and six songs of Meadow, their second long-player in as many years. There’s an undercurrent of metal as “Synchronized” holds forth with a resilient, earthy chug, but the melodicism that typifies the vocals running alongside is lighter, born of a proggy mindset and able to keep any overarching aggression in check. With synths, samples, and ambient sounds filling out the mix — not that the massive tonality of the guitar and bass itself doesn’t do the job — a breadth is cast from “Intro” onward through “Nákàn” and the gone-full-YOB swell of “Irrevocable,” which is yet another of the tracks on Meadow one might hear and expect to be 20 minutes long and instead is under seven. The penultimate “Transients” pushes deeper into drone, and “Resonate and Relate” (7:53) caps Slowenya‘s impressive second LP with a due blend of melodic wash and lurching rhythmic physicality, the screams into a sudden stop effectively carrying the threat of more to come. You want to hear this.
As their growing fanbase immediately set about waiting for their third full-length after 2021’s Electric Temple, Norwegian heavy-broodgaze trio Superlynx issued at the very end of the year the Solstice EP, combining covers from Saint Vitus, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Nat King Cole (because obviously he’d be third on that list) and Nirvana with two originals in “Reorbit” and “Cosmic Wave.” As bassist/vocalist Pia Isaksen has already put out a solo release in 2022, drummer Ole Teigen has a blues band on the side among other projects, and one assumes guitarist Daniel Bakken is up to something else as well, Solstice serves as a welcome holdover of momentum after the album. It’s worth the price of admission (eight Euro) for the take on Nirvana‘s “Something in the Way” alone, but the so-slow-it-sounds-like-it’s-about-to-fall-apart “Reorbit” and the leadoff adaptation of “Born Too Late” enforces that song’s message with a modernized and made-even-more slogging sense of defeat. Maybe we were all born too late. Maybe that’s humanity’s fucking problem. Anyway, after you get this, get Isaksen‘s solo record as Pia Isa. You won’t regret that either, especially with the subdued vibe in some of the material on this one.
The always-hit-record ethic of multinational conglomerate jammers Øresund Space Collective pays dividends once again as Oily Echoes of the Soul emerges publicly — it was previously released in a different form to Bandcamp subscribers — as carved from a session all the way back in 2010. At the time I’m pretty certain all members of the band actually lived in Denmark, but sitarist K.G. Westman, who appeared here while still a member of Siena Root, is from Sweden, so whatever. Ultimately the affair is less about where they’re from than where you’re going while hearing it, which is off to a laid-back, anything goes psychedelic improvisation, beginning with the funky and suitably explorational, half-hour-long opener “Bump and Grind ØSC Style” before moving into the sitar-led “Peace of Mynd” (13:27) and the 24-minute title-track’s organic surges and recessions of volume; proggy, ’70s, and unforced as they are. Before twang-happy and much shorter closer “Shit Kickin'” (4:10), the 15-minute “Deep Breath for the EARTH” offers affirmation of the project’s reliably expansive sound. I’ve made no secret that I listen to this band in no small part for the emotionally and/or existentially soothing facets of their sound. Those are on ready display here, and I’ll be returning to this 12-year-old session accordingly.
Recorded in Dec. 1997 at Zone Six‘s practice space, the two-song Beautiful EP portrays a much different band than Zone Six ultimately became, with Australian-born vocalist Jodi Barry and then-Liquid Visions members Dave “Sula Bassana” Schmidt (bass, effects), Hans-Peter Ringholz (guitar, noise) and drummer/recording specialist Claus Bühler as well as keyboardist/etc.-ist Rusty and bringing two longform, molten works of pioneering-at-the-time heavy psychedelia. I mean, we’re talking 20 years ahead of their time, at least, here. It’s still forward-thinking. The guitars and breathy vocals in “Something’s Missing” are a joy and “Beautiful” plays off drone-style atmospherics with intermittently jazzy verses and a more active rhythm, winding guitar and pervasively spaced mindbending. Imagining what could’ve been if this record had been finished, one could repaint the scope of 2010s-era European heavy psychedelia as a whole, but on their own, the two extended inclusions on the 23-minute EP are a gorgeous glimpse at this fleeting moment in time. It is what it says it is.
LINK
TO THE PAST
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The Cimmerian, Thrice Majestic
Thrice Majestic and four-times barbarous comes this debut EP release from Los Angeles’ The Cimmerian, a new trio featuring Massachusetts expat David Gein (ex-bass, The Scimitar, etc.) on guitar, and the brand of heavy that ensues readily crosses the line between metal and doom, as the galloping “Emerald Scripture” reinforces directly after the eight-minute highlight and longest groover “Silver and Gold.” Drummer David Morales isn’t shy with the double-kick and neither should he be, and bassist/vocalist Nicolas Rocha has a bark that reminds of Entombed‘s L.G. Petrov, and that is not a compliment I’m ever going to hand out lightly. Lead cut “Howls of Lust and Fury” promises High on Fire-ist thrash in its opening, but The Cimmerian‘s form of pummel goes beyond any single point of inspiration, even on this presumably formative suckerpunch of an EP, which balances intensity and nod in the finishing move “Neck Breaker,” a last growl perhaps the most brutal of all. Fucking a. More of this.
You could probably sit and parse out where Ultracombo are coming from — geographically, it’s Vincenza, Italy — in terms of sound on the sequentially titled follow-up to 2019’s Season I (review here), but to do so denies the double-guitar five-piece credit for the obvious efforts they’ve put into making this material their own. Those efforts pay off in the listening experience of the five-tracker, which runs 25 minutes and so offers plenty enough to make an impression. Witness the slowdown in centerpiece “Umanotest” or the keyboard-or-keyboard-esque lead in the back half of the prior “Follia,” the added jammy feel in “Specchio,” the this-is-the-difference-the-right-drummer-makes “12345” or the return of the synth and an added bit of playfulness before the big ending in — what else? — “La Fine.” That this EP manages to careen and pull such hairpin turns of rhythm is a triumph unto itself. That it manages to do so without sounding like Queens of the Stone Age feels like a fucking miracle. “Dear Ultracombo, Hope you’re well. Time to make an album. Put in an interlude or two depending on space. Sincerely, some dude on the internet.”
Posted in Questionnaire on June 1st, 2022 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Pia Isaksen of Superlynx & Pia Isa
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I create and play music with my band Superlynx and solo project PIA ISA. I am trying create and do things I love and that I find meaningful. I discovered that music was my thing when I was a kid and started playing piano when I was eight. A year later I started inventing little melodies and songs myself and it felt like a very exciting and almost magic thing. I started playing guitar when I was 13 and listened to a lot of music. The town I grew up in, called Moss, had a great music scene at the time and so many bands, so there were people to play with and places to practice. I moved to Oslo in my early twenties and played in a couple of bands there which later led on to forming Superlynx in 2013. Then I started my solo project last year after having thought about it for years and finally found time for it.
Describe your first musical memory.
The first memory that comes to mind is sitting on the floor in the living room as a maybe three or four year old with my mom, singing songs together from a children’s songbook. I was very excited about singing and learning songs. I also remember the first time I felt moved by music and tears suddenly came rolling just because it was so beautiful. I think I was around eight and a Grieg record was playing in the house.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
This is a tough question and it seems impossible to choose one. There are so many special moments to look back on, from gigs I have played – especially with Superlynx – to being in the audience at amazing gigs, to moments of connecting musically with other people and memorable creative times. One gig that comes to mind was in Berlin in July 2019 when Superlynx supported Weedeater in a packed venue in 40 ° C and everyone up front was dancing during our set. The heat was a challenge but there was such a special lovely energy in the room and we had so much fun that hot summer night with new and old friends. Playing live the very night Oslo opened again after covid lockdown last year was also something to remember. And finally making my solo album and then having someone whose music I have been a fan of for a long time, Gary Arce from Yawning Man, etc., play on it also stands out. Seeing Sleep in Oslo in 2012 with a group of friends was also very special. One of them, a very good friend of mine, passed away shortly after and I am grateful we got to make this last great memory. Sorry, this question brings up many things. I will stop here.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
I always assume that people are kind and honest. That has led to disappointment more than once and I think I have become a little less naive as I have gotten older.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
To different things for different people. I guess also to more insight and to a broader “toolbox” for your ideas and what you want to express.
How do you define success?
Doing what you love, what is important to you and what makes you happy. When it comes to music I think it is something like creative fulfillment and when the music, words, performance, mood and sound just feel right all together. The feeling of having created a work you can fully stand behind and feel happy with. And if someone else connects to it and gets some meaning, comfort, good times, a needed escape or maybe even help dealing with things through it that is a wonderful thing. Like so much music has done for me. It wouldn’t hurt to sell a lot of records and tour the world but being able to do what you love and having good people around is pretty successful I would say.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
On a selfish level a lot of things. Violence, sexism, racism, sickness, injustice, the climate crisis etc. It would have been easier to not have seen or experienced any of it. But in the bigger picture I don’t think it is a very good solution to look away from the truth and pretend these problems don’t exist.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
More music of course, and I would also like to do some more collaborations. It would also be exciting to do some music for moving images or a film some time. And I wish to do more graphic art of my own that I have many ideas for and that I hope will be possible to realize sometime in the future.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Connection, catharsis, escape, deeper understanding of life, transcendence, hope. To express and communicate thoughts, ideas and feelings from our very inner core in a way that nothing else can, on more and on deeper levels. To help understand ourselves, each other and the world better and it definitely connects us and makes life more interesting.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
I am looking so much forward to summer which is finally beginning to kick in here, and to daily swims in the ocean when the sea gets warm enough. It is getting there. To me this is one of the very best things in life.
Posted in audiObelisk on May 4th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Norwegian classic prog duo Jordsjø release their third (at least) album, Pastoralia, this Friday, May 7, through Karisma Records. It is nothing if not aptly-named. The follow-up to 2019’s Nattfiolen, it boasts eight songs across 43 minutes that bring together lush melodic vibes and an intimacy born of what seems to be largely singular composition. Even at its most active, the overarching spirit is subdued if not peaceful, and the intro “Prolog” finds guitarist, keyboardist, flutist and vocalist Håkon Oftung and drummer/percussionist Kristian Frøland working alongside a range of others but fleshing out a creative breadth of their own that draws the varied pieces and parts of pieces together. Following “Prolog,” for example, “Skumring I Karesuando” is the longest track at 7:37 until the concluding 10-minute “Jord III,” and the band’s purpose toward listener immersion could hardly be clearer.
And it works. With patient composition, dynamic layering and consistent melodic focus, Jordsjø enact Scandiprog naturalism with a vision that washes away decades. Their execution throughout “Skumring I Karesuando” and the subsequent “Mellom Mjødurt, Marisko og Søstermarihånd” is fluid and rolls easily along the ears to the brain, rife with subtle flourishes and a smoothness of production that make stretches like the Mellotron/flute break in “Mellom Mjødurt, Marisko og Søstermarihånd” and the weightier guitar at the end of the title-track, which follows and caps side A, stand out all the more. Having established such balance over the course of the first half, the best thing Oftung and Frøland (and company) can do is mess with it, and the acoustics and string sounds of “Fugleviskeren” that serve as the instrumental intro to Pastoralia‘s side B do exactly that, working in counterpoint to preface the more outwardly Crimson-toned progression of “Beitemark,” culminating as it does in crashes that act as setup for the sudden turn of the penultimate “Vettedans.”
Therein lies the twist. Marked out by its Deep Purple keys, chime bell and meandering guitar-then-flute, “Vettedans” comes across like a tw0-minute condensed version of the album’s arrangements as a whole. It’s an intentionally strange interlude and not at all unwelcome, but like “Prolog” and “Skumring I Karesuando” were meant to bring the listener into the world being made for Pastoralia, so too is “Vettedans” meant to clarify just how in command of that world Jordsjø are ahead of the finale in “Jord III.” As for “Jord I” and “Jord II,” they showed up on 2017’s Jord, and the piano line that brings in “Jord III” could just as easily work coming out of the cymbal wash of “Jord II” as it does from the silence after “Vettedans.” The sense of flow, the class in the delivery of its later spoken parts and guitar leads, and the peaks and valleys it creates across its course are rightfully distinguished in the closer position, and it’s one more aspect of Pastoralia that speaks to the underlying consciousness of Jordsjø in its construction, on the songwriting and presentation levels alike. If one thinks of progressive rock as that which is considered in its exploration and thoughtful about what it does, this is what that sounds like.
That they’d bear relation to Tusmørke through Oftung shouldn’t be a surprise in listening, and they’re well at home on Karisma Records among the likes of Wobbler and Lucy in Blue and others, but there is a distinct take to be found in the balance of folk and prog throughout Pastoralia, as well as the delicate guiding hand that leads the audience through the work as a whole. I’m happy today to host the album for streaming ahead of the release Friday.
You’ll find it on the player below, followed by more info from the PR wire.
Enjoy:
In the tradition of some of last century’s best Nordic rock, Jordsjø’s duo of multi instrumentalist Håkon Oftung (Tusmørke, Black Magic) and drummer Kristian Frøland, meld Progressive rock with interesting melodies, whilst giving the whole a Folk-inspired twist. And, for Pastoralia, they have produced an album that is a musical journey that travels from minimalist mellotron passages to a full on rock tempest, and which sees Jordsjø moving further into jazzy, progressive, musical landscapes.
Thematically, the album is based on dreams, a longing for freedom and the fictional place Pastoralia, where every day is like tropical nights in Northern Norway, where the forest people dance around campfires.
Joining the duo on Pastoralia are a number of guests including Ola Mile Bruland (Actionfredag), Håkon Knutzen, Vilde Mortensen Storesund, Mats Lemjan, Christian Meaas Svendsen and Åsa Ree (Meer, Tusmørke, Wobbler).
With artwork by Sindre Foss Skancke, the album is set for release on Karisma Records on the 7th May, Pastoralia will be available on CD, digital and black vinyl formats as well as in a blue vinyl version which will be limited to 600 copies. The album can be pre-ordered right here:https://www.karismarecords.no/product/artist/jordsjo/
Tracklist 1. Prolog 2. Skumring I Karesuando 3. Mellom Mjødurt, Marisko og Søstermarihånd 4. Pastoralia 5. Fuglehviskeren 6. Beitemark 7. Vettedans 8. Jord III
Posted in Bootleg Theater on February 2nd, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Oslo, Norway’s Superlynx will issue their third album, Electric Temple, through Dark Essence Records on April 16. The title-track is the first single and is premiering in the video below ahead of a Feb. 4 standalone release. It arrives early on the record, with just opener/longest track (immediate points) “Rising Flame” in front of it, and reinforces the commitment to atmosphere and mood that song puts forth, as well as the accompanying threat of push, the morose, airy vocals of bassist Pia Isaksen and the Earth-style guitar lumber of Daniel Bakken largely holding firm as Ole Teigen‘s drumming take off into a second half freakout. Compared to that, “Electric Temple” comes across as more straightforward — do I need to say “ritualistic?” — with repetitions of its title line and a linear build of tension that plays out in post-psych fashion, the payoff that arrives swirling but still primarily dark in tone.
“Apocalypse,” shorter at just 2:37, quickly proves this brooding nod isn’t all Superlynx have to offer this time around, switching between tempos from its beginning drone and melodic ambience to a march into blastbeats before a proggy mesh of drums and guitar raises the stakes further only to recede and bookend with the initial quiet verse. Blink and you’ll miss it, but “Apocalypse” is one of several shorter pieces peppered throughout — along with the instrumental “Sonic Sacrament” that one assumes closes side A, and the penultimate “Siren Sing,” which brings Teigen to the fore on vocals — and it and its compatriots do much to enrich Electric Temple‘s overall impression. Sandwiched between “Apocalypse” and “Sonic Sacrament,” “Moonbather” feels like a culmination for the first half of the album, with Isaksen and Teigen singing together almost like a cultish chant by its end.
The second half of the 10-track/43-minute outing starts with “Returning Light,” which in the span of four minutes shifts from relative minimalism to an engrossing progression that shifts smoothly into the guitar and bass intro to “Laws of Nature,” the underlying rumble gradually coming forward as the drums hold back, a tension Superlynx have toyed with before, but one that continues to work in their favor. A particularly soulful guitar solo brings “Laws of Nature” to its apex, and struck piano notes in “Then You Move” show that the context for the record has not yet finished expanding. Teigen takes lead vocals with Isaksen holding off until the second half, and the between the keys and his delivery, and subsequently hers, there’s a particularly goth vibe to “Then You Move,” the late solo and understated, long-fade finish making “Siren Sing” a complement to the song before it.
I’m not sure if it’s strings or chamber-feedback or keys or what’s droning out behind Teigen in “Siren Sing,” but the room it adds to the atmosphere works well, and the silence that moves into the renewed march of closer “May” — almost bluesy as it is — feels like it’s being given its due for it. A spoken verse from Teigen sets up an arrival from Isaksen as the track unfurls a patient forward progression, rising to a head and receding softer to finish, it’s a reminder of how much of what makes Electric Temple work, from the initial, ambience-setting rollout of “Rising Flame” and “Electric Temple” onward, is about the mood, patience and the combination of space and depth in the procession of songs. Make no mistake, there’s plenty of heft to go around, as you’ll hear in the video premiere below, but Electric Temple is as much about the creation of the reaches in which that happens as it is about the happening itself.
Posted in audiObelisk on October 14th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
Norwegian heavy progressive rockers Wobbler will issue their new album, Dwellers of the Deep, through Karisma Records on Oct. 23. The band has been active for more than 20 years, and Dwellers of the Deep is their fifth full-length since making their debut in 2005. Its four songs are intricately composed and woven together with classic progressive styling, and each serves a purpose in adding to the pastiche of the 45-minute release as a whole and bolstering a conceptual feel and the overarching melodic focus.
Keyboards run alongside guitars, rhythms play in tight, somehow-funky bursts, and pieces range in movements from grand sweeping sonic gestures to stretches of minimalist atmospherics, the Oslo-based five-piece of vocalist/guitarist Andreas Wettergreen Strømman Prestmo (also recorder, percussion and glockenspiel), lead guitarist/backing vocalist Geir Marius Bergom Halleland, bassist Kristian Karl Hultgren, keyboardist/backing vocalist Lars Fredrik Frøislie and drummer Martin Nordrum Kneppen (also recorder and percussion) creating a lush breadth and character of sound that feels at once forward and backward looking. That is, certainly there are elements of King Crimson and other such easy prog influences to note, but more an 20 years on, Wobbler are also no strangers to putting their stamp on prog, whether that’s the in the initial rush that opens “By the Banks” or the subdued acoustic-and-mellotron-driven renaissance folk sweetness of the later “Naiad Dreams,” premiering below.
Those folkish tendencies don’t just show up on “Naiad Dreams” either. That song, the penultimate of the four, might bring them most into focus, but they’re there too even at some of Dwellers of the Deep‘s most spirited moments. The album sandwiches the eight-minute “Five Rooms” and “Naiad Dreams” with the significantly longer “By the Banks” (13:49) at the outset and “Merry Macabre” (19:00) at the finish, and the effect of doing so is to set up the long-player as precisely that — a full-length intended to be taken in its entirety rather than a collection of songs.
I don’t know if it was written that way, as one or two long pieces subsequently broken up into separate movements to fit on vinyl sides, but the flow conjured throughout makes the proceedings all the more immersive, as Wobbler keep a poise to their delivery even as they dig through the farthest reaches of “Merry Macabre,” which has plenty of time to crescendo, recede, and cap the album with futuristic synthesizer as though the band were uniting the past with what’s to come in stylistic terms. Coupled with the bouncing organ in “Five Rooms” earlier, the periods of heavier push to be found, and the sheer nuance of the material, it’s a testament to Wobbler‘s established status that the record doesn’t collapse under the weight of its own headiness, but it doesn’t at all. Wobbler are able, on a level of execution, to realize the ambitious scope of their songwriting both because they’ve done it before — 2017’s From Silence to Somewhere; also a gem — and because it’s a central part of their modus. It is because it has to be and it has to be because it is.
So. You should not approach “Naiad Dreams” thinking it summarizes the entire album. It doesn’t. At all. To be fair, neither does “Merry Macabre,” and that’s about four times as long. You take what you can get. However, on a compositional level and in terms of the atmospheric affect of Dwellers of the Deep, you’re at very least getting a piece of the greater puzzle, and one with a peaceful and pastoral melody at that. You can always go back and check out the full record when it’s out, but for now, losing your head for a couple minutes and mellowing out with “Naiad Dreams” feels like the way to go.
As always, I hope you enjoy:
Wobbler, “Naiad Dreams” official live video
Wobbler on “Naiad Dreams”:
“‘Naiad Dreams’ is special in the way that it’s our first foray into a short song that stands on its own. It came to life late in the recording process and was written and recorded on an inspired May morning. It’s a rather minimalistic composition with very few elements that gets plenty of room to shine. It is the breathing space on the coming album where playful naiads make you gaze into the depths.”
Consisting of four distinctive pieces “Dwellers of the Deep” is a fine example of WOBBLER´s trademark creative whims and playful exuberance, and the band has offered an insight into what fans can expect from the album and what went into its creation:
The recording sessions were somewhat shaped partially by what was happening during the first months of Covid-19. In a very Decameronesque way, we sent “histories” to each other from our hermitages, while the plague waited in the shadows outside. It contributed to a sense of meaningful gravity, making it crucial that the task at hand be fulfilled with our most sincere and unparalleled endeavours.
The lyrical themes on the album deal with human emotions, and the ongoing struggle between juxtaposed forces within the psyche. An introspective voyage amongst the realms of memories, feelings and instincts, where the light is brighter and the dark is darker. The concepts of wonder, longing and desperation permeates the histories told, and the currents from the deep are ever present. The final track, “Merry Macabre”, is a 19 minute suite taking the listener through aspects of the darker sides of WOBBLER´s sound. It probably sums up what we wanted to express this time around; songs with a weirder tint, an experimental, almost impressionist splitting of themes that at the same time provides a larger frame.
Formed in Hønefoss in 1999, WOBBLER’s lineup features Lars Fredrik Frøislie on keyboards and backing vocals, Martin Nordrum Kneppen on drums, percussion and recorder, Kristian Karl Hultgren on bass, Andreas Wettergreen Strømman Prestmo on vocals, guitar, glockenspiel, recorder and percussion and Geir Marius Bergom Halleland on lead guitar and backing vocals.
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 17th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
Classic progressive rockers Wobbler were last heard from with 2017’s pan-flute-and-mellotron-laced From Silence to Somewhere, a listener’s buffet of proggy delights that ran through four mostly extended songs. The follow-up, Dwellers of the Deep, looks like it will take somewhat similar shape — at least in its basic construction — also playing out across four tracks, the last of which is an extended finale. If you’re not familiar with the Norwegian outfit, don’t sweat it too hard, but their melodies and the kind of stately bounce of their rhythms make their sound genuinely engaging, and they’re clearly well schooled by now in where they’re coming from as a band. They’re prog and they know it. And you know they know it. And they know you know they know it. And so on.
KarismaRecords certainly knows it, which I’ll assume is why preorders for Dwellers of the Deep are up now ahead of the Oct. 23 released date.
No audio yet, but the PR wire brings art, details and links:
Karisma Records Announces Details Of New WOBBLER Album “Dwellers Of The Deep”!
When WOBBLER’s fifth album “Dwellers of the Deep” hits the streets on the 23rd October, it´s exactly three years since the Norwegian’s last release “From Silence to Somewhere”, and if anyone is expecting an identical album, they may have to think again, because, according to the band, the new album will be a different beast entirely:
When we set out planning the new album we agreed that we couldn´t make the same album over again. With “Silence” we did things without wanting to fit into a progressive box, and the process behind “Dwellers of the Deep” was even more along those lines. In that sense it´s more experimental.
Some songs contain rock blast outs while others provide the calm of a foggy morning in the woods; all have their place in what eventually became a thematic dive into the depths of human emotion. Our take on it, anyway.
“Dwellers of the Deep” promises to serve up an exciting blend of both carefully planned and passionately jammed compositions encompassing everything WOBBLER has done up to now. These new musical directions will no doubt further enhance the quintet’s aural idiosyncrasies, and solidify the band’s burgeoning stature as one of the most exciting and interesting bands on the global music scene, independent of genre.
The production is open, detailed, warm and punchy, making the soundscapes put together by Lars Fredrik Frøislie to an aural feast. “Dwellers of the Deep” will be available in Digipak CD and digital formats, as well as in four different 180 gram gatefold vinyl editions; black vinyl, two different limited edition coloured vinyls, and a limited edition transparent vinyl. All the limited editions come with a poster.
Side A contains two pieces at medium length showcasing the band´s mastery of dynamics and flow, with passages and themes veering from the scenic and serene to the downright rocking.
Side B opens with the welcome respite of four minutes serenity, cradling the listener in pastoral and mystic swathes of acoustic guitar, glockenspiel and gentle vocals before an album closing 19 minutes journey into the unknown with the band in full blast.
Track listing for “Dwellers of the Deep” is as follows:
1. By the Banks (13:49) 2. Five Rooms (08:28) 3. Naiad Dreams (04:24) 4. Merry Macabre (19:00)
“Dwellers of the Deep” is now available to pre-order from:
Dwellers Of The Deep is now available to pre-order from:
Consisting of four distinctive pieces “Dwellers of the Deep” is a fine example of WOBBLER´s trademark creative whims and playful exuberance, and the band has offered an insight into what fans can expect from the album and what went into its creation:
The recording sessions were somewhat shaped partially by what was happening during the first months of Covid-19. In a very Decameronesque way, we sent “histories” to each other from our hermitages, while the plague waited in the shadows outside. It contributed to a sense of meaningful gravity, making it crucial that the task at hand be fulfilled with our most sincere and unparalleled endeavours.
The lyrical themes on the album deal with human emotions, and the ongoing struggle between juxtaposed forces within the psyche. An introspective voyage amongst the realms of memories, feelings and instincts, where the light is brighter and the dark is darker. The concepts of wonder, longing and desperation permeates the histories told, and the currents from the deep are ever present. The final track, “Merry Macabre”, is a 19 minute suite taking the listener through aspects of the darker sides of WOBBLER´s sound. It probably sums up what we wanted to express this time around; songs with a weirder tint, an experimental, almost impressionist splitting of themes that at the same time provides a larger frame.
Formed in Hønefoss in 1999, WOBBLER’s lineup features Lars Fredrik Frøislie on keyboards and backing vocals, Martin Nordrum Kneppen on drums, percussion and recorder, Kristian Karl Hultgren on bass, Andreas Wettergreen Strømman Prestmo on vocals, guitar, glockenspiel, recorder and percussion and Geir Marius Bergom Halleland on lead guitar and backing vocals.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 5th, 2019 by JJ Koczan
As far as release shows go, you can’t do much better than Roadburn. The room’s gonna be packed, and even if people aren’t familiar with you’re stuff, they’re probably going to open-minded enough to go buy the thing you’re celebrating when you’re done playing. Kudos to Lucy in Blue for doing it right. The Reykjavik four-piece will release the delightfully progged-out In Flight on April 12 through Karisma Records, but yeah, their release show will be the week before at Roadburn 2019 in Tilburg, the Netherlands. They were snuck into the final lineup announcement there and after listening first to the single “Matricide” — about, of course, the slaughter of one’s own mattress — and then to the offering as a whole, it seemed easily worth highlighting with the paltry few words you’re currently reading. So, you know, words words words.
In no small part, this is a note to myself to remember to do my best to mark them on my schedule once the day-plan is out for Roadburn, so if you take it as a similar reminder or hear something you hadn’t heard before, bonus. That’s kind of what we’re here for, and what we’re there for.
From the PR wire:
Album Details and New Single Matricide from Psychedelic Prog Rockers LUCY IN BLUE Revealed
Karisma Records have revealed the details of the upcoming full-length album from Iceland’s Psychedelic Prog Rockers Lucy In Blue. The eight-track album, titled In Flight, will be the second full-length release from the young band who are making considerable waves on the Icelandic Prog Scene with their elaborate grooves and delicate chord movements, performed with a skill that belies their age.
To give listeners a taste of what they can expect from Lucy In Blue, Karisma Records have today released a single from In Flight. The single, titled Matricide can be downloaded and streamed at:
In Flight is an album that amply showcases Lucy In Blue’s ethereal harmonies and philosophical lyrics, which deal not only with the whole spectrum of human emotion, but also touch on more political themes as well.
Formed in 2013, Lucy In Blue released their self-titled debut album via Bandcamp in 2016, and, since then, the band’s young lineup of Arnaldur Ingi Jonsson on keyboards and vocals, Kolbeinn Þorsson on drums, Matthias Hlifar Mogensen on bass and vocals, and Steinþor Bjarni Gislason on guitar and vocals have been stunning crowds in their native Iceland with their soaring guitar solos and intense build-ups that take the listener for a ride through the psychedelic soundscapes and the progressive song writing styles of the 1970’s.
Lucy In Blue has a unique take on early psychedelic prog rock, and it’s a pleasure to invite you to go In Flight with them.
Lucy In Blue will play a release show at the Roadburn Festival 2019.
