One thing about Wisconsin progressive doomers Sleestak: You never quite know what they’re going to do next. This minute, they’re putting out a pro-studio EP like earlier 2013’s Book of Hours (review here) and the next they’re giving a behind-the-scenes insight into their processes with something like last year’s Altrusian Moon collection of rehearsal recordings that followed their 2011 full-length, The Fall of Altrusia (review here). To their credit, they’re both prolific in their output and varied in what they issue, sonically and methodologically, and their latest outing, Live at the Cactus Club, is no different. Released just yesterday as a post-Xmas holiday special and made available for a pay-what-you-want download through the Milwaukee outfit’s Bandcamp, the four-track offering checks in at well over two hours of material.

Included in the download — in addition to the cover, of course — are two complete shows from the titular venue in the Bay View section of Milwaukee. The first took place Oct. 4, 2013, and the second Nov. 15. There are two audio sources for the Oct.  4 show, which makes the release even more fascinating, and the whole thing is rounded out with a 33-minute rehearsal-space recording from early in September. Four tracks, all over half an hour long. While one might think that’d put Live at the Cactus Club right into not-for-the-faint-of-heart territory, the psychedelic explorations they get up to in the Oct. 4 show and the natural vibe that persists throughout make it such that Sleestak even at their heaviest are hypnotic in their psychedelia. Guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist Matt Schmitz gets into some growling after the ultra-patient build that starts the set, but even then, it’s easy to get lost in the track, and the whole thing unfolds so naturally that before you know it, they’ve heavy-jammed their way past the 30-minute mark, ebbing and flowing, staying mostly instrumental, but never losing a sense of progression.

The second audio source of the Oct. 4 show has crowd noise, which probably means it’s an audience recording and not the direct feed from the soundboard, but it’s interesting to hear the differences between them anyway, and though the Nov. 15 show at the Cactus Club was nearly five minutes shorter, it follows a similar instrumental flow. I don’t know if the difference in timing means the parts are improvised on or at least stretched out and random, but the jam is no less immersive a month later as it’s presented here. In its heavier parts, the rehearsal room version of the same material comes across as a little blown out, but that’s bound to happen with that kind of thing, and in any case, it’s up there with the soundboard source of the Oct. 4 show in being the best presentation of the work itself, whether it’s all intended to be one song or smaller individual pieces just put together here for the ease of being released as a whole. If you told me it was one 30-plus-minute song, I wouldn’t argue there was anything to stop it from being one, since the smoothness of the transitions and the ease with which Sleestak execute it are such that it works well on that level. I might, however, ask what it’s called.

Presumably these things will be revealed in due time, and until then, to have four probably-formative versions here on Live at the Cactus Club follows suit with Altrusian Moon in giving some transparency to the creativity at work within the band’s songwriting. I won’t dare predict where Sleestak might be headed after this, but it seems likely we haven’t heard the last of this jam.

Check out Sleestak‘s Live at the Cactus Club now as part of the 24/7 streaming rotation of The Obelisk Radio and get a sampling from the Bandcamp player below:

Sleestak, Live at the Cactus Club (2013)

Sleestak on Bandcamp

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