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Queen Elephantine, Kala: The Ritual Burn (Plus Track Premiere)

Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on March 23rd, 2016 by JJ Koczan

queen elephantine kala

Kala is the fifth full-length from Providence, Rhode Island-based experimentalists Queen Elephantine, who continue to dwell far outside of genre confines and on a plane of their own making in psychedelic ritual, drone, doom, jazz and seemingly whatever else might occur to them at any given moment. The follow-up to 2013’s Scarab (review here) brings six new tracks for a 48-minute, single-LP voyage, and finds much of the personnel from the last time out returned. At the center as always is Indrayudh Shome, whose guitar explorations form the basis from which much of the proceedings is fleshed out, and returning from Scarab are drummer/percussionists Ian Sims and Nathanael Totushek, bassist Matt Becker, and guitarist Srinivas Reddy (who played tanpura on the prior record).

In addition to these, Derek Fukumori and Michael Scott Isley contribute percussion, Samer Ghadry plays guitar and synth, Danny Quinn is credited for/as “surgeon pepper” (presumably as opposed to doctor or sergeant), and Elder‘s Nick DiSalvo handles Mellotron on the first three tracks. Someone new to the band might expect based on the amount of people involved that Queen Elephantine specialize in lush textures and construct layer upon layer of wash, but that’s never been their way. Songs like second cut “Quartz” and “Onyx” build to a head, but many of Kala‘s strongest impressions come in its minimalist moments, a few voices chanting quietly as the tension mounts in “Quartz” or filling the open spaces of 10-minute drone-doom finale “Throne of the Void in the Hundred Petal Lotus,” or the subtle movement underscoring the instrumental “Ox,” which offers a lurching apex only after an extended peripatetic wandering that ultimately proves no less integral to the affect of both.

That’s not to say the tradeoffs in volume that play out patiently across the album’s span are ineffective, just that it’s more about the conversation going on between the members of the band — whoever happens to be on a given track at any point — than about the particular moment when it “gets heavy.” Recorded by Sims over the course of two days last April, produced and mixed by Shome with mastering by Billy Anderson, even the most active moments on Kala retain a raw, live feel, and even down to the progression of song titles, from “Quartered” to “Quartz,” from “Ox” to “Onyx” with “Deep Blue” and “Throne in the Void of the Hundred Petal Lotus,” there is a mindfulness of approach that resonates strongly throughout, and that bleeds into the depth of the initial roll in “Quartered” as much as the feedback-soaked dissonance of its later reaches, the songs drawn together by their contemplative spirit as much as the tones and rhythms through which that spirit is conveyed.

queen elephantine

Most of those rhythms, incidentally, are crawlingly slow. Queen Elephantine have never been in much of a rush, and Kala builds on the meditative aspects of its predecessor, so that even a more upbeat stretch like the opening of “Quartz” retains them. “Quartz” might be the most straightforward inclusion here, with something of a hook in its repeated lines, “I say I’m old, I’m losing reality, I didn’t want anymore/Lust in bloom, Doomed is the pharisee, Submit matter and mind,” over a nodding bass progression and its structure that starts at a (relative) rush, drops to a quiet stretch and then builds back up, but “Ox,” which follows, makes a strong case in its midsection bombast and transitions so deftly executed as to be almost hidden despite drastic changes in volume and intensity. At its loudest, “Ox” lumbers and plods, but the current of mellotron in its final crescendo, as well as a healthy dose of guitar noise, keep it from being so easily tagged as doom.

Bass proves to be the element holding “Onyx” together as well, though it’s the drums and a consistent drone line bled over from the end of “Ox” that begin the track. Before the hissing vocals arise, an angular back and forth between the guitar and bass seems to be jabbing one instrument against the other, but as the guitar moves (temporarily) elsewhere, the low end holds steady under verses and a psychedelic lead. Even the drums start to freak out eventually, but that bassline holds until the song itself seems to come apart leaving just another drone to lead into the penultimate “Deep Blue,” the first half of which pushes toward a peak with drawling drone-singing forward in the mix but nonetheless obscure and a blown-out distortion in focus that seems to drown out the crash cymbal. At about three minutes in, the emergent cacophony ends abruptly and “Deep Blue” roots itself in its central figure to play eerie whispers and eerier falsetto off each other before a drone once again provides the shift into “Throne of the Void in the Hundred Petal Lotus,” which in its linear course, patient execution and holding onto that drone provides a fitting summary of Kala‘s accomplishments to that point.

Less harsh than some of the other cuts, its slower beginning turns toward a grander ending after about five and a half minutes and continues to thrust outward from there until finally the pieces seem to rumble apart, bells chime, amps feed back, and that underlying drone that has been present for much (not all) of the album caps it on a long fade. Wherever they’ve gone soncially over the course of their now-decade-long tenure — and they go a few places here that don’t have a name yet — Queen Elephantine‘s work has always been distinguished by its raw-form creativity, by the sheer will for experimentation that drives it. Kala pushes Queen Elephantine deeper into volume as a spiritual or cerebral expression, and proves just as immersive a journey for the listener as one imagines it was for the artist, but even more than that, it reinforces just how woefully underappreciated they continue to be.

Queen Elephantine on Thee Facebooks

Listen to “Quartz”

Queen Elephantine on Bandcamp

Concrete Lo-Fi Records

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Quarterly Review: Kamchatka, Legion of Andromeda, Queen Elephantine, Watchtower, Ape Skull, Hordes, Dead Shed Jokers, These Hands Conspire, Enos & Mangoo, Band of Spice

Posted in Reviews on July 2nd, 2015 by JJ Koczan

the obelisk summer quarterly review

We’re on the downhill swing of this edition of the Quarterly Review, so it’s time to get into some extremes, I think. Today, between death-doom lurch, drone-as-fuck exploring, gritty aggression and a whole lot more, we pretty much get there. I’m not saying it’s one end of the universe to another, but definitely a little all-over-the-place, which is just what one might need when staring down the fourth round of 10 reviews in a row in a week’s time. Feeling good though, so let’s do it.

Quarterly Review #31-40:

Kamchatka, Long Road Made of Gold

kamchatka long road made of gold

It would really be something if Swedish blues rockers Kamchatka released six albums over the course of the last decade and didn’t know what they were doing by now. Fortunately, that’s not the case with Long Road Made of Gold (Despotz Records), their sixth, as the Verberg three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Thomas Juneor Andersson, bassist Per Wiberg (see also: Spiritual Beggars, Candlemass, Opeth, etc.) and drummer Tobias Strandvik modernize classic heavy rock with equal comfort in including a banjo on “Take Me Back Home” and progressive-style harmonies on “Rain.” They seem to get bluesier as they go, with later cuts “Mirror,” “Slowly Drifting Away,” “Long Road” and “To You” rounding out the album with Clutch-style bounce, but the prevailing impact of Long Road Made of Gold is one of unflinching class, the chemistry of its players – not to mention Wiberg’s bass tone – ringing through loud and clear from the material as Kamchatka make their way down that long road to their inevitable next outing.

Kamchatka on Thee Facebooks

Despotz Records

Legion of Andromeda, Iron Scorn

legion of andromeda iron scorn

I said as much when the Tokyo duo released their 2013 debut EP (review here) as well, but their first long-player Iron Scorn (on At War with False Noise) only confirms it: Legion of Andromeda are fucked. Theirs is a doomed-out death metal given further inhumanity by programmed drums and the blown-out growls of vocalist -R-, while guitarist/programmer –M- holds down grime-encrusted chug and dirge riffing. Perhaps most fucked of all is the fact that Iron Scorn uses essentially the same drum progression across its seven tracks/44 minutes, varying in tempo but holding firm to the double-kick and bell-hit timekeeping for the duration. The effect this has not only ties the material together – as it would have to – but also makes the listener feel like they’ve entered into some no-light-can-escape alternate universe in which all there is is that thud, the distortion and the growls. Not a headphone record, unless you were looking to start psychotherapy anyhow, its extremity is prevalent enough to feel like a physical force holding you down.

Legion of Andromeda on Thee Facebooks

At War with False Noise

Queen Elephantine, Omen

queen elephantine omen

Relentlessly creative and geographically amorphous drone warriors Queen Elephantine compile eight tracks from eight years of their perpetual exploration for Omen on Atypeek Music, which launches with its titular cut, the oldest of the bunch, from 2007. It’s a gritty rolling groove that, even as nascent and riff-noddy as it is, still has underpinnings that might clue the listener in to what’s to come (especially in hindsight) and comes accompanied by the sludgy “The Sea Goat,” a rawer take recorded the same year in Hong Kong. Newest on Omen is the blissfully percussed “Morning Three” and an 18-minute live version of “Search for the Deathless State” from 2010’s Kailash full-length. Lineups, intent and breadth of sound vary widely, but even into the reaches of “1,000 Years” (2012, Providence, RI) and “Shamanic Procession” (2009, New York), Queen Elephantine remain unflinching in their experimentalism and the results here are likewise immersive. Vastly underrated, their work remains a world waiting to be explored.

Queen Elephantine on Thee Facebooks

Atypeek Music

Watchtower, Radiant Moon

watchtower radiant moon

Consuming undulations of tectonic riffing. Two of them, actually. Watchtower’s Radiant Moon EP serves as their debut on Magnetic Eye, and like their fellow-Melbourne-resident labelmates in Horsehunter, the four-piece Watchtower slam heavy-est riffs into the listener’s cerebral cortex with little concern for lasting aftereffects, all in worship of nod and volume itself. Where the two acts differ is in Watchtower’s overarching sense of grit, harsh vocals pervading both “Radiant Moon” (9:03) itself and the accompanying “Living Heads” (7:09), standalone vocalist Nico Guijt growing through the tonal fray wrought by guitarist Robbie Ingram and bassist Ben Robertson, Joel McGann’s drums pushing the emergent roll forward on “Living Heads,” a High on Fire-style startoff hitting the brakes on tempo to plod over any and all in its path. I’m trying to tell you it’s fucking heavy. Is that getting through? Watchtower had a live single out before Radiant Moon, but I’d be eager to hear what they come up with for a full-length, whether they might shift elsewhere at some point or revel in pure onslaught. Now taking bets.

Watchtower on Thee Facebooks

Magnetic Eye Records

Ape Skull, Fly Camel Fly

ape skull fly camel fly

The use of multiple vocalists gives Roman trio Ape Skull’s ‘70s fetishism a particularly proggy air. Fly Camel Fly is their second full-length for Heavy Psych Sounds behind a 2013 self-titled, and the boogie of “My Way” and “Early Morning,” the solo-topped groove of “Fly Camel Fly,” and the raw Hendrixology of “A is for Ape” position it as a classic rocker through and through. Vocalist/drummer Giuliano Padroni, bassist/vocalist Pierpaolo Pastorelli and guitarist/vocalist Fulvio Cartacci get down to shuffling business quick and stay that way for the 39-minute duration, the Mountainous “Heavy Santa Ana Wind” missing only the complement of a sappy, over-the-top ballad to complete its vintage believability. Even without, the triumvirate stand tall, fuzzy and swinging on Fly Camel Fly, the cowbell of “Tree Stomp” calling to mind the earthy chaos of Blue Cheer without direct mimicry. A quick listen that builds and holds its momentum, but one that holds up too on subsequent visits.

Ape Skull on Thee Facebooks

Heavy Psych Sounds

Hordes, Hordes

hordes hordes

Mad-as-hell trio Hordes have had a slew of releases out over the last eight years or so – EPs, splits, full-lengths with extended tracks – but their experimental take on noise rock topped with Godfleshy shouts arrives satisfyingly stripped down on their latest self-titled five-track EP, recorded in 2013 and pressed newly to tape and CD (also digital). “Eyes Dulled Blind” dials back some of the pummeling after the bruises left by “Cold War Echo,” guitarist/vocalist Alex Hudson at the fore in the JK Broadrick tradition. Centerpiece “Summer” starts with a slow and peaceful ruse before shifting into brash and blown-out punk – Chris Martinez’s hi-hat forward in the mix to further the abrasion – and finally settles into a middle-ground between the two (mind you, the song is four minutes long), and bassist Jon Howard opens “Life Crusher,” which unfolds quickly into the most oppressive push here, while a churning atmosphere pervades the more echo-laden closer “Fall” to reinforce Hordes’ experimentalist claims and steady balance between tonal weight and noise-caked aggression.

Hordes on Thee Facebooks

Hordes on Bandcamp

Dead Shed Jokers, Dead Shed Jokers

dead shed jokers dead shed jokers

There’s a theatrical element underlying Welsh rockers Dead Shed Jokers’ second, self-titled full-length (on Pity My Brain Records). That’s not to say its eight songs are in some way insincere, just that the five-piece of vocalist Hywel Davies, guitarists Nicky Bryant and Kristian Evans, bassist Luke Cook and drummer Ashley Jones know there’s a show going on. Davies is in the lead throughout and proves a consummate frontman presence across opener “Dafydd’s Song,” the stomping “Memoirs of Mr. Bryant” and the swinging “Rapture Riddles,” Dead Shed Jokers’ penultimate cut before the cabaret closer “Exit Stage Left (Applause),” but the instrumental backing is up to its own task, and a clear-headed production gives the entire affair a professional sensibility. They veer into and out of heavy rock tropes fluidly, but maintain a tonal fullness wherever they might be headed, and Cook’s bass late in “Made in Vietnam” seems to carry a record’s worth of weight in just its few measures at the forefront before Davies returns for the next round of proclamations.

Dead Shed Jokers on Thee Facebooks

Dead Shed Jokers BigCartel store

These Hands Conspire, Sword of Korhan

these hands conspire sword of korhan

Berlin’s These Hands Conspire aren’t through the two-minute instrumental “Intro” before they’re showing off the heft of tone that pervades their metallized debut album, Sword of Korhan, but as they demonstrate throughout the following seven tracks and the total 45-minute runtime, there’s plenty to go around. Vocalist Felix delivers an especially noteworthy performance over the dual-guitars of Tom and Stefan, the bass of Paul and Sascha’s drums, but heavy metal storytelling – the sci-fi narrative seems to be a battle in space – is just as much a part of the record’s progressive flow, longer cuts like “Praise to Nova Rider,” “The Beast Cometh,” which directly follows, and “Ambush at Antarox IV” feeding one into the next sonically and thematically. The penultimate title-track brings swinging apex to an ambitious first outing, but the foreboding, winding guitar echoes of “Outro” hint at more of the tale to be told. Could be that Sword of Korhan is just the beginning of a much longer engagement.

These Hands Conspire on Thee Facebooks

These Hands Conspire on Bandcamp

Enos & Mangoo, Split

enos mangoo split

Maybe it doesn’t need to be said, since if it weren’t the case, they wouldn’t have paired at all, but Enos and Mangoo pair well. The UK chimp-obsessed space metallers – that’s Enos, on side A – and the Finnish modernized classic heavy rock outfit – that’s Mangoo, on side B – don’t ask much of the listener across their Son of a Gun/The Grey Belly split (on H42 Records) beyond a little over 10 minutes of time and a willingness to follow a groove. “Son of a Gun” finds Enos blending particularly well with Mangoo’s methodology via the inclusion of organ in their swinging but still forward-directed movement, and after that, it’s an easy mesh to flip the platter and find Mangoo’s “The Grey Belly” waiting, its own keys playing a huge role in carrying across the ‘70s-via-‘90s vibe the band projects so well. Flourishes of percussion in the former seem to complement the progressive guitar work in the latter, and whichever side happens to be spinning, it all works out just fine.

Enos on Thee Facebooks

Mangoo on Thee Facebooks

H42 Records

Band of Spice, Economic Dancers

band of spice economic dancers

Born in 2007 as Spice and the RJ Band and rechristened Band of Spice in 2010 prior to their third album, Feel Like Coming Home, the Swedish unit boasting vocalist Christian “Spice” Sjöstrand (founding vocalist of Spiritual Beggars, also Mushroom River Band, currently also in Kayser) release their fourth full-length half a decade later in the form of Economic Dancers on Scarlet Records. It’s a straightforward heavy rocker in the organ-laced European tradition that Spice helped create, with some shades of quirk in the intro to “The Joe” and the arena-ready backing vocals of “In My Blood,” but mostly cutting its teeth on modernized ‘70s jams like “On the Run,” “Down by the Liquor Store” and “True Will,” though the six-minute centerpiece “You Will Call” touches on more psychedelic fare and is backed immediately by two metallers in “You Can’t Stop” and “Fly Away,” so it’s not by any means one-sided, even if at times the mix makes it feel like the 11 tracks are a showcase for the singer whose name is on the marquee.

Band of Spice at Scarlet Records

Scarlet Records on Bandcamp

 

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Queen Elephantine Release Omen Collection of Tracks from 2007-2013

Posted in Whathaveyou on June 4th, 2015 by JJ Koczan

queen elephantine (Photo by Erin Dynamic)

Over the last eight or nine years, and whether they were based at the time in New York, Hong Kong or Rhode Island, Queen Elephantine have had a lineup as fluid and shifting as their output itself, but they’ve never lost sight of the experimental drive that seems to be at the core of what they do. I’m not sure that was ever the case so much as on their last full-length, 2013’s Scarab (review here), a churning blend of drone, tonal heft and ambition, but if it tells you anything about the general ethic under which they work, their new release, Omen, is billed as an EP and it’s 70 minutes long. That’s how it goes.

Omen, which is a digital-only outing fostered by French label Atypeek Music, collects previously unreleased tracks from the bulk of Queen Elephantine‘s tenure: 2007 up through 2013 — presumably the Scarab sessions — and features throughout its course no fewer than 14 players. It has live stuff, it has drones, it has an abrasive side that will test the limits of endurance, but the ability to bring all these things together is what makes Queen Elephantine who they are in whatever form they might take.

The release announcement came in like such:

queen elephantine omen

new Queen Elephantine EP

Available through most digital outlets via Atypeek Music (France).

With a fluid lineup and various experiments in approach, QUEEN ELEPHANTINE is a nebulous worship of heavy mood and time. OMEN is the new collection of old artifacts from the masters of dark psychedelia.

The retrospective 70-minute “EP” is a haze-filled collage, a faded time-caravan travelling through the collective’s 2007 roots in Hong Kong to more recent American pieces.

Remastered by Mell Dettmer (Sunn 0))) & Boris), Omen weaves a vein through the dynamic body’s numerous players and instruments, through the dirtiest sludge and cleanest drone meditation alike, illuminating the living, unifying force at the core of Queen Elephantine.

With only the rare relief to be found, OMEN is a grueling, gutting, soul-sapping experience. Enjoy.

released 01 June 2015

Brett Zweiman, Rajkishen Narayanan, Marc Gaetani, Indrayudh Shome, Daniel Quinn, Michael Scott Isley, J. Alexander Buck, Samer Ghadry, Ian Sims, Derek Fukumori, Nathanael Totushek, Mat Becker, Chris Dialogue, Andrew Jude Riotto

http://facebook.com/queenelephantine
https://queenelephantine.bandcamp.com/
http://queenelephantine.clfrecords.com/
http://atypeekmusic.com/Atypeek_Music.html
https://www.facebook.com/AtypeekMusic

Queen Elephantine, Omen (2015)

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Queen Elephantine Announce Northeastern Tour Dates

Posted in Whathaveyou on April 4th, 2014 by JJ Koczan

By virtue of their ready drive to experiment, it seems preordained that Queen Elephantine will remain somewhat underappreciated in the wider sphere of heavy, but their droning explorations engage both hypnotism and conscious acknowledgement, and when they burst forward, they can be viciously, unrepentantly weighted. The somewhat amorphous Providence, Rhode Island, outfit released their Scarab (review here) full-length last year, and it was an album both ambitious and expansive, stretching and pulling the mind like taffy with this or that evocative nuance. Truly one to get lost in, and a joy for that.

In addition to the dates listed below for their April tour of the Northeast, Queen Elephantine will also play this coming Sunday at Dusk in their native Providence, alongside Satan‘s Satyrs and somebody-sign-them-already doomers Magic Circle, at a gig presented by Armageddon Shop. Info on that is here.

Also note the appearance among the enviable lineup of the Hudson Valley Psych Fest on April 18:

QUEEN ELEPHANTINE —-Northeast US Tour—-

April 16 – 26, 2014

The heavy ‘avante’ psych band was formed in 2006 in Hong Kong but is currently based in Providence, RI. They have released four albums and several EPs, including splits with Sons of Otis and Elder. Scarab was released mid-2013 on Heart & Crossbone (CD, Israel) and Cosmic Eye (LP, Greece).

-APRIL 2014-

16 – Boston, MA.
O’Brien’s. w/ The Modern Voice, Glacier

18 – Kingston, NY. Hudson Valley Psych Fest
BSP. w/ White Hills, It’s Not Night: It’s Space, The Golden Grass, Eidetic Seeing

19 – Wilmington, DE.
1984. w/ Heavy Temple, Wizard Eye

20 – Brooklyn, NY.
Don Pedro. w/ Theologian, Prana-Bindu, Sonic Suicide Squad, Andrew Barker/Michael Foster/James Ilgenfritz trio

23 – Florence, MA.
13th Floor Music Lounge. w/ Palace In Thunderland, Murder And The Timelords

24 – Portsmouth, NH.
The Red Door. w/ Green Bastard, Northern Curse

25 – Portland, ME.
Geno’s.

26 – Providence, RI.
Psychic Readings. w/ Darsombra, The Vomit Arsonist, LVMMVX

Poster + tshirt art by Josh Yelle / Pencilmancer Art

https://www.facebook.com/queenelephantine
http://queenelephantine.clfrecords.com/
http://queenelephantine.bandcamp.com/

Queen Elephantine, Scarab (2013)

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Live Review: Queen Elephantine and Insect Ark in Allston, 01.16.14

Posted in Reviews on January 17th, 2014 by JJ Koczan

I had driven back from New Jersey during the day — most of it, anyway — with the knowledge that I wanted to see Queen Elephantine at O’Brien’s last night. I knew I’d be tired as crap, but figured it’d be worth it because somehow it had gotten to be like half a decade since I last saw the band, in Maryland at the first benefit for Evil Fanny. Hard to believe so much time had passed. Particularly in light of having missed their Boston show last fall with It’s Not Night: It’s Space, Olde Growth and Keefshovel and having very much dug 2013’s Scarab full-length (review here), it was long overdue.

Boston acts Glacier and Slow Mover opened the show. I didn’t get there in time to see Glacier, but Somerville’s Slow Mover were just about to get started when I walked in and established a pretty wide stylistic breadth once they got going, the dual-vocal/guitar four-piece (plus snare strobe!) culling elements from noise rock, post-hardcore and post-metal, stoner rock and even a bit of black metal and making it sound raw and cohesive without being overly thought out. They had their self-titled on vinyl at the merch table, but I was light on funds. Still, cool stuff, sounded like it was working on a multi-tier solidification process. Easy to hear where they could turn into something devastatingly heavy, though as a moniker, Slow Mover does little to describe the actual ethic of their playing, which was more varied in pace than they’d apparently have one believe.

Last year when Insect Ark, aka Dana Schecter of Bee and Flower, released the Long Arms EP, I kind of dabbled in checking it out, but I was looking forward to seeing how her noisy experimentalism translated live. First of all I’ll say that any heavy band in Brooklyn would be lucky to have her as their bassist, but that was really just part of what she brought to the table — quite literally two tables, set up on the stage — at O’Brien’s. With a pedal steel in front of her, bass strapped on, a sampler, other noisemakers and mixing board on the side, a laptop further over and amps behind, Insect Ark was both stylistically complex and viscerally loud. For each piece she set an initial bed of noise, hit a programmed beat on the laptop and then added pedal steel and bass as dictated by the song, winding up with a heavy wash that only got more and more furious as the set went on, whether she was walking into the crowd with her bass or assaulting the strings of the pedal steel with a slide on the other end to get the most noise for each strum.

I won’t lie, I was dragging ass by then. It was a long day on I-95 and I was at the show by myself, but it had been the chance to see Queen Elephantine that had pulled me off the couch and away from the episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in the first place, so I wasn’t going to let it go. I took a minute, went outside, called The Patient Mrs. and got my head together to see the Providence, Rhode Island, experimental doom outfit, led by guitarist Indrayudh “Indy” Shome and featuring drummer Matt Couto of Elder and the aforementioned Keefshovel for the night alongside bassist Mat Becker, who shared a mic with Shome for the chanting vocals of the two extended pieces they played.

That’s right, two songs. When you’re Queen Elephantine and your songs run upwards of 20 minutes at a clip, you can do that kind of thing if you so choose, and I guess on a night where they stripped so far down from their usual current incarnation — I’ve seen recent pictures of a five-piece lineup and I don’t think there’s really a limit when people start showing up — you can do a set of two songs and have it work. Call it playing to their minimal side if you want, either way, Queen Elephantine wanted nothing for sonic presence or fullness save where they wanted to want for it, and were able to conjure vivid atmospherics even with the reduced personnel. Becker took a spoken word part in the middle of the first song — “The Search for the Deathless State” from 2008’s Kailash — and they settled into a fervent build across both that and “Chariot in Solemn Procession,” the latter taken from 2008’s Yatra EP and rounding out with an undulating groove made all the more insistent through Couto‘s drumming.

You could see when he clicked with Becker and Shome in the pacing. Initially he seemed to be pulling fast, but they smoothed out over the course of their time and ultimately, whether it was droned to oblivion or crushingly doomed, Queen Elephantine satisfied vigorously. I thought it was cool as hell, and similar to hearing Scarab and thinking the band was coming into a sound of their own after years of directional experimentation, I got the same impression in their confidence on stage. A loop of tanpura drone behind further filled out the sound behind them, only to be swallowed up by louder parts and reemerge here and there, staying on for a while after they brought their last song to its crashing conclusion.

Thursday night in Allston seemed like a fun time for hip cats, but I’m never been fun or hip, so I darted surreptitiously back to my car and headed back to my little slice of the Commonwealth. Beat as I was, I was glad to have shown up and I resolved more or less immediately not to let it go so long until next time.

More pics after the jump. Thanks for reading.

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Buried Treasure and the Tales of Massacoit

Posted in Buried Treasure on December 12th, 2013 by JJ Koczan

About two weeks ago, I visited the “Not Just” Rock Expo outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and while I found some pretty killer stuff there, one thing I didn’t pick up was the 2007 Concrete Lo-Fi Records split CD between Queen Elephantine and Sons of Otis. The dude wanted $20 for it and that was more money than I had left to spend. I was bummed out about leaving it behind, and all the more so since I couldn’t find a copy on the interwebs once I got back home and tried looking. Seemed like I was going to have to let it go, at least for the time being, and maybe keep an eye on eBay or Amazon or hope to randomly run into it at Armageddon Shop somewhere down the line.

Well, a couple days ago, Indy Shome from Queen Elephantine dropped a line and said he was sending a copy over. It showed up today and it’s been the perfect thing to get me through an overtired fuckoff of an afternoon. The split is comprised of three songs, two from Toronto stoner lords Sons of Otis and one from Queen Elephantine, totaling just under 44 minutes, and comes complete with Adrian Dexter artwork and vibe to spare. For Queen Elephantine, it’s one of their earlier releases, after they made their 2006 debut on a split with Elder, but before they released their first album, Surya, and for Sons of Otis, it arrived two years after their Small Stone debut, X, and two years before its follow-up, Exiled.

Sons of Otis go first, their “Tales of Otis” embarking on an eight-minute march that seems to slow time along with it. There’s little more to it than thud and vague riffing, but somehow it manages to be grooving anyway. There are no vocals on either of the Canadian band’s inclusions, and interestingly, both songs include drums, though only bassist Frank Sargent and guitarist Ken Baluke are listed as playing on it. Could be a loop, I guess. Both “Tales of Otis” and the subsequent “Oxazejam” are repetitive enough in their rhythms to have that be the case (and that’s not a knock on them), the latter also a slow-burning jam that keeps the smoked-out feel of “Tales of Otis” going as Baluke‘s guitar seems to sort of wisp into and out of lead progressions. They’ve always excelled that that kind of ultra-chilled semi-consciousness, and in the six years since this release, that hasn’t changed at all.

Unless I’m mistaken, Shome, who handles guitar and vocals in Queen Elephantine and is the only remaining member from this incarnation — the band having since parted ways with bassist Daniel Quinn, drummer Michael Isley and percussionist J. Alexander Buck — was based in New York at the time this split was issued. He gets around, be it to Providence, Rhode Island, or Hong Kong. In any case, the band’s 26-minute exploration “The Battle of Masscoit (The Weapon of the King of Gods)” is a fitting precursor to the types of jammed-out contemplative psychedelic experiments Shome has been leading even up to this year’s Scarab (review here), albeit somewhat less expansive in the sonic ingredients used and the overall atmosphere. The will to drone is there, however, and it serves Queen Elephantine well as the piece unfolds, molten and held together somewhat by the drums but by no means beholden to them.

Because the idea entertains me, I’ll use the phrase “ambient as fuck,” but let the point be that Sons of Otis and Queen Elephantine worked remarkably well side-by-side on this release, and both give ample opportunity to let your mind wander in their psychedelic and engrossing haze. I’m glad I got to hear it on disc, and I’ll look forward to future sonic escapes like the one it provided me today. Sometimes you just gotta check out for a while. May I suggest:

Queen Elephantine, “The Battle of Massacoit (The Weapon of the King of Gods)”

Sons of Otis on Thee Facebooks

Queen Elephantine on Bandcamp

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It’s Not Night: It’s Space Announce Weekender Tours

Posted in Whathaveyou on October 16th, 2013 by JJ Koczan

New Paltz, New York, trio It’s Not Night: It’s Space celebrated the first anniversary earlier this week of their debut full-length, Bowing Not Knowing to What (review here). Since the album’s release, the space-rocking instrumentalists have signed to Small Stone for the impending follow-up, and while word has yet to come through about that, the band has announced a series of weekender and take-a-day-off gigs over the next couple weeks that will take them around the Northeast and pair them with some cool acts, including Eidetic Seeing, Moon Tooth, Queen Elephantine and Olde Growth.

Solid company to keep, and the prospect of the band working out new material on the road makes it all the more an exciting prospect. It’s Not Night: It’s Space also have shows lined up for Halloween and into November (they’re playing Nov. 15 with Geezer at The Anchor in Kingston, NY), so make sure to check the Thee Facebooks link below to keep up to date with their cosmic doings.

Until then, here’s what we know:

(((Philly, Long Island, New Paltz))) Our Hiatus Ends in THREE DAYS! it’s been four months since we played to an audience and we are fiending for your energy. that’s the longest we’ve ever gone since we started the band three years ago. we are looking at an epic stretch of Five Weeks of shows. it’s gonna be delicious.

It’s Not Night: It’s Space, Moon Tooth, Carved Up & Dead Empires
10/18 Teri’s Bar. Philadelphia, PA.
10/19 Centerville Studios. LI, NY. Nick Lee’s Birthday / Halloween RAGER at Centerville HQ
10/20 BSP Lounge. Kingston, NY.

It’s Not Night: It’s Space, Queen Elephantine, Eidetic Seeing & Black Norse
10/24 Brooklyn NY The Archeron
10/25 New Paltz NY Snug Harbor
10/26 Boston MA Space Mountain (It’s Not Night: It’s Space, Queen Elephantine, Olde Growth & Keefshovel)

https://www.facebook.com/innis.band
http://innis.bandcamp.com/

It’s Not Night: It’s Space, “Palace of the Bees” Live in Poughkeepsie, NY, 2013

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Queen Elephantine, Scarab: Snakes and Ladders

Posted in Reviews on August 9th, 2013 by JJ Koczan

Since making their debut on the same 2006 split that marked the first recorded appearance of Elder, Providence-by-way-of-Hong-Kong-and-Brooklyn experimental doomers Queen Elephantine have been consistently hard to pin down — and not just geographically. Their latest full-length, Scarab (on Heart and Crossbone Records/Cosmic Eye Records for CD and vinyl, respectively), finds the amorphous outfit as ever led by guitarist Indrayudh Shome working with two drummers and exploring a drone-based mysticism that seems in partial conversation with Om‘s 2012 outing, Advaitic Songs, but taken to a more exploratory degree. The 50-minute album is comprised of four extended tracks — “Veil” (8:12), “Crone” (18:16), “Snake” (10:44) and “Clear Light of the Unborn” (13:05) — and each one builds its own flow within the overarching progression of Scarab as a whole. Joining Shome on his journey are two drummers, Ian Sims and Nathanael Totushek, bassist Matt Becker, returning tanpura player Srinivas Reddy and Brett Zweiman, who played bass on Queen Elephantine‘s last outing, 2011’s Garland of Skulls, but here contributes slide guitar and other drones, and the songs were recorded in one day (I would suspect entirely or at least mostly live) by Sims with a mix by Shome himself and a mastering job from Billy Anderson. The result of all their work is a varied but ultimately satisfying listen of heavy drone, and Queen Elephantine have done increasingly well over their last couple albums in shirking expectations and definitions of what “heavy” means. That continues on Scarab as well and makes their stylistic sprawl all the more boundless and more importantly, all the more their own. Almost immediately, “Veil” commences with a meditative drone and percussion, sparse guitar and bass that in another context might be akin to Earth metering out slow lines over a subtle build both in tempo and clash. Vocals arrive after the instrumental bombast peaks in spiritually desperate wails, and a lighter swirl plays out buried by heavier guitar strum and gradual return the winding line that delivered Scarab‘s first offering to its point of highest energy. Already we hear the flow is liquid.

It remains so for the duration. At 18-plus minutes, “Crone” is an undertaking unto itself, but it unfolds with hypnotic patience and makes a consuming follow-up to “Veil,” working in a similarly-slow, temple-style atmosphere. An underlying synth-style drone — what might be referred to in the credits as “divine mosquito” and credited to Zweiman — plays out steadily beneath the minimal guitar-led progression, and even when the vocals arrive, the sense of open space is maintained. There’s room between the music overtop and that buzz, and it’s in that room that the listener is most likely to get placed, feeling one overtop and the other underneath, surrounded; especially at louder volumes. After five minutes or so, Queen Elephantine embark on a mild cacophony, and again the double percussion plays a major role. Guitar and bass get louder, and vocals return, the band moving within the sort of undulations of energy that they’re crafting to bring the track forward, then draw it back, all the while the drone underneath stays put. There is an instrumental push as they approach 10 minutes in that provides “Crone” a noisy apex at about 13:00, but they soon drop to quieter spheres as Shome establishes a bouncing sort of guitar nod that leads the way through the remaining time, punctuating pops and the bassline adding dimension as the drone finally comes forward near the end of the song before fading out again. If you’re not on board with Scarab yet, you won’t be. The record’s first half is a challenge that the second half rises to meet, but if you’re immune to the trance they’re working in and bringing their listeners into, the course is set. It’s not like they’re going pop once “Snake” hits, is what I’m saying. Rather, with a current of Reddy‘s tanpura, they resume the droning course, bringing vocals in early as they did on “Crone,” and revel further in the torch-lit contemplations. It is atmospherically gorgeous and a sure sign of Queen Elephantine‘s maturity that they’re able to maintain such a patient sense throughout Scarab, and if it turns some listeners off, it’s hardly the band’s loss. “Snake” never gets quite as rambunctious as did “Crone,” but string-esque drones give a sense of emergency all the same as the metered lurch is mounted.

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