When an artist takes on a stage-name, the proper format is to write it in quotes, like a nickname, but somehow whenever I end up putting together a piece about the work of founding Electric Moon guitarist, synthesist, sitarist, producer, label honcho, etc., Dave “Sula Bassana” Schmidt, I always feel like I’ve got it backwards. Like it’s Dave Schmidt that should be in quotes and Sula is the true identity beneath. Ditto that for bassist/vocalist/graphic designer “Komet Lulu” Neudeck. A big part of the reason why is the continued stamp Sula, Lulu and drummer Marcus Schnitzler have left on heavy psychedelia over the course of this decade.

With a slew of live offerings, a strong improvisational foundation in the tenets of krautrock, classic prog and of course all things kosmiche, the German three-piece long ago set the controls for the heart of creation itself. Their works are often raw glimpses at their own making — the songs captured as they happened, unfolding as organically as possible to rich and singularly immersive effect. After years outside the studio, Electric Moon have newly released the four-track album, Stardust Rituals (review here), through Schmidt‘s Sulatron Records imprint, and for being six years after 2011’s The Doomsday Machine (review here), the arrival could hardly be more welcome.

Whether it’s the dug-in sitar-laced 22 minutes of vibe they decided to call “(You Will) Live Forever Now” or more song-based pieces “Stardust (The Picture)” and opener “The Loop,” Electric Moon gracefully subvert listener expectation and adjust the balance between improv and structure, and to call the resulting liquidity of Stardust Rituals one of 2017’s best in heavy psych is probably underselling the actual quality of the work itself. Even putting aside the fact that a studio outing from Electric Moon doesn’t happen every day, month, or year, Stardust Rituals gives its audience a solar system to inhabit and worlds or swirl to explore, and if it needs to carry over for a while as the band once more hits stages around Germany and greater Europe, recording and releasing sets as they go (never something to complain about), it should have no trouble doing so.

Sula and Lulu were both kind enough to take some time out to talk about the record and Electric Moon‘s methods in general, and you’ll find the results of that Q&A below.

Please enjoy the following Six Dumb Questions:

Six Dumb Questions with Electric Moon

Tell me about how Electric Moon has grown since you started the project. So much of what you do is based on the chemistry between the three of you. How has that developed over time?

Lulu: When we founded the band with the drummer Pablo Carneval, we found out that we had to do nothing else than just start to play and we became one… Over the years, it changed a bit into more frame-based improvisations to get a picture. If you’re on tour, it’s important NOT to fuck up cause 100 percent free improvising night after night can kill creativity and you’re empty then. But we still do it, of course.

Over the years, we had many different drummers so there were also different influences.

But we always try to keep our thing: LET IT FLOW and feel the love. If we feel the love, the music floats automatically!

Sula: In the very first recording sessions we did everything alone, I mean Lulu and me. But then Pablo joined us and we knew we are able make this on stage! That was a great feeling!

What made you decide to go for a more song-based approach on Stardust Rituals? Each track still goes pretty far out, but tell me about incorporating more vocals in the studio. How did these tracks come together to be what they are?

Lulu: First I must say, we did what we’ve always been doing: keeping our studio albums more “song-based” than our live albums cause we have the possibility to do overdubs and recreate stuff, etc.

Sula and me also have so many ideas for songs so we can put them into the music in the studio! “The Loop” for example, was Dave‘s idea on the organ and he showed Marcus and me what he thought and told us what he thinks we should play, and then we did. It took not much time and we got it. It was a lot of fun playing this, by the way!

Also it’s much fun creating vocals for the music while listening to it. The music just tells you what is good for “her”… That’s a loop, haha, but really! I’m spacing out every time I think about these things… So I’m sorry for my weird sentences! Hahaha.

The second thing is, that our live albums are the essence when we three play together. The last records we’ve put out were live albums and we just needed a new impulse, again. So we’re happy that we got the impressions for Stardust Rituals to get it ready. Sometimes it’s hard ’cause the ideas wouldn’t find the way to your soul. But most of the time it’s pure magic.

For me, overdubbing is like talking to myself and, of course, the band. It’s very intimate! Having an idea, sitting down, listening to the song, being alone in the studio, feeling the energy of the music and then do the overdub. It’s really magic. I love doing my overdubs being on my own and it’s also always big excitement when the others listen to them the first time… Do they like what you did or don’t they? It’s big fun to make music with yourself, by the way.

Sula: The first basic recording was in 2014, and was untouched till we started overdubbing. Three of the track’s basics were within three days before we went to the Freak Valley Festival for a gig. That was in early summer 2015. In 2016, we slowly started cutting/arranging the recordings and doing the overdubs. Finally the mastering was done (by Eroc) in early 2017.

Is there something specific about the spirit of jamming that speaks to you with Electric Moon as opposed to other bands you’ve been involved in? Can you hear a part as the foundation of an Electric Moon jam as opposed to, say, something that would become a Sula Bassana piece?

Lulu: No, that never happened yet! It’s more like you hear the Sula Bassana soul in Electric Moon when he did most of the instruments, for example, cause he would influence the song then!

The specific in Electric Moon from the beginning is: Becoming one, let it flow, let the music lead your hands playing your instrument!

Sula: The spirit in the improvisations in the other bands is slightly different, because everyone brings his soul, mood, feelings in. For example, Rainer [Neeff, of Zone Six]’s way of playing guitar is different than mine. So the whole thing has a different energy. The music in Krautzone has a completely different feel and intention as the Electric Moon music. And as Lulu already told, I would never take a Electric Moon recording for a Sula song. Maybe one day I use a lick I played in an Electric Moon concert for a Sula song. But I would do new recordings, with everything played by myself, which will lead to a totally different result.

Lulu: I guess this sometimes happens “by accident” that you play the same lick twice!

Sula: Exactly what I mean!

Where does the title Stardust Rituals come from, and what does it mean for you?

Lulu: I had this idea when I was thinking and feeling a lot about life and death and space!!!

I was reading loads of space magazines and books and thought a lot about the fact that we all are made of stars! Everything and every creature, every plant and every ANYTHING is made of stardust! Our whole planet earth is made of the sun powder… That is so great, it feels so familiar and it’s so soothing when you are sad, for example…

Imagine – nothing and nobody could ever get lost – even if we die! ‘Cause we’d still be stardust in some way… And where should we disappear to? We’re all in space and will be… It feels so true to me.

So the title and also the vocal themes for the album were born. Stardust Rituals is like a complete reflection about this all. The music was talking to me…

And when Sula did the Mellotron in the last track, the complete thing was changing so much – it was so stunning – suddenly the whole piece turned into something different, more intense and beautiful so it made me cry… And then I wrote the vocals and it became the track “(You Will) Live Forever Now.”

Has releasing your own work through Sulatron changed your perspective on writing or recording at all? If so, how? If not, why not?

Sula: No. We always did everything by ourselves and the labels, who released our non-Sulatron-stuff, never told how to do it. They always accepted our music and artwork. So we can say we always produced our music the way we want it! Which is great!

Any other plans or closing words you want to mention?

Sula: We have a lot plans for recordings, releases and so on. Also we could talk about the horrible situation on this planet. But that would take hours… and I hope everyone who is interested in our music is some kind of same-minded, trying to be a good person, without being aggressive or a racist, being without hate, and full of love and positive vibrations. Mankind needs love, peace and freedom. That’s it!

Lulu: And if there are any racists listening to our music we hope they can feel love and forget the racism…

Also – remember: We’re all made of the sun….. We’re one indeed! Physically! We’re all in the same space(ship)! LOVE! Man, I sound like a hippie, hahaha, but my heart feels it like this!

Electric Moon, Stardust Rituals (2017)

Electric Moon on Thee Facebooks

Electric Moon on Bandcamp

Sulatron Records

The discography of German heavy psych trio Electric Moon is a confusing thing, filled with atemporal reissues of limited prior works, live albums that could easily be studio affairs, varying editions, and so on, mostly if not completely all released through founding guitarist, synthesist, electric sitarist, keyboardist, general-swirlmaker and recording engineer Dave “Sula Bassana” Schmidt‘s own Sulatron Records label. Accordingly, I could be way off in saying so, but I believe Stardust Rituals may be the first proper Electric Moon studio full-length since 2011’s The Doomsday Machine (review here).

Is that possible? I don’t know anymore. They count it as their fifth album either way, and it follows behind several of the aforementioned reissues — including one in 2016 for The Doomsday Machine — and a bevvy of live offerings like last year’s Live 2015 – Zeiss Planetarium Bochum (review here), 2015’s Theory of Mind (review here), 2014’s Mind Explosion (review here), 2013’s Live 2012 1 & 2 (review here), etc. If indeed it has been six years since the last time they tracked a full-length not onstage somewhere in Europe, one could hardly accuse them of being lazy with that time, however languid and flowing their sound might be and certainly is on Stardust Rituals.

The album presents three extended cuts and one shorter piece very much built outward from the core of jamming between Schmidt, bassist “Komet Lulu” Neudeck and drummer Marcus Schnitzler that has to-date been at heart in their approach, live or otherwise. Over the past five-plus years, their material has driven toward an at-times raw glimpse of their creative processes, with as little filtering of the view as possible, and while the movements that comprise Stardust Rituals‘ 45-minute stretch come across as more song-minded, they also maintain that acid-drenched sensibility of exploration, emerging all the more spacious and triumphant for it.

And really, with material so clearly geared toward vibrancy in the first place, the line between what’s live and what isn’t would seem to be pretty fluid in the first place. True, Stardust Rituals doesn’t have breaks for applause, but even as Komet Lulu‘s vocals roll out echo-and-swirl-buried verses as part of the overarching drift of second track “Stardust (The Picture),” an obscure but definitively human presence, the feeling is one of spontaneous kosmiche combustion — nebular gases swirling into a cohesive stellar motion, rotational gravity taking hold to bring the listener into the song’s orbit.

Also it’s spaced out. “Stardust (The Picture)” is a centerpiece for the molten flow set up over the course of Electric Moon‘s first three tracks, which most likely comprise side A of the vinyl. They begin with the dug-in space rock progression of “The Loop,” which is arguably the most “song-ish” of the album as a whole, with a synth figure at its center and a forward rhythmic push made subtle through the classy, jazzy intertwining of Schnitzler‘s drumming and Schmidt‘s guitar lead circa three minutes in.

It’s in “The Loop” that Electric Moon will almost shock those who’ve followed them the last several years, because even before they turn to the Hawkwindian thrust at the beginning of the eight-minute track’s second half, they very purposefully establish a course distinct from the live offerings that have led up to Stardust Rituals, and that impression continues into the rolling low end that begins “Stardust (The Picture)” — an early instrumental version of which, titled just “The Picture,” appeared on both Theory of Mind and Mind Explosion.

Its inclusion here, and in this more complete, vocalized form, still far-reaching and adventurous but with a firmer intent behind it, speaks to the amorphous nature of Electric Moon‘s work as a whole and the meta-level on which their fluidity operates. It’s not just about being open in terms of willing to jam out for 20 minutes at a clip. It’s about being willing even to change the definition of a song itself from what it was to what they want/need it to be to best suit a purpose. They break their own rules once again with the sitarized “Astral Hitch Hike,” departing the structured consciousness of the longer opening duo in favor of 4:40 of instrumental psych-prog vibing — just in case you might think it safe to know what to expect.

Sitar continues to meander, wrapping itself around an initial bassline, at the launch of closer “(You Will) Live Forever Now.” The finale, at 22 minutes, is just about as long as the first three pieces on Stardust Rituals put together, and it seems clearly meant to consume all of side B on its own. It definitely is consuming, or at very least immersive — a subdued flow is underway almost immediately but brimming with patience, flourish of synth adding to a rich atmosphere that provides a stage for when the vocals arrive after we’ve waded about four minutes deep. It’s a dream. All of it. The tone, the drift, the vagueness of the voice. But Electric Moon thrive in that dream, and though it’s by no means in any rush to get anywhere, there is a build happening and it is linear. Layers are added to the whole one at a time, the guitars making a noteworthy arrival near six minutes, and Lulu and Schnitzler provide an absolute solid foundation on which this liquefied push takes place.

There’s a sense of pickup and tonal thickening about three minutes later just before the vocals return — in layers — and a fuller fuzz soon grabs hold and moves “(You Will) Live Forever Now” into its next phase, noisier and denser but still remarkably vast and open feeling. They’re not yet halfway through, but this movement will get them there and come to a head just before the solo that starts at about 13:30 and runs until it comes apart at about the 15-minute mark — drums and bass holding steady as the guitar quietly rights itself. That process sets up the last verse (or verses, because who knows where one ends and another begins) and the shift into the closer’s apex for Stardust Rituals as a whole, which starts in earnest with the arrival of Mellotron at 18:49 and continues to develop until the fadeout that begins in the last minute leaves only the keys and residual echoing swirl behind.

Electric Moon may be in large part defined as a unit by what they accomplish live, and that feeds even into Stardust Rituals as well, since much of what has become these songs has its foundation in that raw creative process noted earlier, but if their return to studio work demonstrates anything, it’s that their sound has little interest in limits of any sort, be it those of listener expectation, or of genre convention, or whatever else. The prevailing warmth they exude throughout these four tracks is as unmistakably their own as any of their live improvisational work has been, and in reminding their audience of that, they’ve only made themselves a richer sonic experience for those fortunate enough to take them on. Whether one puts it on and gets lost in its outward gone-ness or stays with its twists and turns every step of the way, the path through the solar system that Stardust Rituals blazes is nothing less than a joy to follow.

Electric Moon, “The Loop”

Electric Moon on Thee Facebooks

Electric Moon on Bandcamp

Sulatron Records

I would expect nothing less from Stardust Rituals than the title suggests. It’s been I don’t even know how long since the last proper studio offering from German jammers Electric Moon, whose psychedelic explorations show up much more often in the form of live records, but on April 7, they’ll return with this four-track full-length, apparently exploring themes of mortality, space, and the intertwining of these various dimensions in which we exist.

They’ve got opening track “The Loop” streaming now ahead of the release, and aside from their signature psych-wash, the song surprises in its structured feel. In the announcement below, they hint that the rest of the record might follow a similar path — using the basic jams as a foundation for building a song, rather than just seeking to represent the raw process of creation on their own — and I’m excited to hear how that balance shakes out across Stardust Rituals as a whole. Can’t get here fast enough, quite frankly.

Of course, it will be out on Sulatron Records, as the PR wire informs:

Finally it’s happening, and the long awaited 5th studio release of Electric Moon appears to see the light!

4 tracks, which pack a punch and which went a long way to become what they are now. The oldest tune „Stardust (The Picture)“ was already recorded in 2014 and was released as instrumental version on 2 live albums so far. But it got refined with overdubs like vocals and stuff, like all the other tracks, too. This is one of the things which make the difference between live albums and studio albums, by the way; like also, that improvisation and songwriting get mixed-up!

“Stardust Rituals“ is painting a journey through the inner cosmos and wants to deliver the insight, that no-one and nothing gets ever lost, because space is like a jar which keeps us all, in which form ever… We’re all made of stardust so nothing can happen in the end…

Trippy like always, Electric Moon will carry you off on a trip to the deepest depths of the outermost innermost, cause in every one of us is a cosmos and we all are together on this common journey, in the same (space-)ship…

Recorded, mixed and produced by Sula Bassana (Dave Schmidt) and mastered by Eroc!

The beautiful round Cover-Painting was painted by Eriko of Mont Doom Design in Italy and Lulu Artwork! just brought it to shape for the final design and layout.

CD comes in jewel case, LP in fold-out cover with triple-marbled (blue-black-white) 180 grams quality vinyl (made in Germany), limited to 1000 pcs!

Electric Moon is:
Komet Lulu: Bass, Vocals, Effects
Marcus Schnitzler: Drums
Sula Bassana: Guitar, E-Sitar, Organ, Mellotron, E-Piano, Effects

Tracklist:
The Loop (08:06)
Stardust (The Picture) (10:14)
Astral Hitch Hike (04:41)
(You Will) Live Forever Now (22:41)

www.sulatron.com
www.electricmoon.de
https://electric-moon.bandcamp.com/
www.facebook.com/ElectricMoonOfficial

Electric Moon, “The Loop”