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Pack Your Bags and Journey with Samsara Blues Experiment’s Long-Distance Trip

Ladies...I can?t figure out why none of the myriad stoner indies out there has jumped on Berlin?s heavy psych rockers Samsara Blues Experiment. The German four-piece have recorded their first full-length, Long-Distance Trip, and sent it over for some preview-type listening, and especially coming off the heels of their two-song demo — which itself was nothing to scoff at — it?s got the kind of trance inducing stoner feel that one would think labels would be all over. Tee Pee? MeteorCity? Hell, even Elektrohasch (although that one might even be too obvious)? These guys toured the West Coast of the US on their own dime! Far worse has been signed for far less. Won?t someone give a quality band a home?

The two tracks from the demo, ?Singata Mystic Queen? and ?Double Freedom? show up here, the latter closing the album with a stunning 22-minute sprawl and the former serving as the opening movement. Samsara Blues Experiment, like Los Sounds de Krauts-era Colour Haze before them, are just beginning to explore where they can go with their jams, utilizing both heavy riffing and mellow noodling to establish a flow both within each track and one to the next. Long-Distance Trip?s greatest asset might be its ability to pull listeners in and surround them with its encompassing feel. There?s nothing pretentious in it; these dudes are just having a good time and inviting you to trip out with them.

Long solos, wah guitar, adaptable drumming and sparse, far off vocals permeate the 13-plus minutes of ?Center of the Sun,? but Samsara Blues Experiment have more on offer than extended psych jams and apex builds. Shorter instrumental tracks ?Army of Ignorance? and ?Wheel of Life? serve as a respite from the longer material, spaced throughout Long-Distance Trip as if to provide the listener some breathing room. Both also take a slightly different approach musically, ?Army of Ignorance? beginning with a doomier, darker riff and ?Wheel of Life,? by contrast, offering four and a half minutes of acoustic guitar warmth. These two pieces help establish Samsara Blues Experiment as a band whose breadth is just beginning to show itself. They never take a turn that?s out of place and there isn?t much on Long-Distance Trip that bends the genre or remakes it in its own image, but if that?s a requirement for stoner rock, there?s a lot of acts out there who need to take a second look at what they?re doing.

"Dude, did you see that review on The Obelisk?" "I KNOW! That guy totally kicks ass!"If there?s a reason I haven?t yet mentioned track three, ?For the Lost Souls,? it?s because, the Sleepy movement of ?Double Freedom? aside, it?s my favorite of the bunch and perhaps the most appropriate demonstration of what Samsara Blues Experiment do best. Beginning with a meandering psychedelic jam where Christian Peters and Hans Eiselt?s effected guitars underscored by the soothing bass work of Richard Behrens and the inspired snare of Thomas Vedder, the song is a gradual, 10-minute build that climbs further — offering vocals from Peters only at its halfway point of no return — and throws Long-Distance Trip?s most solid stoner groove into the mix to hook the listener fully into its progression. This is 21st Century Kraut rock? Make mine a double.

With an assortment of organs, synths, sitars, tanbouras and effects strewn throughout their full-length, Samsara Blues Experiment deliver on the ambition set forth with their demo. Long-Distance Trip may not boldly break ground on a new genre epoch, but the band?s obvious love for what they do and the sincerity of their execution is clear and inarguable. As we stand on the precipice of a new year, it might already have its first highlight. All we need now is for the album to actually come out.

Samsara Blues Experiment on MySpace

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4 Responses to “Pack Your Bags and Journey with Samsara Blues Experiment’s Long-Distance Trip

  1. Sleazy says:

    Love SAMSARA…psyching out with ’em right now, people !!???????

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