Album Review: Fuzz Sagrado, A New Dimension
Imagine being the driving creative force in one band for more than a decade, then moving to a different continent, seeing that band come to a close, and starting a new one on your own, in a new place, after having purposefully pulled away from the direction of your former act. Such it is that Christian Peters arrives at the debut album of Fuzz Sagrado, A New Dimension. And given the above, he might feel like he’s in one, but Peters has brought a few hallmarks of his craft along for that ride, and the nine-song/48-minute collection puts to use the familiar and not in moving toward a style that is a marked departure from Samsara Blues Experiment, Peters‘ former three-piece, which was based as he was at the time in Berlin, Germany, before undertaking a move to Brazil.
Peters is no stranger to explorations of solo songwriting. His Soulitude project was short-lived but resulted in a righteous take on acid folk and psychedelic rock, and the largely-synth-based work he’s done under the banner of Surya Kris Peters over the last few years has resulted in a swath of releases from minimalist drone to higher-energy dance electronica. In founding Fuzz Sagrado, offering an initial two EPs in 2021 — a self-titled (review here) followed by the archival second EP, Vida Pura — and ultimately winding up with enough material to self-release this first full-length, Peters both marks a “return to rock,” especially rock with vocals, and offers listeners a real-time look at the process through which that return is taking place.
A New Dimension touches on some aspects that will be familiar to fans of Samsara Blues Experiment, mostly on second cut “Lunik IX,” but certainly in some of the vocal patterning throughout as well. More than that, though, it is a fresh start for Peters, working completely on his own in the writing and recording (he also mixed and mastered), feeling his way through working with new methodologies and toward new, more progressively-leaning stylistic ends. “In Her Garden” effectively basks in a lush chorus, but is clearheaded in doing so and straightforward in its structure in a way that the break-into-a-“Children-of-the-Sea”-jam opening title-track was pointedly not. It’s fair to call A New Dimension experimental not necessarily because Peters is finding ways to be weird for weirdness’ sake — he isn’t — but because what’s happening across this first LP from Fuzz Sagrado sounds like he’s discovering new ideas, sounds, and means of building and presenting his songs as he goes.
The light strum and mellotron of “Baby Bee,” a song that’s only two minutes long, sets a backdrop for layered vocals in a way that not only sets up the relative rush at the start of “In Her Garden,” but that efficiently creates a pastoral serenity that is a crucial part of the atmosphere of A New Dimension as a whole. Though he’s still a melancholy lyricist at times, Peters is also pretty clearly madly in love. He not only moved to Brazil for the cause, but has continued to find a muse in his relationship, and that comes through on Fuzz Sagrado‘s work here as it has in offerings from Surya Kris Peters.
Nothing against love, and lines like “I’ve seen our love is in the gods’ intention/There’s no need to question it/No time for sorrow when you do believe that truth is all I see/By turning myself unto you it really doesn’t matter where we’re gonna be,” from “A New Dimension” itself are indicative of the perspective of the album as a whole in pieces like the melodic-progger “The Mushroom Park” where Peters‘ vocals are backed by runs of keyboard and insistent programmed drums, or “Tropical Rain,” which begins a series of three final cuts that feel particularly cohesive in Peters‘ new approach, working to define Fuzz Sagrado — which, yeah, has some fuzz if perhaps not as much as one might think given the moniker — as something distinct from that of Samsara Blues Experiment.
He is successful in that, and in fostering an engaging level of songcraft as he carves this new sonic identity. That is no small feat, by the way. Samsara Blues Experiment were a successful, internationally touring band whose records still sell. To give that up and embark on something else would have to be taxing both emotionally and practically. It is to Fuzz Sagrado‘s credit that as it reaches willfully toward a style of its own, it doesn’t come across as cloying or overly desperate to get there. “Lunik IX” sends a clear message that sitar is fair game if Peters wants to break it out, and the later 11-minute instrumental “Furthur” seems to answer back that an entire breadth of krautrock is likewise on the table, working in movements led alternately by guitar or electronics to immerse the listener in its movement before “Tropical Rain,” “Need for Simplicity” and “Crashing Cascade” finish out.
And those final three tracks — which together are almost as long as “Further” — come through as especially fluid. Keyboard handclaps under the solo in “Tropical Rain” speak to the burgeoning level of detail in Peters‘ arrangements, not to mention the Hammond line, and while “Need for Simplicity” brings stringier sounds in classically progressive fashion, instrumental and flowing as a setup to the more percussive “Crashing Cascade,” which takes mellotron and foreboding low end and uses them to offer a final shift in atmosphere that renders the finish of A New Dimension different from most anything that came before it — the electronic rush in the middle underscoring the point — and perhaps indicating an increased scope for future material.
Because that is the prevailing sensibility here: that Peters is figuring out where he wants to go in songwriting and style. In that way, Fuzz Sagrado is refreshing and organic, would almost be humble if not for the actual depth of the keyboard and guitar, etc., while still feeling formative in terms of to what A New Dimension might lead. But as regards this album, right now, the concept is proven, and Peters has set the beginning point from which this new exploration can flourish.
Fuzz Sagrado, A New Dimension (2022)
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