Let us now dig lysergic vibes.

Originally issued by the Berlin-based psychedelic explorers in 2004, Psychedelic Scripture is the third full-length from Zone Six behind their 1998 self-titled debut (reissue review here) and 2003’s Any Noise is Intended, the latter of which, like Psychedelic Scripture, came out through Sunhair Records. The version above is a reissue put out by Acid Test Recordings (UK) and Little Cloud Records (US) late in 2021, and the original three extended tracks — “Extremadura” (14:07), “The Pipe Dream” (21:38) and “The Sacred Toad” (14:30) — are joined by two bonus cuts, “Chill In” (6:33) and “Room of No Escape” (17:04), both of which were recorded during the self-titled era, one live on stage in Berlin, the latter at an earlier rehearsal, also in Berlin. Any way you go, it is an immersive, mellow trip made all the more resonant through the expansive atmospheres conjured by keys, guitar, synth, effects, and sundry other cosmic conjurations.

The band at this point was bassist/noisemaker Dave “Sula Bassana” Schmidt, guitarist/sitarist Hans-Peter Ringholz, keyboardist/intermittent-vocalist Rusty Viltz, synthesist Martin “Modulfix” Schorn, and drummer Claus Bühler, and they recorded the three main tracks at the turn of the century. Why and how they might’ve languished for those four subsequent years, I don’t know — you’d have to ask Sula, I guess; and maybe I will — but these many years later, it matters little in the end. And while we’re talking about time and a release that came out some 18 years ago, it’s amazing to me how tempting it is to listen to what Zone Six were doing back then and think of it as somehow future-looking.

Maybe it was. I mean, certainly in the aesthetic context, listening to “Extremadura” feels predictive of places psychedelia would go, tapping Eastern vibes and drawn-out ambience, drums coming and going and coming again, the focus so clearly on flow and exploration and the sheer adventure of creation itself. It is lush and beautiful but at the same time relatively minimal in terms of volume — that is, at no point does Psychedelic Scripture attempt to overpower the listener or beat them over the head with trippy shenanigans or some such — and if it showed up in my inbox today, I’d call it modern for the production value and the patience of its execution. A remastering job by John McBain doesn’t hurt that I’m sure, but listening to the sparse guitar ringing out about seven minutes into the album opener — reminds me of something that came later I can’t put my finger on; is it Mühr?; in my head I hear soft vocals over it; aha! it’s Uzala‘s “Tenement of the Lost!” whew — the manner in which Zone Six seem to be letting the piece become what it will strikes as nothing if not forward-thinking. Not every band can let go like this, and they continue to do it in “The Pipe Dream” and “The Sacred Toad” as well, each piece taking its own course and giving the listener a world in which to inhabit for its run.

On the other hand, if one thinks about Psychedelic Scripture, and particularly the connotations of the word “scripture” in the title, perhaps these songs were intended as a kind of reading of the tenets of sonic ethereality themselves. An enactment. And drawing on krautrock and improvisational acid jams, one can fit Zone Six into a broad context of what psych rock was and would become. They were not necessarily the first outfit to pursue the cosmos with such methodology — Europe at the time, as now, was awash in ace-level psych; see Nasoni Records, Elektrohasch, and Sula Bassana‘s own Sulatron Records, which started up around 2004 as well — and indeed the bassy pulsations of “The Pipe Dream,” peppered as they are with synthesizer swirls, punctuated eventually by drums, building gradually toward some yet-unknown destination, converse in a language largely unknown to the history of ambient drone and kraut experimentation, the later consuming wash, tempo kick and final reversion to the central figure, be it bass or keys who the hell knows, less a return trip than a final element through the wormhole. V-I-B-E, as in “vibrations of your mind on an plane of universal energies.”

Headphones advised if you’ve got ’em handy, as the depths and reaches of “The Sacred Toad,” the chiming and coursing sounds like flowing water and animal chirrups take hold with a meditative mystique worthy of whatever fullness of attention can be provided. The original Psychedelic Scripture doesn’t so much resolve itself as it does simply end, and from that one can interpret an underlying message as well, of humility perhaps or of one’s recognition of minutia in the face of the unfathomable vastness that surrounds. That is to say, space big, album small. Maybe that’s the point of the scripture in the first place — a means by which to manifest the grandeur outside of time and place, something that is nowhere and everywhere, songs that are nothing and everything, structures that hold up via chemical bond rather than some forced progression of parts. It is beautiful, somehow biological, outsider art.

Though they offered a veritable infinity of live releases between, Psychedelic Scripture was the last Zone Six studio work until 2015’s Love Monster (review here) found them returned as a four-piece with Schmidt and Schorn joined by “Komet Lulu” Neudeck and Rainer Neeff, on bass and guitar, respectively. Both were also members of other bands in the Sulatron sphere, Electric Moon and/or Krautzone, and in addition to playing shows resulting in more live offerings, the band would go on to issue a split with New Zealand’s Arc of Ascent (review here) in late 2018 and the Kozmik Koon LP (review here) in 2019, the latter standing as their latest output. And it’s still vital psych. If you missed it, there’s yet time.

I guess if you’re looking for some lesson from the scripture here, maybe it doesn’t need to be overthought or hyperbolic. Maybe the lesson is this was just what Zone Six were getting up to at the time, and that’s enough. The thing is what you make it and they made it this this time, then they stopped for a while, then they started again. The galaxy spins on, and us with it.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

—

Next week is PACKED. I’m already overwhelmed and I haven’t even started putting the posts together yet, though I’m headed that way next. It never really stops, you understand.

Thanks if you checked out my appearance on the Heavy Hops podcast for the episode that went live yesterday, and thanks to Alexi D. Front for having me on and Esben Willems for editing, mixing, mastering.

Link is here if you care to listen and thanks if you do: https://scorchedtundra.com/heavy-hops-ep-085-critique-is-an-act-of-storytelling-jj-koczan-the-obelisk/

Parent-teacher conference today. For my pre-K’er. Should be interesting. Last time they were like, “Yo, your kid’s a wreck.” This time I hope for a little bit less of that. That kind of thing can really color a weekend. Shit-brown.

I’m in a rush if you couldn’t tell, but today’s also a new Gimme show if you’re not sick of my ass yet. 5PM Eastern. http://gimmemetal.com.

Sign up for the Vault too so you can listen to old ones and other shows and blastbeats and metal and radio and so on.

And while I’m spending your money, don’t forget today’s Bandcamp Friday. I’ve gotten well over 100 emails this morning reminding me of that fact, and I imagine you have as well, so yeah, go spend money. What’re you saving it for? A new camera lens? Me too. Spend it anyway.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for supporting this site, buying merch from Made in Brooklyn, all that stuff. I’m so appreciative and I value the support so much. It is the encouragement that gets me through the day some days. Yesterday, for example.

I’ll leave it there. Great and safe weekend. Have fun, watch your head. Hydrate. We’re back and forth as ever, but I’ll be around if you need me for anything. You know where to find me.

FRM.

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Tags: Acid Test Recordings, Berlin, Germany, Little Cloud Records, Psychedelic Scripture, Sulatron Records, Sunhair Records, Zone Six, Zone Six Psychedelic Scripture

This entry was posted on Friday, March 4th, 2022 at 12:42 pm and is filed under Bootleg Theater. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.