Friday Full-Length: Acid Rooster, Acid Rooster
Friends, a moment of your time to hear the good word of lysergy. Based out of the terrestrial common dimension in Leipzig, Germany, the instrumental trio Acid Rooster might actually on some other plane still be recording Sebastian Väth‘s guitar for “Moon Loop.” And on into perpetuity drifts the 2019 self-titled debut from the mellow space rocking outfit comprised of Väth, bassist/synthesist/sitarist Max Leicht and drummer Steffen Schmidt — whose kick drum circa four minutes into said 11-minute instrumental loopy-do takes on a life of its own and seems very much to enjoy the sunshine that outward shimmer of guitar is providing, thanks. The band are more active at the start of the record with the cooool swirl running down in “Oculatus Abyss” only to come back up with the initial twisting solo. This was a pandemic album for a lot of people, I know. I was there, at home, but didn’t hear Acid Rooster until later. Remember, I never said I was good at any of this.
“Oculatus Abyss” screams in two layers as it moves through the second half of its five minutes, one fierce on the wah, the other differently fierce on the wah. It’s like that. There are threads of synth and effects and it all kind of blurs together, but Leicht and Schmidt are committed to the groove, and they keep it together all throughout the record. In that way, Acid Rooster function not unlike a classic heavy rock power trio — the rhythm section is that, though I’ll point out that neither the basslines nor the character of the percussion want for melodiousness — with the guitarist all the more able to range with the bass and drums locked into the central procession beneath. They put it to wondrous use, and production by Frank Oberländer and Jan Werner, who also mixed and plays 12-string on “Moon Loop” and closer “Äther,” at Zentralantiquariat Leipzig lets that flourish come through with a balance between organic performance-capture and sonic clarity. Following “Oculatus Abyss,” “Moon Loop” does get raucous for a time — it also features the album’s only vocals in guest throat-singing by is Patrick Schönfeld — but the core of the song is the flow in the guitar, bass and drums, the subtle play happening in the background of the mix, and the way everything seems always to be in order even as the order changes measure by measure. A malleable mix. Notable. Bernhard Götz mastered.
The inevitable motorik stretch happens at the beginning of “Sulfur,” and the riff laid on it at first is duly jet-engine, offset by more of a bounce but sure enough headed back around. “Sulfur” burns but does not stink, and for the full breeze-through-predator-feathers effect, a tenor sax guest spot by Christopher Kunz does just fine. My wife doesn’t like sax in psych. To each their own. I’m with her if it gets to wankery, but that’s not the case here. Acid Rooster‘s Acid Rooster might be melted and drippy and drink-it-with-a-straw-to-see-stars, but it’s still class.
All that scorch feels like it’s bound to leave blisters when the fuzz hits later in “Sulfur,” but fair enough for the jazz in the low end as they wind it down. Side A wraps like “Sulfur” is being dragged down a tunnel — which it is; so are you; guest synth by Bodo Hansen (see also “Focus”) — but it blasts back and ends clean to let the post-rock float of “Time Lapse” take hold as smoothly as a digital listen warrants aside from the concerns of a 12″-flip. The proceedings are hypnotic enough to make me wonder if that’s what the band named the song after, but either way, you might lose time. I did. If you find it, just throw it away. Echoing guitar becomes a kind of resonant hum, wobbling, but the bass and drums are there and offer comfort and warmth while the light dances. They threaten to lose it for a minute in “Time Lapse,” but the sax comes back and I don’t know if Schmidt ever actually broke a sweat. They realign and finish, letting the drone be the last to go.
That’s where “Focus” picks up, with birdsong-via-effects and a resulting pastoralia that feels like something of a shift from “Time Lapse,” which was more ethereal. Likewise true to its name, “Focus” is arguably the most straightforward piece on the six-song LP, but it’s nonetheless an eight-minute tripfest with a slow unfurling bliss and a scope that feels open, like really, genuinely open, to the possibilities of its own instrumentation. But Väth provides a standout twisting lead line that becomes a kind of hook unto itself, playful and able to take flight when so directed. There is a build in “Focus,” and it brings about a more active thrust in the spirit if not the exact modus of “Sulfur,” honing a kind of urgency at the same time as the guitar taps into a broader melody. That combination, and Väth riding the groove as he comes to do, gives the album a sweet crescendo that’s almost wistful in its own aftermath, a sentimentality shown as that guitar-twist flickers in again before it all goes away.
At five minutes, “Äther” brings a darker feel earlier on. Its drone is lower, the bass is more forward, maybe. The drums hitting harder definitely becomes a factor, and that might be part of it, but something in the mood has shifted after “Focus,” and the backdrop isn’t empty but feels starker. Schmidt plays a significant role in the apex of the finale, as noted, but Väth and Leicht are dead on in following. Willful repetition doesn’t always work to evoke a sense of place or time or allow for other elements of a piece to develop and/or dissipate, but Acid Rooster add gracefully to “Äther” as they bring it to a head, and close as a live set might with a wash of cymbal, a few last wisps of guitar, and the residual hum of synth.
Like I said earlier, I was late to the party on this one, so if you were too, don’t feel bad. Good music doesn’t get stale. If you’re new to it, through this and dying for more, Acid Rooster put out the full-length Hall of Mirrors (review here) in October. Bliss abounds. As always, thanks for reading.
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Coming to you live from Queens, New York, where in a couple of hours I’ll go inside TV Eye and see King Buffalo and Sun Voyager, and that’ll be good. I got here crazy early because I didn’t want to stress out sitting in traffic and never find a parking spot and just be a dick at home anyway because show-anxiety and so on and so forth so I just left early and I can sit and write in the car and that’s fucking fine with me. I wouldn’t say the Chevy Malibu is the most comfortable car I’ve ever sat in — my wife’s first car was a 1988 Ford Taurus and it was like driving a couch — but I could do certainly do worse.
Also it’s Thursday. So I’m breaking my own routine a bit and writing the Friday Full-Length a day early. Tomorrow, it won’t make a difference. To me, sitting stoned in the car on the laptop, yeah.
You get the point.
I’m looking forward to the show, and to hopefully sleeping until whatever time The Pecan gets up tomorrow. Though sleep has been pretty rough the last couple weeks. Either Tuesday or Wednesday, I was up at like 3:45 and never got back to sleep, and last night, I was tossing and turning from like 11-3 and finally conked out at 4:30 to get up two hours later. This isn’t ideal. The kid hasn’t been going to bed well this week, and that’s part of it — nothing like yelling at your kid to go to bed to make everyone end the day feeling like garbage, every day — but The Patient Mrs. has been up too. Her semester starts in a week, which means all of our semester starts in a week. It’s been nice having her around the house. She is a joy. She takes good care of me.
Next week, huh? The notes have We Are Impala premiering a track Monday, plus there’ll be the King Buffalo review from tonight. No, I’m not doing both shows. It’s too long a drive and two nights out of the house in a row is a lot to ask when I’m going to a four-day festival in Vegas at the end of this very cold month. Also a release announcement for Earl of Hell and a tour post for Inter Arma, who I thought were headlining over River of Nihil because I have no idea who River of Nihil are. Never too old to learn a thing. Fortunately I found that out before I wrote the post. Not always so lucky.
TO THAT END — thank you, from the depths of my wretched middle-aged heart for everything everyone does to keep this site clean. By that of course I mean not being assholes in comments, that’s a big one. I had one prickish social post to contend with in the 2024 year-end coverage, and I feel like that’s getting off light. Thank you for correcting my mistakes when they happen, which they absolutely do. Thank you for being a part of this with me. It would lonely otherwise, and if I’m honest, probably wouldn’t be here anymore.
Wow, sidetracked.
So, Monday, We Are Impala and King Buffalo review. Tuesday, Wednesday, I don’t know yet. I wanna review a thing, so probably that. Thursday is double-booked with video premieres for All Are to Return and Peacebone, but the vibes are different enough that it should be fun, and next Friday I guess I’ll have the roundup of Ripplefest Texas adds for the week, an announcement from Esbjerg Fuzztival in Denmark, and who knows what else. I was thinking I might close the week with Yajaira, but if you have any requests, I’m all ears.
Otherwise, have a great and safe weekend. If you’re at the show tonight, hi. If not, this is the internet, hi anyway. Have fun, don’t forget to hydrate, and I don’t know, maybe drop a text to your mom just to say hi? That’s it. I’m all out of good advice.
FRM.
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Tags: Acid Rooster, Acid Rooster Self-titled, Germany, Leipzig, self-titled, Sunhair Music