Posted in Whathaveyou on May 9th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
I can’t be the only one who has seasonal bands, right? We’ve talked about this before, probably — last time I wrote about Amorphis in Springtime, perhaps — but they are for sure a Spring band in my mind. Something about their sound, coming out of a cold, dark winter beating your ass, new life just beginning to peak through, that moment of relief before the too-hot summer beats your ass from the other side. Amorphis fit right in there for me.
So a co-headlining tour with Dark Tranquillity? Fine. I doubt I’ll get to see it, but Amorphis are a great band, and while it’s still May, I’m glad to have the excuse to put them on for a few minutes this afternoon. That’s really the extent of it. I could go on about their 30-plus years as a group, their having spearheaded folk metal before it became a cornball excuse for dudes to drink and alienate women, or the fact that they’ve now been with vocalist Tomi Joutsen — forever the ‘new guy’ in my head — longer than the dude he replaced, in addition to having released more with him as their frontman. Time is weird. Also I’m old.
I could go on about all this stuff — also about how Atomic Fire Records, which I’m pretty sure was all the people from Nuclear Blast who were signed bands like Amorphis in the first place, seems to have morphed into Reigning Phoenix Music — but I won’t. Why? No one cares about my bullshit, and if you’re here at all — it’s okay, I know you’re not — it’s for the tour dates. Here they are:
AMORPHIS Confirms North American Co-Headlining Tour With Dark Tranquillity; Tickets On Sale This Friday
Finnish metal legends AMORPHIS will return to North America this Fall on a co-headlining tour with their comrades in Dark Tranquillity. The journey, which will hit over two dozen cities, will commence on September 3rd in Richmond, Virginia and closes on October 6th in New York City. Support will be provided by Fires In The Distance.
AMORPHIS comments, “We are more than excited to announce this tour with our brothers from Sweden, Dark Tranquillity. It’s been a while, and we certainly miss our North American fans. It will be a one-of-a-kind Scandinavian death metal package with both bands performing in a headliner status every night. We’ll blast through the continent like a storm; so see you all there and let’s have a metal night to remember.”
Tickets for this must-see tour go on sale this Friday, May 10th at 10:00am local time. See all confirmed dates below.
AMORPHIS w/ Dark Tranquillity, Fires In The Distance: 9/03/2024 Canal Club – Richmond, VA 9/04/2024 Hangar 1819 – Greensboro, NC 9/06/2024 Center Stage – Atlanta, GA * AMORPHIS Headlining date 9/07/2024 Conduit – Orlando, FL 9/09/2024 White Oak Music Hall – Houston, TX 9/10/2024 Trees – Dallas, TX 9/11/2024 The Rock Box – San Antonio, TX 9/13/2024 Nile Theater – Mesa, AZ 9/14/2024 Brick By Brick – San Diego, CA 9/15/2024 Echoplex – Los Angeles, CA 9/17/2024 DNA Lounge – San Francisco, CA 9/18/2024 Goldfields Roseville – Roseville, CA 9/20/2024 Hawthorne Theatre – Portland, OR 9/21/2024 Rickshaw Theatre – Vancouver, BC 9/22/2024 El Corazon – Seattle, WA 9/24/2024 Metro – Salt Lake City, UT 9/26/2024 Marquis Theatre – Denver, CO 9/27/2024 Bottleneck – Lawrence, KS 9/28/2024 The Cabooze – Minneapolis, MN 9/29/2024 The Forge – Joliet, IL 10/01/2024 Opera House – Toronto, ON 10/02/2024 Fairmount Theatre – Montreal, QC 10/03/2024 La Source de la Martinière – Quebec City, QC 10/04/2024 The Middle East Down – Cambridge, MA 10/05/2024 Baltimore Soundstage – Baltimore, MD 10/06/2024 Gramercy Theatre – New York, NY
AMORPHIS: Tomi Joutsen – vocals Esa Holopainen – guitars Tomi Koivusaari – guitars Santeri Kallio – keyboards Olli-Pekka Laine – bass Jan Rechberger – drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 9th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
This band doesn’t have a name yet, but on the prospect of a thing happening involving these players, it seemed worth hitting up Minnesota Pete Campbell for more info expanding on the lineup declaration that social media’s all-seeing/all-knowing/all-exploiting algorithm saw fit to put before my ever-sleepier eyes. Not a huge leap to think that he means it when he describes it as “extremely guitar driven.” Dude, you’ve got Alx Hellid — whose name I’d swear used to have another vowel — and Bob Balch. Probably an understatement as regards the “driving.”
So yeah, don’t go thumbing through the below looking for concrete release info or anything like that. They’re making demos. But it’s fucking cool when bands happen across continental divides, and given the dudes involved here, it seems completely reasonable for me to be stoked on the sheer hypothetical alone. They’re looking for a singer. You gonna try out?
Dig the pedigree — Fredrik Isaksson was also in Grave during the ’00s; pretty rad — and imagine the possibilities:
Extremely proud to announce this!!!
Bob Balch (Fu Manchu, Big Scenic Nowhere, SLOWER) – GUITAR Alx Hellid (Entombed, Nihilist) – GUITAR Fredrik Isaksson (Dark Funeral, Berserker Legion) – BASS Minnesota Pete Campbell (Pentagram, The Mighty Nimbus, Sixty Watt Shaman, Rust Bucket) – DRUMS
The riffs being thrown around are ungodly! This will be a game changer! Stay tuned
“This project came to life when I reached out to Bob Balch about some possible Pentagram stuff. Him and I have been tossing riffs back and forth and they were just to killer to not do something with! So we decided to do a little something together. I couldn’t be more excited to make music with these men! Icons and legends and the music will speak for itself!
I met Fredrick in Helsinki when both our bands played a festival together and we became instant friends. Before the night was over we already decided we were gonna jam together in something someday.
I’ve been friends and working with Alx Hellid for 20 years. Him and I have been working on The Mighty Nimbus reissue and I just asked if he’d be interested in jamming and he said Hell yeah!
We’ve been tossing riffs and demos around and it’s sounding killer! Think 70’s Heavy Metal in the vain of the Scorps, Maiden, Priest, Riot, and Thin Lizzy. Extremely guitar driven and with everyone’s influences who knows where it could go!!
We’ve got demos out to some pretty crazy good vocalists to find the perfect final piece! This will be a game changer that I promise!”
Maryland genre destroyers High Noon Kahuna will loose their second album, This Place is Haunted, on the unknowing ether May 17 with the 25-years-strong backing of Crucial Blast behind them. And as their debut, 2022’s Killing Spree (review here), willfully united the disparate worlds of black metal and surf rock, it seems only fitting that the 12-song/54-minute follow-up should go someplace else. Based in Maryland’s doom capitol, Frederick (home to Maryland Doom Fest, where the trio will celebrate this release on June 23) the pedigreed three-piece of vocalist/bass-VI-ist Paul Cogle, guitarist Tim Otis (also backing and other vocals throughout) and drummer Brian Goad present a sound that feels simultaneously broader and more solidified than on the first record, touching on a darker, heavier post-punk at the outset with “Atomic Sunset” that meets its semi-goth vibe and Otis‘ first lead vocal head-on with a wash of noise at the end, before “Lamborghini” — the first of three sub-three-minute instrumentals spread throughout the tracklisting, each with its own character, with the bassy stonerjazz meander of “The Devil’s Lettuce” and the thicker noise-rock riffing of “Midnight Moon” offsetting/bolstering some of the stylistic turns surrounding and giving preface to side B’s outward push in the drifting “Flaming Dagger” and the echoes emerging from the crashing void of seven-minute finale “Et Ita Factum Est” — redirects toward a more straight-ahead, riffer charge.
Returning producer Kevin Bernsten at Developing Nations Studio in Baltimore does well in not so much corralling High Noon Kahuna‘s various whims and impulses, but in highlighting the multifaceted dynamic and tonality that draws their material together. That is to say, while This Place is Haunted doesn’t linger in any particular aural locale for too long and with 12 cuts included there’s no shortage of jumping around from place to place — to wit, “Prehistoric Love Letter” picking up after “Lamborghini” with Torche-style uptempo heavy rock reimagined as Chesapeake emo/post-hardcore with shared vocals from Otis and Cogle and the subsequent “Good Night God Bless” (premiering below) burning the ground with feedback before slamming into its densely-weighted roll with shouts cutting through, angular twists of effects and whatever else that is, and a bombast that gives over to residual noise, drone and buried voice(s) to lead into the aforementioned addled sway of “The Devil’s Lettuce”; or, you know, the rest of the thing — when taken as a whole, in a single dose, the album’s cohesion comes in part from its willingness to be itself apart from outside expectation, the imaginary limits of style, and, in the true spirit of Maryland’s doom underground, the direction of trend.
“Brand New Day” finds a Josh Homme-style vocal topping more gothic-ish proceedings, this time led by Cogle‘s bass, and leads one to wonder if it and “Atomic Sunset” aren’t intended to be complements; i.e., the morning of the next day. Certainly “Good Night God Bless,” “Midnight Moon,” and “Tumbleweed Nightmare” could be read into this theme as well, and given the nature of the project, that they aren’t necessarily in linear go-to-bed-dream-and-wake-up order hardly matters. That doesn’t account for cuts like “Sidewalk Assassin” though, with its alarm of feedback screech and tense intro drumming unfolding into a barrage of low noise riffing and shouting that turns to more spacious and less voluminous fare before it’s done without letting go of that tension, or the amalgam of chug-punk and atmospherics that arrive with “Mystical Shit,” which follows.
The lesson there, perhaps, is that it’s a mistake in the first place to try and find rules where for the most part there aren’t any, and that High Noon Kahuna‘s sundry divergences throughout This Place is Haunted are most of all linked by the fact that it’s all part of the band’s overarching scope. And as in the best of scenarios, it works because they make it work in pieces that aren’t trying to be defined as weird or outside this or that common ‘heavy’ expectation so much as they are a realization of the personalities behind the songwriting. A good bit of instrumental chemistry and breadth of production don’t hurt either, and This Place is Haunted benefits from those as well.
Airy in the high end, storytelling in its lyric and dense in its bassy fluidity, “Tumbleweed Nightmare” comes apart at the crunching staticky finish to give a fresh start to “Flaming Dagger,” which feels at least part-improvised around its core bassline — Otis is on a journey here — before the wash of guitar gradually consumes the bass and drums in the mix, leading to another noisy end that lets “Et Ita Factum Est” stand on its own. Fair enough. The closer’s title translates from Latin as “And So it Was Done,” and it is correspondingly declarative in the execution, from the pattern-setting onset to the howls of guitars that bookend the cacophony and lost-in-space echoing voice calling out (in Latin, though it’s hard to tell) near the end of its middle third.
The drums are first to depart as Cogle holds to the progression he set at the beginning and Otis channels animalian feedback, but soon the bass is gone as well and High Noon Kahuna cap with a suitable wall of amplified residual drone. It’s not as harsh as it could be, in terms of the noise offered elsewhere on This Place is Haunted, but I wouldn’t call it a gentle goodbye either. Like the rest of what surrounds, it is a moment defined mostly by being the band’s own. This is doubly impressive when one considers that two years ago their debut set a largely different context for its own definition.
As to what that means for High Noon Kahuna going forward — the question being if they’ve found ‘their sound’ in the reaches here or if whatever they do next will embark on another stylistic course — it would be useless, stupid, and not the least in the spirit of This Place is Haunted to speculate. Given what they do here and what Killing Spree wrought, they’re somewhat less madcap than they were two years ago, but that has clearly allowed them to find poise in the control over what for many bands would be a chaos either too encompassing to wield or result in something outright unlistenable.
This Place is Haunted doesn’t bow to notions of accessibility, but it does leave room for the listener to find a place for themselves in the world the trio are making. Sometimes it even feels safe there after a while, in that maybe-ghost-ridden fray, which makes the procession across these songs all the more special to behold for those who can meet the band on their own, deeply individualized level.
“Good Night God Bless” premieres below, followed by more background, the invite to a Bandcamp listening party next week, live dates and such from the PR wire.
Please enjoy:
High Noon Kahuna, “Good Night God Bless” track premiere
High Noon Kahuna is a power trio of veteran heavy musicians from Frederick, Maryland, with Tim Otis on guitar (Admiral Browning), Brian Goad on Drums (Internal Void / The Larrys / Nagato), and Paul Cogle on Bass VI and Vocals (Black Blizzard / Vox Populi / Nagato / Slagstorm). These three gents have known each other for years and have always supported each other in their respective bands.
High Noon Kahuna is back in 2024 to present their second album, This Place is Haunted. This collection of songs captures the raw vibe of their last album, Killing Spree, while expanding on the band’s diverse corners of influence. Spanning the genre sphere across Surf, Western, Deathrock, Noiserock, Punk, and Psych, these songs show HNK at their most aggressive… as well as most ethereal, spacey, and gothic.
All the songs on the album came from unrestricted jamming over the last 20 months. In fact, the very first notes and beats the three members ever played together was an instantly exciting song that is captured on this album (Brand New Day). In that time, the band has toured and played many shows, continuing to hone their unhinged live performances. This Place is Haunted is an evolution of the unique HNK sound and sees them at new creative heights.
Before entering the studio, roughly 80% of the songs were solidified, and most were played out live; the other 20% were based on free-form jams in the HNK archive and re-created on-the-fly, pseudo improv style. The band partnered with Kevin Bernsten and Developing Nations for recording, as they did with Killing Spree. His studio provided a vibe that sparked their creativity and gave them freedom to work at another level. Working with Kevin on this album was a creatively liberating experience; his knowledge, gear, recording space, and ear allowed the band to get wild.
Final mastering for This Place Is Haunted was completed by the ever-inventive James Plotkin at Plotkin Works. The album’s stirring cover art was created by HNK’s own drummer, Brian Goad.
The album is set for release on May 17th, 2024, on CD, cassette, and digital (vinyl TBA).
This Place Is Haunted – Tracklist: 01. Atomic Sunset 02. Lamborghini 03. Prehistoric Love Letter 04. Good Night God Bless 05. The Devil’s Lettuce 06. Brand New Day 07. Midnight Moon 08. Sidewalk Assassin 09. Mystical Shit 10. Tumbleweed Nightmare 11. Flaming Dagger 12. Et Ita Factum Est
Crucial Blast just announced a listening party for This Place Is Haunted:
The event is scheduled for: Wednesday, May 15, 2024 at 7:00 PM EDT
Come and join Crucial Blast and the members of MD/WV noise rock / occult desert rock / phantasmagorical psychedelic punk power-trio HIGH NOON KAHUNA as we hang out next Wednesday (7pm EST) and listen to the upcoming full-length album “This Place Is Haunted”. We will all be in the chat, and would love to hear from you and blab with ya! We will also be doing an online raffle + trivia question for free HIGH NOON KAHUNA shirts and copies of the new album, only for participants in the listening party chat. Come and get it!
Upcoming Live Dates: May 23 – Asheville, NC @ The Odd May 24 – Richmond, VA @ Another Round May 25 – Staunton, VA @ The Brick May 26 – Lexington, KY @ Green Lantern May 28 – Washington, DC @ The Pie Shop Jun. 23 – Frederick, MD @ MARYLAND DOOM FEST (Local Release Party)
High Noon Kahuna: Tim Otis: Guitar / Vocals Brian Goad: Drums Paul Cogle: Bass / Vocals
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 9th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Ahead of releasing their all-caps third long-player, KODOK, UK mostly-instrumentalist post-metal trio The Grey have put up the accordingly mostly-instrumental all-caps nine-minute single “CHVRCH,” which so far as I can tell is not in any way about the defunct Californian band who went by that moniker. Duly crushing in tone, spacious in atmosphere and pro-shop in overall sound, the single went up this past weekend on however-many digital outlets, and coincided with the news of the band’s inking to Majestic Mountain Records to issue the forthcoming album this Fall. There are a couple guest vocalists listed below who appear on the record, but I’m not sure who’s responsible for the later shouts emerging from the consuming nod of “CHVRCH.” If it’s you, nice job.
And yeah, if I’m being glib, it’s just to cover for missing the signing announcement last week. I don’t think I’m the first person ever to use humor to cover for insecurity, but everybody’s gotta have a talent, right? Either way, the stylistic territory The Grey are in might be familiar, but their exploration thereof and the flow of their transitions between the movements of “CHVRCH,” as well as the sheer weight of the single’s heaviest stretches, should be more than enough to pique your interest if you’re still reading.
Oh, and since the band are new to me as of, like 40 minutes ago, I included the stream of their second album, 2019’s Dead Fire, as well, to facilitate further digging in. From social media:
Majestic Mountain Records has always been a label that marches to its own beat with bands we truly love and are inspired by. The “Majestic magic” is less of a formula, more a display of a certain “otherness” which cannot fully be explained, but felt in the listener’s gut in addition to being able to elicit genuine emotion to and from the audience and connection to their community with a deep respect for and dedication to their craft.
Today we are proud to bring you news of Majestic’s latest signing, a band that embody all the above and more in spades.
Please join us in welcoming The Grey to the MMR crew.
To celebrate, they also have a new track “CHVRCH” which hits the streets this coming Saturday the 4th of May, ahead of a beastly full length album on the way this fall! We’re extremely proud of the album they’ve created for you and psyched to be able to present it to our incredible community with the Majestic treatment you’ve all come to know and love.
Cambridge post-metallers The Grey, craft (largely instrumental) music that brings with it an intense and crushing weight like few others – marrying the pummeling feel of a band like Neurosis, Karma To Burn or Domkraft to expansive themes and heavy soundscapes full of striking nuance and awash with brilliantly beautiful sonic colour.
This hard working and dedicated band have shared stages across the UK and Europe with such heavyweights as Palm Reader, Conjurer, Tuskar, Boss Keloid, Hundred Year Old Man, Abigail Williams, KAL-EL, and Asunojokei clocking in over 150 shows in 2023 alone, including performances at the infamous Bloodstock Festival and Uprising Festival and finished off the year with a 2 week Euro tour along side Sacramento heavy hitters Will Haven with whom US dates are planned.
The band share their thoughts on the single coming this Saturday as well as joining the Majestic Mountain Records roster:
“We are extremely proud to be joining the Majestic family. Not only have they consistently put out incredible records but the level of collaboration has been brilliant from day one & the mutual excitement infectious. We very much look forward to what the future holds together. Our forthcoming third album “KODOK “will be released this autumn with Majestic – vinyl preorder & more details to follow. The first single; “CHVRCH,” will be released and available for digital purchase on Saturday May 4th and has taken on a life & meaning of its own; a coda to grief & loss – a celebration of unity & hope – a moment to lose yourself – smile or cry; you decide. We hope you enjoy as we celebrate this new chapter of the band.”
The band explains that they “Carefully took our time crafting “KODOK,” with the incredibly talented Matty Moon at the helm, to create a true journey for the listener from start to finish. Heaviness & melody, darkness & beauty – it’s all there, alongside collaborations with some of our dearest friends & musical heroes.”
The album features the following collaborations; Guest vocals by Grady Avenell ( Will Haven ) – Sharpen The Knife. Guest vocals by Ricky Warwick ( The Almighty, Black Star Riders & Thin Lizzy fame ) – Don’t say Goodbye. Music collaboration with Ace – Skunk Anansie & bass from Chris ‘Fatty’ Hargreaves ( Pengshui / Submotion Orchestra ) – AFG.
The Grey are: Steve Moore – Drums Andy Price – Bass Charlie Gration – Guitars
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 8th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
What’re you gonna do, not take fewer than three minutes out of your busy day to watch Stinking Lizaveta‘s new video for “Serpent Underfoot?” Would be highly inadvisable. The Philly doomjazz-forebear instrumentalists and perennial weirdoheroes head abroad next week to begin a stint of UK shows in the likewise-expanded-of-mind two-piece Darsombra, and after that, they’ll hit the continent-proper for a handful of German stops, including — wait for it — Freak Valley Festival, where I’m pleased the trio’s path and my own will cross again. In addition to that, though, they’ve got a date in Jena, a stop at Sankt Pieschen in Dresden and two shows in Berlin, the second of which will put them in the company of Acid Mothers Temple. If you’re gonna go, make it count.
Video info and live dates (which I know were also posted here) follow, along with the stream of Stinking Lizaveta‘s 2023 LP, Anthems and Phantoms (review here), which you’re probably going to want after that “Serpent Underfoot” clip. Enjoy:
STINKING LIZAVETA – SERPENT UNDERFOOT – From our album ANTHEMS AND PHANTOMS.
The audio is from the album, the video was taken from several live performances during the 2023 tour. Don’t forget to like, comment and subscribe to stay up-to-date on new releases.
Music by: Stinking Lizaveta Video compilation by: Peter Wilder Footage is from the Stinking Lizaveta 2023 Summer tour
Stinking Lizaveta live: 14 MAY – Bristol ENGLAND @ The Gryphon * 16 MAY – Sowerby Bridge ENGLAND @ Puzzle Hall Inn * 17 MAY – Cardigan WALES @ The Cellar * 19 MAY – London ENGLAND @ Desertfest London * 22 MAY – Newcastle ENGLAND @ The Lubber Fiend * 23 MAY – Glasgow SCOTLAND @ Bloc * 24 MAY – Edinburgh SCOTLAND @ St. Vincent’s Chapel * 25 MAY – Inverness SCOTLAND @ Tooth & Claw * 27 MAY – Jena GERMANY @ Cafe Wagner 28 MAY – Berlin GERMANY @ Schokoladen 31 MAY – Netphen GERMANY @ Freak Valley Festival 1 JUNE – Dresden GERMANY @ Sankt Pieschen Festival 4 JUNE – Berlin GERMANY @ Neue Zukunft w/ Acid Mothers Temple * w/ Darsombra
Stinking Lizaveta is Yanni Papadopoulos on guitar, Alexi Papadopoulos on upright electric bass, and Cheshire Agusta on drums.
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 8th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
I know the various eras of Monster Magnet have their fans, but what to me undebatable about the long-running New Jersey-based heavy rock progenitors is the impact they’ve had across the span of their career. Whichever of their records is your favorite — their most recent outing, 2022’s demo-comp Test Patterns: Vol. 1, rawly highlighted the unhinged early cosmic weirdness of “TAB” in the band’s formative state as the trio of Dave Wyndorf, Tim Cronin and John McBain — you would have a hard time overstating their contribution to rock and roll, period, broadening the scope of post-grunge commercialism with hard riffs and due sneer in the later-’90s after emerging from the roots presented on Test Patterns to cast a singular mold of heavy space and psychedelic rock earlier in that decade.
Through the tumult of lineup changes, addiction, a couple ultimately-middling-but-still-smarter-than-everybody LPs and more besides in the ’00s, and a 2010s that included some of their most accomplished work in bringing together the styles explored in disparate succession prior, Wyndorf has steered Monster Magnet to grandmaster status. As they celebrate the 35th anniversary of the band later this year with a European tour built around previously-announced headliner slots at Madrid, Spain’s Kristonfest, Up in Smoke in Switzerland and Desertfest Belgium in Antwerp, I find myself most of all hoping that the 1989-2024 logo featured on the poster below ends up on a t-shirt at some non-bootleg merch outlet. And as I was lucky enough to see what I think is still the current incarnation of the band — Wyndorf on vocals/guitar alongside six-stringers Phil Caivano and Garrett Sweeney, Bob Pantella on drums, Alec Morton on bass — last year headlining Desertfest New York (review here), I can only advise catching them when and if you can whether you’ve seen them before or not. At some point, Dave Wyndorf is gonna get sick of this shit. Clearly he’s not there yet, but it could happen.
Dates are on the poster (in the old days, you used to get a press release about this kind of thing, but don’t let me complain) below, along with the note about tickets going on sale this Friday.
Right on:
Announcing – Monster Magnet 35th Anniversary Tour: 1989-2024 Tickets On-sale: Fri 10 May 2024 (10am CEST / 9am BST).
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 8th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
DunaJam — the permanently-small, willfully-unadvertised, not-quite-a-secret-but-not-far-off week-long festival held on I don’t even know what beach in Sardinia each year — remains the ultimate daydream. I’ve never been, and I’ll never be cool enough to go. Ever. But man, imagine watching the sun go down and some band is just up there jamming and the ocean is the vibe and the vibe is the ocean and then I guess you just party all night because you’re at fucking Duna Jam and you can sleep next week anyhow. Ananda Mida got to go.
And, clever psychedelic rocking sorts that they are, they recorded the set they performed in that most idyllic of contexts, and they’re soon to release it through Heavy Psych Sounds. Yeah, a little odd for it to not be on Go Down Records given the band’s association with that label through drummer Max Ear (also OJM), but I’ve got nothing bad to say about a bit of scene unity between Italian labels, bands, etc. Keeps the world afloat, that kind of thing.
Info and a video for “The Future” — which, oddly, I don’t see in the tracklisting but I assume is part of that whole “Doom and the Medicine Man” sequence — follow below, courtesy of the PR wire:
Psychedelic blues rockers ANANDA MIDA to release “Live at Duna Jam” album on Heavy Psych Sounds; first video “The Future” streaming!
Heavy 70’s blues collective ANANDA MIDA (with vocalist Conny Ochs) announce the release of the “Live at Duna Jam” album this July 12th on Heavy Psych Sounds, and premiere the video for “The Future.”
Ananda Mida is a stoner and psychedelic rock music collective led by Max Ear (OJM’s drummer and Go Down Records’ Art Director) and Matteo Pablo Scolaro. From the very beginning of the project, graphic imagery has been given a crucial role thanks to the precious collaboration with the visual artist Eeviac. Since 2015, they have been performing with different lineups, from three to six members, either as an instrumental outfit or featuring singers such as Conny Ochs. Their sound is inspired by seventies rock, mixed with desert and psychedelic grooves.
About the live album, the band comments: “On Tuesday, June 20, 2023, we had the privilege of performing live for the Duna Jam audience as the sun set over the beach and heat waves, along with sandstorms, rose from the Sahara to the west. It was an unforgettable concert that left a profound emotional impact on us as the entire scene and atmosphere seemed to “crystallize” in its own unique space-time, so to speak.”
TRACKLIST: 1. Swamp Thing 2. Blank Stare 3. Doom And The Medicine Man (Pt V) 4. Doom And The Medicine Man (Pt Vi-Vii-Viii) 5. Doom And The Medicine Man (Pt Iv) 6. Lunia (Ear, Scolaro, Leonardi)
ANANDA MIDA is Davide Bressan: bass guitar Max Ear: drums Conny Ochs: vocals, percussion Matteo Pablo Scolaro: electric guitars Alessandro Tedesco: electric guitars
Los Tayos are a recent formation in the expansion-prone ouevre of Páty, Hungary’s Psychedelic Source Records. And true to that label/collective’s vadmadar ethos, their debut release is actually two releases, the six-song/45-minute Los Tayos and Los Tayos II, the four songs of which play out across another 48-ish minutes. They were recorded in the same session, in the same day, by the four-piece assemblage of vocalist/keyboardist Krisztina Benus (also Nepaal, River Flows Reverse, Lemurian Folk Songs), guitarist/keyboardist Bence Ambrus (also production/mix/master, outreach for Psychedelic Source and numerous other projects and solo experiments), bassist Attila Nemesházi (who also aided in the production process, has been in Lemurian Folk Songs, etc.), and drummer/percussionist András Halmos, who has never appeared on a Psychedelic Source release to my knowledge, but has a long pedigree in jazz, folk and other styles, all of which come into play across Los Tayos and the even-jammier stretches of “Golden Grail” and the pairing “Inhale” and “Exhale” Los Tayos II.
If you read the info in blue text from Psychedelic Source about the project — with Los Tayos framed as a collective within a collective — you’ll see that over 100 minutes of material was recorded during that one-day delve, and that two full-length releases (to be issued across 3LPs) with somewhere in the neighborhood of 94 minutes’ worth of songs came out of it makes it feel like a pretty productive afternoon. But it becomes clear in listening that more effort has been put in than that.
With an acid folk spirit conveyed through Benus‘ vocals and the softer twists of guitar in “End of Illumination” or “Exhale” — on which Halmos offers a correspondingly gentle shuffle on the ride cymbal — Los Tayos weave their way through subtle thematic variations from the bluesier outset of “Bright Sorrow” and the wah-and-reverb excursion that follows accompanied by Spanish lyrics in “Sombre del Diablo” before the instrumental “Valle Gran Rey” redirects from the second track’s wash ending into a more classically progressive vibe. The underlying message is less about the stylistic variations — not that the nuances don’t matter; they just matter less than the flow that spans the entire offering — than about the fact of the songs themselves.
By which I mean they are songs. Even as “Valle Gran Rey” moves toward its percussion-laced midsection jam with a bit of a pickup in energy, the sense of a plan at work is palpable. In that particular case, the piece is given its shape in no small part thanks to Nemesházi‘s bass and Halmos‘ drums, but Ambrus‘ guitar follows a distinct pattern at least until it doesn’t (ha) and the movement into a more improv-sounding lead shimmer in the second half still holds its rhythmic foundation, while also leaning a bit on the right-into-the-verse beginning of “End of Illumination” for structural reinforcement.
That transition from “Valle Gran Rey” is gorgeous and strikes as purposeful in that, and as “End of Illumination” is the shortest single piece in Los Tayos and Los Tayos II, layered in its vocals and harnessing additional breadth with an almost Tuareg flair in the guitar, it brings into focus the manner in which the material on Los Tayos‘ first LPs seems to have been sculpted from what was captured at that original session. The inevitable editing, the laying out of vocal melodies and patterns, and the diverse but fluid shifts undertaken between and within the component tracks — which surely meld together even more on vinyl, despite the platter-flip interruptions — all of these aspects become an essential part of the listening experience, as well as part of the creativity behind it in the first place.
The self-titled portion caps by pairing the post-rock-ish liquefaction of “Closed Eyes” with the eponymous “Los Tayos,” the latter of which answers back to the grounded feel of “Bright Sorrow” in the guitar-forward balance of its mix but has its own physical motion as well, pulling together smooth turns and highlighting the conversation happening between strings and drums. These two at the end, as well as the percussive, eight-minute “Alma Ruida” that gives open-air-whispers ethereality to the start of Los Tayos II, make it worth noting just how amorphous the shapes given to the songs can be.
It might not be a surprise that an extended cut like “Golden Grail” works in some rather vast spaces of drone, float and subsurface groove, but the humanizing and persona-setting contribution of Benus‘ folkish declarations shouldn’t be underestimated, either on “Golden Grail,” “Bright Sorrow” or anywhere else in Los Tayos and Los Tayos II. A soothing organ drone emerges to give the course of “Inhale” not so much to anchor the drifting-away guitar lines as to give a tether to let them return as they will or won’t, and “Exhale” sees mouth harp added to the progression in its first half before the delay effects really take over in the midsection and carry the finale to its ending, an organic coming-apart over the last minute-plus that brings the shimmer up and then fades it out, as if to emphasize the message of Los Tayos‘ instrumental capstone salvo.
Expansive as it is, there’s no guarantee Los Tayos — as a project — will ever happen again, or if does, what form it might take. There are defined bands as part of Psychedelic Source Records, to be sure, but the fact is that any given Saturday might result in a new release as a result of some reorganization of players or maybe just whoever checked their texts that morning. I don’t know, is the bottom line. But, true to an ethic one finds in some of the most engaging heavy psychedelia, period, Los Tayos‘ duly-outside-the-box double-feature debut retains the soul and vitality of its root explorations while offering a deeper experience through applied craft.
Considering how much each player brings to Los Tayos and Los Tayos II, one hopes Benus, Ambrus, Nemesházi and Halmos can do more at some point in the vast unknowable future, but even if not, these songs and the open atmosphere they present stand ready to welcome any and all adventurous enough to take them on.
The first idea of this collective came up about a year ago in the heads of András and Bence. Finally when we got together, we recorded more than a hundred minute-long session during one day. Later, we did a few vocal and percussion overdubs to complete, then selected the best picks for the 3LP-long set.
One part of this supergroup came from the middle-early Lemurian Folk Songs, as Attila, Krisztina and Bence did that before. András, who is one of the Hungary’s best professionally recognized multi-drummers, brought a totally different feel in the music.
Miklós Kerner (Misu Magos, trumpeter of Microdosemike) – cover art. Ákos Karancz – band photo. Recorded, mixed, mastered by Attila & Bence.
‘Los Tayos’ tracklisting: 1. Bright Sorrow (9:02) 2. Sombre del Diablo (6:11) 3. Valle Gran Rey (8:11) 4. End of Illumination (4:52) 5. Closed Eyes (10:22) 6. Los Tayos (7:09)
‘Los Tayos II’ tracklisting: 1. Alma Ruida (8:00) 2. Golden Grail (16:12) 3. Inhale (10:59) 4. Exhale (13:23)
Los Tayos: András Halmos – drums, percussion Attila Nemesházi – bass Krisztina Benus – vocal, keys Bence Ambrus – guitar, producing, lyrics
