Posted in Whathaveyou on October 23rd, 2015 by JJ Koczan
Like the best space rock in this universe, it’s damn near impossible to keep up with Øresund Space Collective. Between their amorphous lineup of players coming and going, constantly updated catalog of bootleg live recordings on archive.org, extended live albums, fest appearances, guest spots, etc., you’d pretty much have to be in the band to be able to have an handle on all of it, and even then it seems like that handle would be tenuous at best. That, of course, is the whole idea. I very much dug last year’s Music for Pogonologists 2CD full-length, and just as I’ve started to dig into a new three-disc (!) live album, issued just a couple weeks back and suitably titled Out into Space, along comes a new studio full-length, Different Creatures, set to release next month. It is a staggering, overwhelming amount of music, and when you get down to the fact that most of what Øresund Space Collective does is improvised on the spot, their output seems even more encompassing. They’ve got jams for light-years.
Info on the new one follows, as sent along the PR wire:
Øresund Space Collective- Different Creatures
Space Rock Productions SRP030
Release date: Nov 2015 Triple Gatefold Vinyl 200 on black vinyl 300 on coloured vinyl 1000 2CD in a 4 panel digipack with 24 panel fold out poster
The Øresund Space Collective is a super group made up of members from various Scandinavian rock groups. These include the Carpet Knights (SE), Mantric Muse (DK), Bland Bladen (SE), Gas Giant (DK), Hooffoot (SE), First band from Outer Space (SE), Siena Root (SE), My Brother the Wind (SE), The Univerzals (DK) and others. The band has played numerous festivals around Europe including the Roskilde Festival (2015), Copenhagen Jazz Festival (2010), Kildemose Festival, Roadburn Festival (Holland 2010), Space Rock Odyssey (Sweden 2008), Slotsskogen goes Progressive (Sweden 2008), Space Force 1 (Finland 2009), Psychedelic Network (Germany 2009, 2013), Occultrance Festival (2011) in Belgium and Burg Herzberg, DE (2014). By 2015, the band had played about 90 concerts in 10 different countries! The band first started releasing music in 2006 on the Transubstans Label in Sweden and has over the first 5 years released many albums on several different labels.
This marks the 20th Øresund Space Collective release. The music presented on the deluxe 3LP gatefold or double CD was recorded by a very special group of musicians from Sweden and Norway (plus Dr SpaceDenmark) at the Black Tornado studio in Copenhagen. The members are from a wide variety of bands including Tangle Edge, Agusa, Camper Van Beethoven, My brother the Wind, Gösta Berlings Saga and Ex-Siena Root. The mixture of pedal steel, sitar, violin, mandolin, and theremin, presents a new and exciting sound and energy ranging from high energy space rock like Ride to Valhalla to very laid back country space blues with Jam for Jerry G and Indian space trance of the Digestive Raga. We created an unknown tribute to the Welsh band, Man, on the track, Man from Wales. There were some interesting sound experiments included as well to bridge the sides. Finally, the massive 45min, 20 steps towards the invisible Door.. Wow.. what a piece of music..
Enjoy….
Recorded at the Black Tornado Studio, Copenhagen Oct 2014. Engineer Lars Lundholm. Mixed by Jonathan Segel with spiritual guidance from Hasse. Artwork by Mårdøn Smet. CD and LP Layouts by David Graham. Photos by Sabine Pottien.
LP1 (CD1) Side A Ride to Valhalla 19:37.65 Juggle 3:49.05
Side B Digestive Raga 20:55.33 Extended version on CD only (30:03)
LP2 Side C (CD1) Man from Wales 13:23.36 Bon Voyage 6:11.33
Side D (CD2) Raga for Jerry 20:16.13
LP3 (CD2)
Side E 20 Steps Towards the Invisible Door Part 1 25:18.11
Side F 20 Steps Towards the Invisible Door Part 2 20:01.05 (track is combined into one 45:19 min track on the CD)
The band on this release was the following: (in alphabetical order) Alex – Drums and Percussion Dr Space – Analog Synthesizers Hasse – Bass, DounDouns Jonas – Hammond, Synthesizer, Electric Piano, Guitar* Jonathan – Guitar, Violin, Theremin, Hammond*, Electric Mandolin KG – Sitar and Analog Synths Mattias – Guitar, Pedal Steel, Shaker Mats – Guitar, Bass**
*on The Man From Wales **on Juggle the Juice, Digestive Raga, Bon Voyage
The final day of the Quarterly Review is upon us. It has been one hell of a week, I don’t mind saying, but good and productive overall, if in a kind of cruel way. I hope that you’ve been able to find something in sifting through all these releases that you really dig. I have, for whatever that’s worth. Before we dig into the last batch, I just want to thank you for checking in and reading this week. If you’ve seen all five of these or if this is the first bunch you’ve come across, that you’re here at all is appreciated immensely.
Quarterly Review #41-50:
Lucifer, Lucifer I
Vocalist Johanna Sadonis, who burst into the international underground consciousness last year with The Oath, resurfaces following that band’s quick dissolution alongside former Cathedral guitarist and riffer-of-legend Gary “Gaz” Jennings in Lucifer, whose Lucifer I eight-song debut LP is released on Rise Above Records. Joined by bassist Dino Gollnick and drummer Andrew Prestidge, Sadonis and Jennings wind through varied but thoroughly doomed atmospheres across songs like opener “Abracadabra” – the outright silliness of the “magic word” kind of undercutting the cultish impression for which Lucifer are shooting – or early highlights “Purple Pyramid” and “Izrael.” A strong side A rounding out with “Sabbath,” Lucifer I can feel somewhat frontloaded, but on repeat listens, the layered chorus of “White Mountain,” “Morning Star”’s late-arriving chug, the classically echoing “Total Eclipse” and the atmospheric finish of “A Grave for Each One of Us” hold their own. After a strong showing from Lucifer’s debut single, the album doesn’t seem like it will do anything to stop the band’s already-in-progress ascent. Their real test will be in the live arena, but they sustain a thematic ambience across Lucifer I’s 44 minutes, and stand ready to follow Rise Above labelmates Ghost and Uncle Acid toward the forefront of modern doom.
Drone-prone Philadelphia post-metallers Rosetta return with Quintessential Ephemera, the follow-up to 2013’s The Anaesthete and their fifth LP overall, which resounds in its ambience as a reinforcement of how little the band – now a five-piece with the inclusion of guitarist Eric Jernigan – need any hype or genre-push to sustain them. Through a titled intro, “After the Funeral,” through seven untitled tracks of varying oppressiveness and rounding out with the unabashedly pretty instrumental “Nothing in the Guise of Something,” they continue to plug away at their heady approach, relentless in their progression and answering the darker turns of their prior outing with a shift toward a more colorful atmosphere. At 52 minutes, Quintessential Ephemera isn’t a slight undertaking, but if you were expecting one you probably haven’t been paying attention to the last decade of Rosetta’s output. As ever, they are cerebral and contemplative while staying loyal to the need for an emotional crux behind what they do, and the album is both dutiful and forward-looking.
Pressed up by Brutal Panda Records for Stateside issue following a 2014 release in Europe on Svart, Death by Burning is the debut full-length from sans-bass Hamburg duo Mantar – vocalist/guitarist Hanno, drummer/vocalist Erinc – and as much as it pummels and writhes across its thrash-prone 10 tracks, opener “Spit” setting a tone for the delivery throughout, there are flourishes of both character and groove to go with all the bludgeoning throughout standout cuts like “Cult Witness,” “The Huntsmen,” the explosive “White Nights,” “The Stoning” and the more lumbering instrumental closer “March of the Crows,” the two-piece seamlessly drawing together elements of doom, thrash and blackened rock and roll into a seething, tense concoction that’s tonally weighted enough to make one’s ears think they’re hearing bass strings alongside the guitar, but still overarchingly raw in a manner denoting some punk influence. Bonus points for the Tom G. Warrior-style “ough!” grunts that make their way into “The Stoning” and the rolling nod of “Astral Kannibal.” Nasty as hell, but more subtle than one might expect.
Though it seems King Giant’s fate to be persistently underrated, the Virginian dual-guitar five-piece offer their most stylistically complex material to date on their third full-length, Black Ocean Waves (released on The Path Less Traveled Records and Graveyard Hill), recorded by J. Robbins (Clutch, Murder by Death, etc.) as the follow-up to 2012’s Dismal Hollow (streamed here). Still commanded by the vocal presence of frontman Dave Hammerly, the album also finds moments of flourish in the guitars of David Kowalski and Todd “T.I.” Ingram on opener “Mal de Mer,” the leads on “Requiem for a Drunkard” or the intro to extended finishing move “There Were Bells,” bassist Floyd Lee Walters III and drummer Keith Brooks holding down solid rhythms beneath the steady chug of “The One that God Forgot to Save” and “Blood of the Lamb.” Side A closer “Red Skies” might be where it all ties together most, but the full course of Black Ocean Waves’ eight tracks provides a satisfying reminder of the strength in King Giant’s craftsmanship.
The 14 single-word-title tracks of Si Ombrellone’s Horns on the Same Goat were originally recorded in 2006, but for a 2015 release, Connecticut-based multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Simon Tuozzoli (Vestal Claret, King of Salem) took them back into his own UP Recording Studio for touch-ups and remastering. The endeavor is a solo outing for Tuozzoli, styled in a kind of post-grunge rock with Frank Picarazzi playing drums to give a full-band feel, and finds catchy, poppy songwriting coming forward in the layered vocals of “Innocence,” while later, “Forgiveness” and “Darkness” offset each other more in theme than sound, as “Love” and “Hate” had done earlier, the album sticking to its straightforward structures through to six-minute closer “Undone,” which boasts a more atmospheric take. It’s an ambitious project to collect 14 sometimes disparate emotional themes onto a single outing, never mind to do it (mostly) alone – one might write an entire record about “Trust,” say, or “Rage,” which opens – but Tuozzoli matches his craftsmanship with a sincerity that carries through each of these tracks.
Boasting a close relationship to Duster69 and Mother Misery and featuring in their ranks Daredevil Records owner Jochen Böllath, who plays guitar, German heavy rockers Grand Massive revel in commercial-grade Euro-style tonal heft bordering on metallic aggression. 2 is their aptly-titled second EP (on Daredevil) and it finds Böllath, lead guitarist Peter Wisenbacher, vocalist Alex Andronikos, bassist Toby Brandl and drummer Holger Stich running through six crisply-executed tracks of catchy, fist-pumping riffy drive, slowing a bit for the creepy ambience of the interlude “Woods” or the more lurching tension of “I am Atlas,” but most at home in the push of “Backseat Devil” and closer “My Own Sickness,” a mid-paced groove adding to the festival-ready weight Grand Massive conjure. Word is they’re already at work on a follow-up. Fair enough, but 2 has plenty to offer in the meantime in its tight presentation and darker vibes, Grand Massive having been through a wringer of lineup changes and emerged with their songwriting well intact.
Carlton Melton Meets Dr. Space, Live from Roadburn 2014
If you guessed “spacey as hell” as regards this meeting between NorCal psych explorers Carlton Melton and Scott “Dr. Space” Heller of Danish jammers Øresund Space Collective, go ahead and give yourself the prize. Limited to 300 copies worldwide courtesy of Lay Bare Recordings and Space Rock Productions, Carlton Melton Meets Dr. Space’s Live from Roadburn 2014 is a consuming, near-100-minute unfolding, Heller joining Carlton Melton on stage for four of the total seven inclusions, adding his synthesized swirl to the swirling wash, already by then 26 minutes deep after the opening “Country Ways > Spiderwebs” establishes a heady sprawl that only continues to spread farther and farther as pieces unfold, making “Out to Sea” seem an even more appropriate title. It will simply be too much for some, but as somebody who stood and heard the sounds oozing from the stage at Cul de Sac in Tilburg, the Netherlands, as part of the Roadburn 2014 Afterburner event, I can say it was a special trip to behold. It remains so here.
According to El Paraiso Records, Sela was held up as so many releases have been owing to plant production having been overwhelmed by Record Store Day and will be out circa August. Fair enough. Consider this advance warning of Danish improve collective Shiggajon’s first outing for the Causa Sui-helmed imprint, then, and don’t be intimidated as we get closer to the release and people start talking about things like “free jazz” and dropping references to this or that Coltrane. The real deal with Shiggajon – central figures Mikkel Reher-Lanberg (percussion, drums, clarinet) and Nikolai Brix Vartenberg (sax) here joined by Emil Rothenborg (violin, double bass), Martin Aagaard Jensen (drums), Mikkel Elzer (drums, percussion, guitar), Sarah Lorraine Hepburn (vocals, flute, electronics, tingshaws) – is immersive and tipped over into music as the ritual itself. One might take on the two 18-minute halves of Sela with a similarly open mind as when approaching Montibus Communitas and be thrilled at the places the album carries you. I hope to have more to come, but again, heads up – this one is something special.
“The Spell” proves right away that Alps-based heavy rockers Mount Hush (I love that they don’t specify a country) have the post-Queens of the Stone Age fuzz-thrust down pat on their debut EP Low and Behold, but the band also bring an element of heavy psychedelia to their guitar work and the vocals – forward in the mix – have a bluesier but not caricature-dudely edge, so even as they bounce through the “Come on pretty baby” hook of “The Spell,” they’re crafting their own sound. The subsequent “King Beyond” showcases how to have a Graveyard influence without simply pretending to sound like Graveyard, even going so far as to repurpose a classic rock reference – “Strange Days” by The Doors – in its pursuit, and the seven-minute “The Day She Stole the Sun” stretches out for a more psychedelic build. Most exciting of all on a conceptual level is closer “Levitations.” Drumless, it sets ethereal vocals and samples over a tonal swirl and airy, quieter strumming. Hardly adrenaline-soaked and not intended to be, but it shows Mount Hush have a genuine will to experiment, and it’s one I hope they continue to develop.
Joined for the first time by drummer Bas Snabilie (apparently since replaced by Aletta Verwoerd) Amsterdam heavy art rockers Labasheeda mark four full-length releases with Changing Lights on Presto Chango, the violin/viola of vocalist/guitarist Saskia van der Giessen and guitar/bass/keyboard of Arne Wolfswinkel carrying across an open but humble atmosphere, touching here on Sonic Youth’s dare-to-have-a-verse moments in “My Instincts” and pushing into more blown-out jarring with the slide-happy “Tightrope.” They bring indie edge to a cover of The Who’s “Circles,” and round out with a closing duo of the album’s only two tracks over five minutes, “Cold Water” and “Into the Wide,” van der Giessen’s croon carrying a sweetness into the second half of the former as the latter finishes Changing Lights with a rolling contrast of distortion and strings as engrossing as it is strange. Labasheeda will go right over a lot of heads, but approached with an open mind it can just as easily prove a treasure for its blatant refusal to be pinned to one style or another.
Posted in audiObelisk on March 30th, 2012 by JJ Koczan
This isn’t the first time I’ve streamed audio from Copenhagen space-jamming instrumentalists Øresund Space Collective, but even if you go back and take another listen to the tracks previously posted from the albums Dead Man in Space and Entering into the Space Country, you’ll find that the material on the band’s new album, West, Space and Love is completely different.
Some things haven’t changed. The band is still driven by Scott “Dr. Space” Heller (seen above), and the material on West, Space and Love is — like most if not all of Øresund Space Collective‘s remarkably substantial discography — totally improvised. What sets West, Space and Love apart from prior Øresund Space Collective outings, though, is that Heller teamed up with percussionist Billy “Love” Forsberg and organist/guitarist/sitarist KG West, both of the organic Swedish heavy jam outfit Siena Root.
The partnership resulted in West, Space and Love, which as its name would indicate makes the most of its three contributors. West and Love bring some of Siena Root‘s ultra-natural vibing to the quiet, headphone-and-nighttime-ready songs, and Dr. Space, as ever, proves why he earned that degree at the University of Hawkwind, Copenhagen campus. It’s a quiet-sounding album, but the mood the three come up with off the cuff stands up to anything in the realm of heavy psychedelia, and in the context of the ongoing evolution of Øresund Space Collective, is even more of a fascinating listen.
West, Space and Love was recorded in Oct. 2009 and will be available in a limited-to-200 pressing of hand-painted vinyl starting March 31. More info on the pressing and the availability is here, and these tracks will also shortly be posted at Øresund Space Collective‘s Bandcamp page, where you can also purchase a download of the album and explore the band’s vast catalog of recordings. More info is also at their website. Special thanks to Prog Sphere Promotions (website here) for hooking this up on short notice.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on January 11th, 2012 by JJ Koczan
In case you haven’t seen it, I’ve been making my way through watching the entire original Star Trek series and keeping a log of each episode in the TV discussion forum. As such, I’ve become especially attuned to phrases with “space” at the front of them — like “space madness,” “space hottie,” or, in the case of this track from amorphous Danish/Swedish jam collective Øresund Space Collective, “space police,” as in “Chased by the Space Police,” which happens to be the name of the song. Bad ass.
Pretty heavy on the videos this week, I know, but 12 minutes of previously-unreleased psych jamming from this outfit (in 1080p, no less!) and I just can’t help myself. Here’s the clip, followed by some info about the recording.
“Chased by the Space Police” originates from It’s all about Delay studio session. Recorded March 10-11, 2006 at the Black Tomato Studios, Copenhagen, DK. The lineup was as follows: Sebastian – guitars, Søren – drums, Michael – bass, Mogens – synthesizers, Dr. Space – synth, Ola – synths, Magnus – guitars, Kasper – congas, Jocke – bass. The track was not previously released.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 18th, 2011 by JJ Koczan
That must have been some jam session back in 2008 for Øresund Space Collective to get three albums out of it. And it’s not like they’re skimping on the forthcoming Sleeping with the Sunworm — the thing is 56 minutes long! One huge jam with some minor overdubs, as you’ll see below, and the somewhat amorphous collective have another one in the can. 11 records in six years. Bless their improvising spaceprog hearts.
This came through on the PR wire:
This is the 11th release by the completely improvised space rock band from the Øresund region in Scandinavia. The band is mainly made up of members from Copenhagen, Denmark and the Malmö, Sweden area. This is the last of the material from the October 2008 studio session that gave us the Dead Man in Space and Slip into the Vortex releases. The music on this CD is one long 56-minute space rock jam!
Says Dr. Space: “We split it into three parts for ease of play. It starts very slow heavy and spacey with a massive sound, before the track heads into a new directions with some beautiful guitar. An uptempo section develops after 15 or so minutes and features some intense guitar and synthesizer interaction. Due to an out of tune synthesizer, a new synthesizer section was overdubbed by Mogens. Magnus also replaced one of his guitar sections but other than these two small sections it is a completely improvised piece of music. Enjoy! A heavy and emotional piece of music.”
Sleeping with the Sunworm was recorded and mixed at the BlackTornado studio in Copenhagen. Mastered in Göteborg by HenrikUdd. The players were: Magnus – space guitar/synth, Stefan – space guitar, Jocke – bass, Kaufmann – drums and percussion, Dr. Space – synths, Mogens – synths. The album is due in December and is a limited digipak hand-numbered edition of 500.
Posted in audiObelisk on September 13th, 2011 by JJ Koczan
If you count live albums, limited CDRs and studio offerings, the combination Danish/Swedish outfit Øresund Space Collective have a total of 25 releases under their belt since 2005. Being a fan of the ridiculously prolific in general, it’s hard not to stand in awe of that level of output and that kind of commitment to making music. So far in 2011, they’ve released four studio records.
A rotating cast of a lineup featuring members of Gas Giant, Siena Root, Sula Bassana and countless others means each Øresund Space Collective offering is going to have a different edge to it, and since the music is always instrumental and always improvised, you’re bound to run into some variation on the traditional Hawkwindian space rock theme.
In terms of the inevitable “where to start?” question, I don’t think there’s any other way to go about it except to dive right in. They’ve got five full records streaming and available for purchase on their Bandcamp page, but I was granted permission to host a couple tracks here from 2011 albums Dead Man in Space and Entering into the Space Country, so I figured 40 minutes over the course of two songs should be enough to give some impression of what Øresund Space Collective are all about. Hope you dig it:
“Space Jazz Jam 2.2” is taken from Dead Man in Space, was recorded in October, 2008, and released April, 2011. “Born Between Stars” comes from Entering into the Space Country, was recorded September, 2010, and released August, 2011. More info on Øresund Space Collective and their epic discography is here.
