To no surprise, Causa Sui know what they’re about on In Flux. The Danish innovators of heavy psychedelic jazz crossover — the returning lineup of guitarist/synthesist Jonas Munk (who also engineered, mixed and mastered), drummer Jakob Skøtt, keyboardist Rasmus Rasmussen and bassist Jess Kahr — offer 50 minutes across seven songs on In Flux, and from the proggy rhythmic urging of “The Circus is Back,” the 1:49 intro ahead of the resonant guitar and organ raga of “Milkweed’s Pod” through to the blissful outer reaches of the 16-minute side-consuming “Astral Shores,” movement is central to the proceedings.
Within and between parts of songs, sure, but also in the overarching groove that carries through the album as a whole. “Milkweed’s Pod” builds tension as it goes and hints at a heavier-bottomed payoff without ever actually losing itself in the fuzz, while “Silver in the Gathering Light” takes the All Them Witches-y pastoralia of the initial guitar line and pushes deeper into airy wistfulness. There are a series of short builds, but instead of the standard crescendo, Rasmussen‘s keys run a melodic drone over much of the second half of the song, giving it a shimmer and moving to the forefront as the guitar, bass and drums step back.
On the most superficial level, this isn’t anything new for Causa Sui in terms of methodology — they’ve been an exploratory instrumental band for a long time now, and In Flux does not radically altar these principles — but the band has posited it as a looser companion to their 2024 studio album, From the Source (review here), and 20 years on from their debut, one’s inclination is to take them at their word.
That said, I’m not sure I agree with the suggestion for two reasons. First, it implies From the Source and In Flux are related somehow, and yeah, they are, because the same band made them, but I don’t think the latest is a sequel to the last and I don’t think they were recorded at the same time (not that they’d necessarily have to be), and second, while they’ve got some shake in “The Circus is Back,” “Milkweed’s Pod” and “Boogie Lord’s Revenge,” they’re not sloppy about it.
Even in the post-script “Spree” after the epic “Astral Shores,” as it builds to its finish with keys out front and drums kind of marching behind; it sounds like it’s about to come apart, and maybe it was in the studio, but there’s no real danger there as Causa Sui are either going to hold it together or end it altogether. One gets Dead Meadow-y mellowness from the 11-minute “Moledo,” but as it follows the energy of Munk‘s wah going into its second half, the energy pickup is palpable and feels impromptu in a way that makes it all the more special.
Perhaps an uptick in the improvisational aspect of their approach is the source of some of that ‘looseness’ discussed in the release info, or at least part of it, but relating In Flux to the album before it gives it a kind of baggage I’m not sure it needs. That is to say, however it may ultimately lie on the broader timeline of Causa Sui‘s stylistic progression — because surely it’s part of that story as well; I’m not saying it isn’t — its own merits give it plenty to stand on, be it the hypnotic, drifty psych rock in the first half of “Moledo” or the solidified push that takes hold for a while in the second. Munk on guitar leads the way into much of the material captured, and the mood is vibrant and spontaneous.
Unsurprisingly, Causa Sui thrive in this context, and if what they’re reveling in and/or celebrating is the raw chemistry between the four of them and the kinds of musical conversations that can happen when you’re these people, in that room, at that time, then fair enough. The basic fact of the matter is that their chemistry can carry them through a record if it needs to; it just doesn’t need to on In Flux.
There’s enough going on in the songs — even “Boogie Lord’s Revenge,” which winds itself a round a relatively straight-ahead progression, somewhere between garage psych and Morricone and a reminder that Summer Sessions was a whole thing with this band before it fades out in medias res ’60s-style — from the jammed-out to the plotted that even fickle attention spans can be fed, and when they dedicate a side of the double-10″ release to “Moledo” or “Astral Shores,” the presence in that material holds up to the vaunted position. “Astral Shores” isn’t without its intended direction — that is, it’s headed somewhere from the start — but the way in which In Flux‘s most extended track is given the space it needs to unfold is perhaps emblematic of precisely what Causa Sui mean in terms of this as a ‘looser’ record.
Maybe it’s about the balance between holding firm and letting go of what one thinks of as control over one’s own creative plots. This can be more of a challenge than hammering out every minute detail for some artists, while others are perfectly happy to claim themselves as mere vessels through which a song, a riff, whatever, is realized. I don’t know where Causa Sui stand in terms of their own creativity — why the hell not? why have I never interviewed this band? — but whether it’s the spacey push later in that longest inclusion or the more subdued manner in which “Spree” unfolds afterward, both songs being defined in no small part by the live feel in the recording, they don’t sound like passive participants in their craft, and honestly, they never have.
Rather, In Fluxpresents Causa Sui as they are: unwilling to rest on their significant laurels in the face of continuing stylistic growth and a constantly changing goal ahead of them. Whatever their specific goal for each or any of these tracks, I don’t know, but In Flux shows Causa Sui finding new places for their music to go, and in that, it is as accurate a portrayal of who they as a band as one could possibly hope. Such honesty is rare, but so are Causa Sui.
Posted in Reviews on April 11th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
A friendly reminder that the end of the week is not, in fact, the end of the Quarterly Review, which will continue through Monday and Tuesday. That brings the number of releases covered to 70 total, which feels like plenty, and should hopefully carry us through a busy Spring release season. I’m thinking June for the next QR now but don’t be surprised if that turns into July as we get closer. All I know is I wanna do it before it’s two full weeks again.
As always, I hope you’ve found something that speaks to you in all this 10-per-day nonsense. If not, first, wow, really? Second, it ain’t over yet. Maybe today’s your day. One way to know.
Quarterly Review #41-50:
Dead Meadow, Voyager to Voyager
You may be mellow-vibes, but unless you’re “Not the Season,” Dead Meadow have one up on you forever. While Voyager to Voyager, which is the L.A. band’s eighth or ninth LP depending on what you count, comes with the tragic real-world context of bassist Steve Kille‘s 2024 passing, he does feature on the long-running trio’s first offering through Heavy Psych Sounds, and whether it’s “The Space Between” or the shuffle-stepping “The Unhounded Now” or the pastoral “A Question of Will” and the jangly strum of “Small Acts of Kindness” later on, guitarist/vocalist Jason Simon, Kille and drummer Mark Laughlin celebrate the ultra-languid take on heavy, psychedelic and shoegazing rock that’s made Dead Meadow a household name for weirdos. Not that they’re not prone to a certain wistfulness, but Voyager to Voyager is vibrant rather than mournful, and the title-track is an album flow unto itself in just eight minutes. If you can slow your manic-ass brain long enough to sit and hear it front-to-back, you’re in for a treat.
There is a sense of stepping out as Irish troubadour Seán Mulrooney makes his full-length solo debut with This is My Prayer on Ómós Records. Mulrooney is best known for residing at the core of Tau and the Drones of Praise, and for sure, pieces of This is My Prayer are coming from a similar place, but where there was psychedelic meander for the band, under his own moniker, Mulrooney brings a clarity of tone and presence to lyrics ranging from spiritual seeking to what seems to have been an unceremonious breakup. With character and emotion in his voice and range in his craft, Mulrooney sees a better world on “Ag Múscliaghacht” and posits a new masculinity — totally needed; trainwreck gender — in “Walking With the Wind,” meets indie simplicity with lap steel in “Jaguar Dreams” and, in closer “The Pufferfish,” pens a fun McCartney-style bouncer about tripping sea life. These are slivers of the adventures undertaken in singer-songwriter style as Mulrooney hones this solo identity. Very curious to see where the adventure might take him.
Issued in 2024, Sun Dog is the third MaidaVale long-player, and with it, the Swedish heavy psychedelic rockers showcase six years’ worth of growth from their second album. Melancholic of mood in “Fools” and “Control” and the folkish “Alla Dagar” and “Vultures,” Sun Dog starts uptempo with the Afrobeat-influenced “Faces,” drifts, shreds, then drifts again in “Give Me Your Attention,” dares toward pop in “Daybreak” and fosters a sense of the ironic in “Wide Smile is Fine” and “Pretty Places,” the latter of which, with a keyboardier arrangement, could’ve been the kind of New Wave hit that would still be in your head 40 years later. The nine-songer (10 if you get “Perplexity,” which was previously only on the vinyl) doesn’t dwell in any single space for too long — only “Wide Smile is Fine” and “Vultures” are over four minutes, though others are close — and that lets them balance the downer aspects with forward momentum. MaidaVale are no strangers to that kind of movement, of course, but Sun Dog‘s mature realization of their sound feels so much more vast in range.
Here come Causa Sui with another live album. And I’m not saying the only reason the thankfully-prolific Danish psychedelic treasures, heavyjazz innovators and El Paraiso label honchos are only releasing a complement to 2023’s Loppen 2021 (review here) to rub in the fact that I’ve never been lucky enough to catch them on a stage — any stage — but I am starting to take it personally. Call me sensitive. In any case, despite feeling existentially mocked by their chemistry and the fluidity of “Sorcerer’s Disciple” or the 22-minute “Visions of a New Horizon,” the hour-long set is glorious as one would expect, and though Loppen 2024 is a blip on the way to Causa Sui‘s forthcoming studio album, In Flux, especially when set alongside their previous outing from the same Christiania-based venue, it highlights the variable persona of the band and the reach of their material. Someday I’ll see this goddamn band.
Underlying the grit and stoner drawl of “El Rey del Mundo de los Muertos” is the lurching progression of Black Sabbath‘s “Sweet Leaf,” and that reinterprative ethic comes to the strutting Pentagrammery of “La Verdad es Tu Ataud” as well, but in the tonal density and the way their groove snails its way into your ear canal, the vibe Fulanno bring to Nosotros Somos el Fin del Mundo is in line with stoner doom traditionalism, and the revelry is palbale in the slow nod of the title-track or the horror samples sprinkled throughout or the earlier Electric Wizard-style languidity of “El Nacimiento de la Muerte.” They save an acoustic stretch in reserve to wrap “Desde las Tinieblas,” but if you think that’s going to clean your soul by that point then you haven’t been paying attention. Unrepentantly dark, stoned and laced with devil-, death-and riff-worship, Nosotros Somos el Fin del Mundo further distinguishes Fulanno in an always crowded Argentinian underground, and dooms like a bastard besides.
Because the age we live in permits such a thing and it tells you something about the music, I’m going to cut and paste the credits for Israeli duo Ze Stoner‘s debut EP/demo, Desert Buddhist. Dor Sarussi is credited with “bass guitar, spaceships, vocals,” while Alexander Krivinski handles “didgeridoo, spaceships, drums, and percussion.” How tripped out does a band need to be to have two members credited with “spaceships,” you ask? Quite tripped out indeed. Across the 12:09 “Part I – The Awakness” (sic) and the 11:41 “Part II – The Trip,” and the much-shorter 1:41 finale “Part III – The Enlightenment,” Ze Stoner take the meditative doom of Om or an outfit like Zaum and extrapolate from it a drone-based approach that retains a meditative character. It is extreme in its capacity to induce a trance, and as Desert Buddhist unfolds, it plays as longer movements tied together as a single work. There is massive potential here. One hopes Sarussi, Krivinski, their spaceships and didgeridoo are just beginning their adventures in the cosmos.
Oslo-based newcomers Arv aren’t shy about what their sound is trying to do. Their debut album, Curse & Courage, arrives via the wheelhouse of Vinter Records and brings together noise-laced and at-times-caustic hardcore with the atmospherics, echoing tremolo and churning intensity of post-metal. They lean to one side or the other throughout, and “Wrath” seems to get a bit of everything, but it’s a harder line to draw than one might think because hardcore as a style is all urgency and post-metal very often brings a more patient take. Being able to find a place in songwriting between the two, well, Arv aren’t the first to do it, but they are impressively cohesive for Curse & Courage being their first record, and the likes of “Victim,” the overwhelming rush of “Forsaken” earlier on and the more-ambient-but-still-vocally-harsh closing title-track set up multiple avenues for future evolution of the ideas they present here. Too aggressive to be universal in its appeal, but makes undeniable use of its scathe.
I’m not sure what’s going on in “Erotik Fvel P.I.M.P.,” but there’s chicanery a-plenty throughout Fvzz Popvli‘s fourth full-length, Melting Pop, which is released in renewed cooperation with Heavy Psych Sounds. Hooks, fuzz, and the notion that anything else would be superfluous pervade the Indiana Jones-referencing “Temple of Doom” and “Telephone” at the outset, the latter with some choice backing vocals, and they kick the fuzz into overdrive on “Salty Biscvits” with room besides for a jangly verse. Running an ultra-manageable 30 minutes, the album breaks in half with four songs on each side. “Kommando” leads off the second half with dirtier low end tone ahead of the slower-rolling “Ovija,” which shouts and howls and is all kinds of righteously unruly, where “Cop Sacher” punks at the start and has both gang vocals and a saxophone, which I can say with confidence nothing else among the 70 records in this Quarterly Review even tried let alone pulled off, and they close with due swagger and surprising class in “The Knight.” Part of Fvzz Popvli‘s persona to this point has been based in rawness, so it’s interesting to hear them fleshing out more complex arrangments, but at heart they remain very much stoner rock for the glory of stoner rock.
The tone worship is there, the working-class-dude stoner swing is there, and the humor that might result in a song like “Hypertension” — for which no less than Bob Balch of Fu Manchu sits in — so when I compare Rust Bucket to Maryland’s lost sons Earthride, please know that I’m not talking out of my ass. The Minnesota-based double-guitar five-piece revel in low end buzz-tone, and with no-pretense groove, throaty vocals and big personality, that spirit is there. Doesn’t account for the boogie of “Keep Us Down,” but everybody’s gotta throw down now and then. They shift into a sludgier mood by the time they get around to “The Darkness” and “Watch Your Back,” but the idea behind this first Rust Bucket feels much more like a bunch of guys getting together to hammer out some cool songs, maybe play some shows, do a record and see how it goes. On paper, that makes Rust Bucket an unassuming start, but its anti-bullshit stance, steady roll and addled swing make it a gem of the oldschool variety. Much to their credit, they call the style, “fuzzy caveman dad rock.” They forgot ‘bearded,’ but otherwise that about sums it up. Maybe the beard is implied?
It is appropriate that Mountain Dust named their third LP after themselves, since it finds them transcending their influences and honing a cross-genre approach that’s never sounded more their own than it does in these nine songs. From the densely-weighted misdirect of “Reap” with its Earth-sounding drone riff through the boogieing en route to the mellower and more open soul-showcase “Waiting for Days to End” — backing vocals included, see also “It’s Already Done” on side B — and the organ in “Vengeance,” the dynamic between the Graveyard-style ballad “This is It” and the keyboard/synth-fueled instrumental outro “All Eyes But Two,” Mountain Dust gracefullly subverts retroist expectations with individualized songwriting, performance and production, and this material solidifies the Montreal four-piece among the more flexible acts doing anything in the sphere of 1970s-style heavy rock. That’s still there, understand, but like the genre itself, Mountain Dust have very clearly grown outward from their foundations.
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 17th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Taking part in a bill that also includes Wyatt E., Daily Thompson, Karkara, Daevar, Dunes, Skyjoggers, Green Milk From the Planet Orange, Aptera, Djinn, and the house band Vestjysk Ørken, it’s hard to think of Causa Sui coming to the lineup for Esbjerg Fuzztival 2025 this June as anything other than heavy psychedelic figureheads. Not only to they represent the national underground of Denmark, where the fest also takes place (in Esbjerg, oddly enough), as one of the country’s greatest exports, but they bring a veteran presence among a slew of up and coming bands. I don’t know that they’re headlining and I don’t know that they’re not, but you would definitely expect to see them later in the day, whichever day they end up playing.
This announcement — and I think Causa Sui are a band to stand well alone — is the first of three that Esbjerg Fuzztival will do for its 2025 edition over the next couple Fridays. I’m going to try to keep up with it — you might recall Desertfest Oslo did something similar in Dec. — and so keep an eye next Friday to find out who else is still to come. I think these are the last lineup adds? I only know what I’m told, but either way, the more Causa Sui play the more live albums they might put out and that’s a thing that makes the world a better place.
From the PR wire:
ESBJERG FUZZTIVAL 2025 – Causa Sui to Play!!
Proud to once again host the legendary Kings of instrumental heavy psych Causa Sui.
Just a few months ago they released their newest album “From The Source” and hailed as a landmark achievement from a band that consistently change up the definition of what a “heavy” sound can be. The epic 23 minute long “Visions of a New Horizon” takes everything you know about heavy psych, strips the sound to its core and add layers upon layers of abstract beauty. No words are needed when they play, yet so much emotion is translated through their vibrations. This band is pure art, and we are looking forward to once again just stand in silence and awe and be moved.
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 9th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Recorded this past August at the titular venue located in the reportedly-actually-free area of Christiania in Copenhagen, Loppen 2024, is the forthcoming live album from Causa Sui set to release on Feb. 7. It’ll be here quick, and while I won’t disparage El Paraiso vinyl or those who consume it, I’ll note there are CDs for those like me who remain loyal to the smaller of the plastic-disk formats. However you get it, it’s live Causa Sui. Not like you’re gonna go wrong.
One might inevitably think of Loppen 2024 as a companion-piece to Loppen 2021 (review here), which the band put out through their label in 2023, but I don’t actually know if that’s the intent. They could do six of them, playing different sets each — or, you know, maybe repeating a night across two different sets recorded in two different years to emphasize the change and growth taking place in the band over that time — put them all out for the next 10 years and make it a series, while still doing studio LPs. Honestly, the more these guys record what they do, so much better off is the world.
I’ve still never seen Causa Sui. Could 2025 be the year?
Here’s info from the preorder page and a clip the band posted on socials:
Causa Sui returns to Loppen with 4 of 6 tunes never recorded live before, incl. their 22 minute opus Visions of a new Horizon. On 12″ + 10″ double LP on randomly coloured eco-mix vinyl, strictly limited to 1000 copies. Also available on CD. Ships Feb. 7th.
Causa Sui returns with a new live album, recorded at their home turf – the legendary Copenhagen venue Loppen, located at the famous, and notorious, freetown Christiania – a venue the band has played more often than any other throughout their 20 year career.
This set is the perfect companion to last year’s career highlight “From The Source”, which saw the band condense the multiple stylistic aspects of their sound into an awe-inspiring 47 minutes. Represented here are key cuts from that album – including the sidelong 7-part epic “Visions of a New Horizon” – as well as a few fan favorites such as “Red Sun in June” from the band’s Summer Sessions series, which has never previously been released in a live version. In this rendition the band let themselves get carried away, riding on the energy of the room, soaring into jammy Grateful Dead territory. Elsewhere the band explores jazzy, improvisatory group interplay (The Spot) and get as heavy as they can get (Soledad, Boozehound). Getting carried away is what Causa Sui are all about when playing live, and that mentality is captured in entirety on this set. Mixed and mastered by Jonas Munk from a multitrack soundboard recording.
12″ + 10″ double LP on randomly coloured eco-mix vinyl, strictly limited to 1000 copies.
What exactly is the ‘source’ referenced in the title of Causa Sui‘s From the Source? Is it meant to evoke some notion of an aspect of the band beyond themselves? I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it brings to mind an advertisement for spring water; something refreshing and natural that can be traced back to a specific locale, or in this case, to guitarist Jonas Munk, drummer Jakob Skøtt, keyboardist Rasmus Rasmussen and bassist Jess Kahr, to their label, El Paraiso Records, and to the singular chemistry they bring to instrumentalist heavy psychedelia, born of jazz-like explorationalist tendencies and unflinching in aural progression. Is that the ‘source?’ In a practical way, the answer is inevitably yes. It’s their record. They made it. But are they naming the intangibility — what recovering alcoholics call the ‘higher power’ — of communion and musical conversation? Less about place than spirit?
In this way, From the Source says much while saying little, and that’s nothing new for the self-recording/self-releasing Danish outfit, who offer four tracks across a 45-minute span, harnessing atmospheres and vibes from classic psych and pushing through their own interpretations around where that can take them, from the three songs tucked snugly into side A — “Sorcerer’s Disciple” (8:02), “Dusk Dwellers” (5:18) and “The Spot” (9:33) — to the massive, multi-movement mashup of “Visions of a New Horizon” (24:09) that comprises the entirety of side B and is the longest single work the band has ever done, finding new levels of expanse without sacrificing the flow so readily demonstrated from the mellow and immersive outset.
It’s been four years since Causa Sui released 2020’s Szabodelico (review here), and in that time Skøtt (along with Martin Rude and Papir‘s Nicklas Sørensen) has issued three full-lengths with Edena Gardens, and Munk and Skøtt have both participated in the London Odense Ensemble, but late last year Causa Sui put out the live album Loppen 2021 (review here) that captured an especially rocking post-pandemic blowout, and so From the Source doesn’t arrive following an absence, necessarily, even if it does offer some sense of redirect.
What I mean by that is that Szabodelico, which was named in honor of Hungarian jazz guitar legend Gábor Szabó, was a heady affair. And Causa Sui probably could have done another album in a similar vein and moved forward in sound — that’s the kind of band they are; no matter where they would go on a release, you would be able to get a sense of progression from it — but From the Source speaks to something deeper rooted in who they are. Something looser in ideology, if still purposeful in arrangement and structure.
The material feels jam-based as “Sorcerer’s Disciple” begins with stick-clicks and unfolds a quick welcoming resonance of organ behind the first of many winding lead guitar figures to come. Punctuated by snare, warmed by the hypnotic cycles of bass, the members of the band are in immediate complement to each other, and it’s a sound that would of course work on the stage but highlights an understated lushness in their studio sound that has been missed lo these last four years. Fuzz emerges, wah swirl, more crash than ride; they crescendo, regroup and push forward again smoothly and with deftly mixed, identifiably-theirs texture.
They don’t shy away from getting noisy as “Sorcerer’s Disciple” hits its last peaks, but the comparatively brief “Dusk Dwellers” goes in its own direction, with ’60s-psych electric organ, a rolling bassline and melancholic guitar that gradually comes to the forefront over the first two and a half minutes, settling into an almost Western progression that’s more than a solo. It’s not quite a drift, but not far off as wisps of descending lead lines are cast out, the bass holding the sway, almost post-rock, but nowhere near the modern shoegazing subset of that. The keyboard line speaks later to bring it down. An exercise in subdued, organic fluidity, and no less entrancing than the opener, but with its own impression and stylistic take.
This pattern holds as “The Spot” leans into a lightly chugging rhythm and twists fuzzy guitar around that, a beginning that’s more immediate but still in no hurry to get where its nine-plus minutes will take it — not that it should be. A heavier strum gets twisted into a riff that feels and is central, very heavy-psych in its push and alignment at the end of its measures. It opens to a stretch of bassy jazzy vibing with keys (maybe Rhodes?) on top. Dreamy and heavy. Once more, they’re all-in. Keyboard gives a jazzier feel than the guitar, the bass and drums are comfortable working around both, and the guitar at the midpoint seems to be improv but leads thoughtfully into pulses and light forward shove with Skøtt hitting harder in the second half, growing through repetitions. The ‘source’ is dynamic, though that might be one of the least surprising aspects of what Causa Sui do here.
A side flip is required on vinyl, but the linear-format transition to “Visions of a New Horizon” happens naturally just the same, and by this time there’s little question that it would. The band has noted seven component sections in “Visions of a New Horizon,” and most of those are signaled out by stops of varying lengths and hardness. The piece-of-pieces, then, begins with classic prog mute-and-turn in the guitar, hinting toward build more than building, and at 2:40, the next section starts with more of a shuffle, less prog, more urgent, maybe a chase. Munk‘s guitar howls light (at first) as the sound moves forward and back in three dimensions, willfully headspinning, then the guitar drops at about 4:30 as Kahr‘s bass holds the chase, turning jammier, shimmering. Trippier places to be just then. They make the journey a pleasure to undertake.
Just before six minutes in, a new, solidified guitar line arrives with hand-percussion alongside the drums, purposeful and brimming, a look at a place and time, but not giving any sense of dwelling there. The next movement starts at 7:08, ethereal and unfolding with Mellotron (I think) and melodic warmth in the guitar and bass, drums conveying subdued but not sad motion. Do I need to say it’s patient? Once more, the guitar moves to the forward spot with soft echoes, bright not blinding and abiding by an ‘easy does it’ ethic. It touches on wash of synth/effects but isn’t ready to give over completely yet, and instead makes its way into a more gradual letting go to a stop at 11:50 or thereabouts.
Synth swells in as a backdrop for the guitar reintroduction. They’re past halfway into 24 minutes now, sound billowing and wisping around itself, rhythm taking shape beneath the guitar and keys of various sorts that seem to come and go. There’s space for all of it. The listener has a sense of the build happening, but as with “Sorcerer’s Disciple,” it’s less about volume than the form of what they’re playing. A bed of Rasmussen‘s organ gives a psych-drone tinge to the procession as Skøtt seems somewhat impatient in his snare hits; the guitar swirl repeating. Admirably restrained, they stop at 18:48, and Munk‘s guitar leads to the next section with more of a roll in the drums. They’re still not going to go over-the-top — too classy for that — but if you have a minute to slice open your forehead and let your third eye out, it might be the time as they hit 20 minutes and enlighten a new comedown.
The end is nigh. Big strum at 21:36 announces arrival at the duly meditative ending section, establishing a pattern of single crashes and distortion, feeling like the totality moment of that eclipse earlier this Spring. They’re not concerned with payoff, or epilogue. It just is, and it ends bookending with quiet guitar echoing back to the start, however many lightyears ago that was. Behold the ‘source,’ tapped.
No doubt there are an infinity of ways in which one might experience From the Source, including the one mapped out above. What I’d say to that idea is that the most justice the listener can give the album is by putting it on and going where it leads, whether that’s a place of emotion or conscious thought, a narrative structure, or a nod-along and mental fadeout. None of it is invalid, and as an experience, From the Source comes across as malleable to whatever a given person hearing it brings of themselves to that process. Gorgeous and unmistakably Causa Sui‘s own, it finds the heart within their ever-expanding methods and highlights the relationship between these players that is such a huge part of what makes them so special. As ‘sources’ go, it is precious and among the most vivid.
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 5th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
I mean, it’s not like the 2024 lineup for Desertfest Antwerp — aka Desertfest Belgium — wasn’t already stunning, but go ahead and throw Conan, Causa Sui, Ruff Majik, Birds in Row, Valley of the Sun, Delving, Daevar, Coilguns, and the others below into the mix and that definitely doesn’t hurt. The headliners speak for themselves — Monster Magnet are a call to show up, Fu Manchu will be supporting their new record, which is out this month, and Russian Circles are Russian Circles — but as you dig into each line of the poster below, you can see there isn’t really a point where the hits stop coming. I won’t claim to be familiar with the likes of Tangled Horns, Giac Taylor, Throatsnapper or Divided, who are also newly tacked onto the bill, but as they join the likes of Spaceslug, Stoned Jesus, Messa, Child, and others on my personal hope-I-see-before-I-die list, it’s striking both how broad and how rad this lineup is on the whole.
And yes, that’s the extent of the insight. This looks killer. I’ve only been through Belgium once, and it was to change trains. I was there just long enough to try and fail at ordering coffee in French, but if there ever was a reason to want to head back and give that another shot likely to the same result, this would likely be it. Rezn and Seedy Jeezus and Mondo Drag? In the parlance of our times: “let’s go.”
Ticket link and the relatively brief final announcement from the fest follow here, emojis intact, as seen on social media:
Hold fast for the 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐀𝐧𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐩 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒 lineup is complete! ⚡ Forged in blood and sweat, we present you with the final additions to the bill:
Conan / Birds in Row / Causa Sui / Valley of the Sun / Coilguns / delving / Ruff Majik / Red Scalp / Tangled Horns / Divided / Throatsnapper / Giac Taylor / Daevar
Posted in Reviews on December 20th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
When it was announced by El Paraiso Records earlier this Fall, it was suggested that Dens might be the final release from Danish instrumentalist trio Edena Gardens, who feature in their ranks drummer Jakob Skøtt and bassist/baritone guitarist Martin Rude and Nicklas Sørensen of Papir. The project is one of a slew in the orbit of Causa Sui and El Paraiso, which has become an ecosystem of sometimes-jazzy psych and heavy psych, with exploration as a core value uniting the works released under its banner no less than the themed layouts of the albums being issued.
That said, Edena Gardens has stood out both for quick turnarounds — their self-titled debut (review here) came out in Oct. 2022, and they followed with Agar (review here) earlier this year and still had room to put out the Live Momentum (review here) concert-capture LP, which if this is really it for them one will be glad to have for the documentation — and Dens brings seven pieces spread gracefully across 47 minutes brimming with mellow-psych meander. In Edena Gardens and in his own band, Sørensen has demonstrated again and again an ability to keep solid footing in a molten and shifting context, and whether it’s the brief drone-laced pastoral drift of “Vini’s Lament” (titled in honor of Vini Reilly of The Durutti Column) or the way “Morgensol” takes a conceptual cue from raga and sets itself not toward conveying the energy of the day but the slow-motion manner in which the sun hoists itself above the horizon.
If the first album was Eden — and it wasn’t at the time, but we’re all friends here, you and I, and we’re just talking, and maybe sometimes you want to make a revision so you can someday do a special 4LP box set or some such — and the second Agar, then Dens is the missing syllable to complete the band’s name spelled across their titles: EdenAgarDens. As the third in a maybe-trilogy, then, its shimmering resonance is leant that much more gravitas, but gravity doesn’t really apply here. “Morgensol” runs nine minutes long and is serene throughout, and while the organ and more active drumming in the crescendo of the 14-minute penultimate cut “Sienita” fuels a movement that is vibrant and energetic, Edena Gardens aren’t aiming for impact so much as ambience in terms of the general balance of what they do. Through opener “Wald” (‘forest,’ in Danish) and breeze that seems to blow “Dusted” along its light tumble, seeming to build some tension around three minutes in but resisting the impulse to break out volume-wise, the trio hypnotize in a way that feels multi-tiered, like they’re in it as much as the listener — the very epitome of ‘dug in’ — but if they ever actually get lost at any point, I can’t find where.
CausaSui‘s Jonas Munk engineered the recording and Skøtt produced — careful hands, is what that tells you — and it’s pretty clear there’s been some level of editing done, which is to say there are fades in and out and pieces like “Vini’s Lament” or the slightly-fuzzier-in-its-leads “An Uaimh Bhinn” (referencing a cave in Scotland) that separates “Morgensol” and “Sienita” were likely carved out of larger improvisations, whereas “Sienita,” reportedly, is the front-to-back live jam with only the aforementioned organ overdubbed.
It’s academic, ultimately, to most who will take on Dens or any other of Edena Gardens‘ output past or right-timeline future, but not at all irrelevant to the vibe, which it doesn’t take long to figure out is high on the priority list here, generally speaking. “Sienita,” named for a type of volcanic rock, unfolds with casual wistfulness early, the drums at a slow march, but takes off gradually as it goes and builds to a first head before the halfway point and recedes again to let the second build start from the ground as it meanders into a payoff that feels like it’s maybe speaking to more than just this record but the cycle of three of which this is part.
And maybe, if Edena Gardens do manage to put a batch of jams/songs-carved-therefrom together after Dens it will inherently feel different just because of some imaginary border between what’s their third and fourth full-lengths. I don’t know and when you’re locked into “Sienita,” it hardly matters. It is a worthy moment for mindful hearing, not the least because it isn’t perfect and isn’t trying to convince anyone it is. It is simply that 14 minutes of playing, represented.
Which of course is nothing so simple. Involved in that, and one might argue emphasized here in terms of the position ahead of closer “Dawn Daydreams,” which is nine minutes shorter than “Sienita” and the second inclusion to reference sunrise behind “Morgensol,” is the chemistry shared between Rude and Skøtt and Sørensen and the organic nature of the jam itself. It’s heady stuff, and one must perhaps be willing to grant that jazz- and krautrock-informed light-touch psychedelic instrumentals might not be a universal appeal — rest assured, it’s the universe’s problem — but Edena Gardens in about the span of a year went from being nothing to having an identifiable sonic persona distinct from both Causa Sui and Papir, the two acts from whom its membership draws.
One such record was not a minor achievement. Two felt like a bonus. The live record, well shit, if they’re gonna be on stage, then yeah. And this? I don’t want to call it a victory lap, because it’s too classy to rub your face in its own achievement, but maybe a celebration of the core collab that makes it up, at least, or a potential project sendoff — and nobody’s saying ‘never again’ here to start with — as well as a completion to the arc that was set out by the band. At the very, very least, it is a collection of thoughtful, malleable and immersive tracks put together by artists whose joy for the process(es) of its making resonates as clearly as Sørensen‘s lead lines in the dappled shimmer of “Wald.” If it’s to be a culmination, then yes, it is.
Posted in Reviews on November 10th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
One of European heavy psychedelia’s most essential acts, Danish instrumentalist four-piece Causa Sui last released a live album in 2017’s Live in Copenhagen (review here), and six years between them seems like more than enough for an outfit so vibrant. The narrative (blessings and peace upon it) holds that guitarist Jonas Munk, drummer Jakob Skøtt, keyboardist Rasmus Rasmussen and bassist Jess Kahr recorded Loppen 2021 at the renowned Christiania venue named in its title on Sept. 11, 2021, the same week Denmark lifted its covid lockdown. And if you ever wanted to hear that manifest into sound, the kick-in of “Homage” captured here should do the job nicely, even before the organ shows up. Playing to a crowd of 400, Causa Sui left behind the jazzy explorations of their most recent studio LP, 2020’s Szabodelico (review here) and offshoot projects, solo work and collaborations to solidify around what their own label El Paraiso Records once used to call ‘Freedom Fuzz’ when it printed the slogan on trucker hats a decade ago.
Heady considerations of aesthetic? Well, yeah, they’re still there. I mean, it’s Causa Sui — as deep as you want to listen, they’ll meet you on that level — but the vibe here is more casual, perhaps relieved given the context. Causa Sui have never been a road-dog kind of band, and because of that, one assumes that whatever money they make comes from all those fancy records they sell through El Paraiso, but in the 16-minute take on “Ju-Ju Blues” from 2013’s Euporie Tide (discussed here) and in the dulcet, lightly Western ramble of the guitar in “Under the Spell” from Szabodelico, the swirl of effects that rises as “Mondo Buzzo” sloughs into its midsection, soon enough with its guitar solo drawn in, they sound genuinely immersed in the moment.
Maybe that’s me reading into the story I’ve been told about the record. That happens. I’m not sure that makes the energy of Loppen 2021 any less palpable as Causa Sui take eight select pieces from out of their storied and sprawling 18-year catalog for an 81-minute set that, yes, sees the band present their material in its full dynamic range, with the buzzy gotta-jam-now urgency that starts opener “The Juice” flowing smoothly into the subdued dream-keys in “Mondo Buzzo,” which follows, and on from there. “The Juice” and the aforementioned “Ju-Ju Blues” — penultimate to the perma-closer “El Paraiso,” which was on their 2005 self-titled debut — as well as “Mireille” and “Homage” are from Euporie Tide, which makes four out of eight inclusions, where Szabodelico only has “Under the Spell” and the prior 2017 studio LP, Vibraciones Doradas (review here), just “El Fuego”; though, I say “just” there and the track is 11 minutes long.
Still, the lesson of that is Loppen 2021 isn’t a show the band were playing because they were trying to promote a thing — at least not any more than everybody is trying to promote a thing anytime they do anything; they’re probably not going to fight you if you try to buy a t-shirt or some vinyl — so much as revel in the spirit of that moment and celebrate the not-at-all-simple fact of their ability to be on a stage again. They’re not the only outfit to emerge from the no-live-music portion of the covid pandemic with a live record, but the intention is so resonant, they’re so dug in, and the set is so rock-based — which sounds funny thinking of Causa Sui as a heavy band, but from improv jams to jazzy collaborations, they could have gotten up there and done just about anything they wanted — that the show-as-catharsis storyline can’t help but fit. To wit, the held organ notes in the build as “El Fuego” moves past its middle and comes to life like the ’60s never ended and it was a secret but you just found out, or “Mireille” breezes through its cyclical sans-vocals chorus ahead of the all-in finish of “Ju-Ju Blues” (16:22) and “El Paraiso” (12:21), both of which underscore the resounding and floating nature of their energies.
Part of what one might appreciate about any given Causa Sui release is the sense of exploration that’s so endemic to their approach, the fact that they seem to make weighted tones step lightly, blending ideas classic, modern and futuristic into a take that has evolved from its mid-aughts European heavy rock foundations — still audible in “El Paraiso” and elsewhere, for sure — into something the band’s own and the basis of an oeuvre fostered through their label in their own output and that of others. I don’t know what it might’ve been like to be at this show — Causa Sui are a bucket-list band for me — but as Munk solos over the roundabout crashes at the crescendo of “Ju-Ju Blues,” the impetus to find out is laid bare. They crash and stop, then follow the organ line’s mellow swagger to the end, which is greeted with well justified howls.
And baby, when that “El Paraiso” strum hits, there’s nowhere to go but out of your own head. On a technical level, Causa Sui are masters of their respective crafts, and “El Paraiso” is the moment on Loppen 2021 where they truly underscore the “we’re back” message, but with a “we” that goes beyond themselves to include the audience present and, by extrapolation, the listener at home. Whoever decided this would be publicly released, whenever that decision was made, the result is a lush and vivid encapsulation of Causa Sui‘s more rocking side and a deeper experience because of how the music is used in hindsight to tell the story of the moment the recording was made.
No doubt the band could take you track-by-track through each miniscule, unnoticeable-to-anyone-else flub, but this is what live heavy music is all about, in terms of the band’s chemistry and the notion of a given night, a given show, as a fleeting thing not to come again. It is to the benefit of all who take it on that Loppen 2021 exists, and if you’d point out the rare nature of an act whose third live album ends up being one of their most essential and evocative offerings, well yeah, that’s kind of what I’ve been saying this whole time. There’s only one Causa Sui. Established fans and newcomers alike should have no trouble after hearing this in extrapolating just how much that means.
