The third Colour Haze album, Periscope, arrived only a year after Seven (discussed here), issued as a CD-R through Toaster Records. Produced by guitarist Stefan Koglek and engineered, mixed and mastered by former drummer Tim Höfer, it was the first Colour Haze LP with Koglek as the sole vocalist, and the second with the rhythm section of Philipp Rasthofer and Manfred Merwald, and, crucially, the first wherein the band’s heavy psychedelic sound has begun to find itself. Throughout its six-track/41-minute run (reissues would expand with the 12-minute “Transmitter”), there is a marked desert rock influence — clearly Colour Haze heard Kyuss — but perhaps most of all, the tonal warmth that would come to define them is in their sound for the first time, and they let it breathe in a way that neither 1998’s Seven or 1995’s Chopping Machine (discussed here) did, nestling into sweetly hypnotic jams on “Antenna” and “Sun,” letting the tracks get longer and focusing on honing an organic-feeling sound that over the next few years would become something born of late ’90s stoner fuzz, but grown into its own thing. Periscope isn’t the first Colour Haze record, but it’s their first record where one can hear some of what one commonly thinks of the typifying aspects of the band’s style and songwriting. To wit, it’s the earliest selection in their catalog that’s been reissued, with Elektrohasch having expanded it to seven songs by adding the 12-minute “Transmitter” in 2003/2004 and then overseen a remaster in 2018. Clearly a point at which some very integral aspects of their approach were figured out.

A major part of that is their arrival at the power trio of Koglek, Rasthofer and Merwald. After trying out having a ‘lead singer’ in Felix Neuenhoff on Seven, the band pared down and decided to push forward with Koglek as vocalist, and maybe in part owing to the initial reluctance to don the mantle of frontman, there’s a big focus on Periscope on instrumental expansion. From the outset with the mellow, sweet-toned beginning of “Always Me,” Colour Haze feel exploratory and the songs come across as jam-born in a way that neither of the first two albums could have or seemed to want to. The inctricacy is there, and can be heard in the low-mixed bass at the start of the opener, or in the way the jam in “Antenna” builds gradually and gracefully to its apex in the second half, telling of a future in which Colour Haze would do this many times with increasing fluidity — and Periscope is a landmark for being the first display of what would become characteristic elements over the next decade-plus.

At the same time, Periscope is a rocker. “Pulse” goes for it with a driving riff and harder-hitting crash, and though “Sun” is longer and mellower in its first half, its payoff carries a distinct energy. The title-track, penultimate in the tracklisting of the original version of the record with “Periscope (Breit Return)” behind it to close, is instrumental, and this feels emblematic in terms of the shifting priorities of the band at this moment in their progression. They’d done the lead-singer thing, and as part of that, clearly discovered that they wanted to go a different way. Koglek is a more than able singer and would grow into a fronting presence over the years, but his approach here is nascent, and listening now to “Periscope” and its companion piece, it feels like they’re laying the foundation for where their evolution would go while also positioning themselves in league with the stoner rock ‘movement’ burgeoning internationally as an underground feature. StonerRock.com was going strong at this time and its All That is Heavy would’ve stocked Periscope alongside the likes of Orange Goblin, earliest Queens of the Stone Age, Unida, Electric Wizard, Sleep, Dozer, and others of that emergent turn-of-the-century generation. But as they follow the riff in “Periscope (Breit Return),” Colour Haze aren’t playing to style so much as establishing their place in it, with a jammier spirit and a focus on tonality that, again, would soon enough be signature elements of what they do.

Hearing it in the context of the first two records, putting on momentary blinders to the direction and fruition still to manifest on their next however-many LPs, Periscope feels like an arrival. In the spirit of a third album, it harnesses lessons from the first two and finds a balance in its craft on another level. It knows what it’s doing and what it wants to be in a different way, with reference touchpoints in Cream and Jimi Hendrix as much as Kyuss or whoever else, and with the then-underway proliferation of higher-speed internet, Colour Haze had a new way to reach their audience apart from traditional radio or magazine coverage. It wasn’t short-form video content to feed the algorithm with fake-it-till-you-make-it relevance baiting, but message boards were a thing, and word of mouth had become a more powerful force in promotion. Thinking of this as a natural process is counterintuitive, given it’s online, but Colour Haze were part of that growth just the same, and while you wouldn’t call it brash in sound or attitude, Periscope is declarative of their purpose and the way they were looking to engage the audience they might not even have known was waiting for them.

As noted above, the reissue adds the 12-minute “Transmitter” to the proceedings, and though it’s rawer with more forward drums and a shoutier vocal amid the distortion swell in its middle, the way it emphasizes dynamic completes a narrative of who Colour Haze were at this captured moment. Already the chemistry between Koglek, Merwald and Rasthofer had begun to take shape, and already they were experimenting with different forms and structural methods as they set the various sides of their approach next to each other in flowing style to create a vision of a whole, classic-style LP. This might feel like a given now, but 27 years ago, at the beginning of the CD era’s decline, it would have bordered on the subversive in bucking the trend with more boldness than the audio would lead one to believe. The heavy-hippie sound, freshly hatched. You can feel the air move from the speakers.

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

—

School started this week for The Pecan. Unlike the public school, which we asked for data across multiple scenarios multiple times and never got any and which still put boilerplate filler content into her IEP, we now get reports each day on how she’s doing, feeling, what she’s doing and her success and engagement level. There have been no problems as she’s been making the transition. She’s started painting a portrait of the art teacher. She picked peppers in the back garden. She read and talked about the characters. She built a fidget spinner out of cardboard, and decorated it, weighing it down with pennies to make it satisfying. Obviously rough days will come — it is the nature of honeymoons to end — but our relief that at least initially things are going well is immense.

To contrast, The Patient Mrs. went to a meeting with the district yesterday (while I was picking The Pecan up from school, seeing how she organized the bookshelf and built that spinner), wherein they basically told her that the problem is that The Pecan needs to be dominated and coerced and confirmed that they had never agreed with our placement request in the first place and were just running out the clock on it figuring that we’d drop it and leave her where she was. I’ve never been so glad to fight for anything in my life, and it’s been four days. She’s tired, to be sure, but her stress level is down, she doesn’t want to leave at the end of the school day, and is both learning and not being made to feel like garbage through the punitive token economy to which the district is apparently so dogmatically tied. It feels good to breathe in a different reality from that.

That doesn’t mean she didn’t still claw her OT therapist’s face yesterday on the way out, which sucked and which I made worse in the car by pointing it out, but she was tired and overwhelmed and being forced to make a transition in a noisy room, which is pretty much when those things happen at this point. Still sucked, but it was a blip and I’d rather focus on the great week she had. Today is a half-day, so instead of bringing the dog for the commute, The Patient Mrs. and I set up at the Berkeley Heights library — very fancy — to work for a couple hours without losing the extra hour in the car going back and forth.

I’m still getting used to the commute, obviously. It’s only been a couple days, and it’ll be a few more weeks before it feels like routine, but it hasn’t been bad. Her three-and-a-half-hour ‘extended’ — as she named it — Zelda playlist in the Nintendo Music app is partially to thank for that, as it gives her something to be interested in on the drive, and she and I have talked this week about looking around and finding landmarks to learn the route rather than staring at the GPS and counting the minutes, which makes it feel longer. There’s the Great Swamp, there’s the circle, the horses, and so on. I don’t know that every week is going to be good for her as this week has been to this point — haven’t gotten the Friday update yet, obviously, and one of the teachers is out and it’s a half-day so it could be a different kind of day — but I want to appreciate every win we get because we fucking worked and will continue to work for them. We pick her up a little after noon today and then she’s off Monday for Labor Day.

Quick Zelda update: I beat A Link to the Past again yesterday, playing whatever PC port it was that I didn’t need an emulator to run. Something of a classic in my mind; I remember vividly playing it on the SNES as a kid. The Pecan has a game going to, but I don’t know that she will or won’t finish it. It’s up to her. I was thinking I’d do Wind Waker again, but it was running like garbage last night when I loaded it up, and so that’s a thing I’ll need to navigate beyond clearing out my Windows recycling bin, which is like my version of blowing in the cartridge to make the game work. You know how it is. Maybe A Link Between Worlds instead, since that’s basically a redux of A Link to the Past anyhow.

Next week, I’ve got a MR.BISON premiere on Monday, then on Tuesday I’ll review the Sleep, which has been engendering big feelings on my social media for the last couple days. I’ve seen longwinded manifestos both on why it sucks and why it doesn’t and honestly I’ve barely listened to it at this point, so I’ll dig in over the weekend. It’s not that I don’t care, but it’s low stakes in my mind whether the Sleep record is ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ Maybe that makes me unqualified to review. That I definitely don’t care about, so I will anyway, even if my primary feeling to this point is “bro why is this such a big deal what’s this really about is it your dad.” Later in the week I’ve got a premiere from NJ stalwarts Shovelhead that I’m also very much looking forward to, and I want to review the new Besvärjelsen before the week is out, which will be fun.

I hope you have a great and safe weekend so long as you’re not bootlicking fascist scum. Stay hydrated, recuperate, if you’re in the US, remember that Labor Day should be about workers’ rights more than mattress sales, and the fact that it isn’t reminds us how broken this country is. I’ll be back Monday with that MR.BISON premiere and more shenanigans. Thanks again for reading.

FRM.

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Seven is probably the rarest Colour Haze album. To wit, as of this writing, there are three CD copies of the band’s prior 1995 debut, Chopping Machine (discussed here), currently listed for sale on eBay between $70-90 each, but none of 1998’s Seven. None on Discogs either, or any of the other secondary-market places one might go to find it. For a long time, I called it the Great White Whale of my CD collection, and when I finally got it, it was only thanks to the generosity of the band. That was 11 years ago and I remain appreciative.

Like its predecessor, Seven has never been reissued. More than that, it was barely issued in the first place. The only copies that were made were burned onto CDRs by the band themselves — in 1998, that would’ve taken a while as well, it was not a quick process; the record label is listed as Self Burn Records as a joke — with printed covers. I don’t know how many there were, but as I recall it wasn’t more than 100. It’s available readily to hear online, of course (you might say it’s streaming above this text right now), but otherwise it is the lost Colour Haze album even more than Chopping Machine.

This is odd in some ways because, also like Chopping Machine, Seven doesn’t really represent the band Colour Haze were on the way to being. But it’s certainly closer to it. There is a burgeoning warmth in the tone of guitarist Stefan Koglek, and it’s the first appearance of the rhythm section of Philipp Rasthofer and Manfred Merwald, who in the years to come would provide the backbone and movement behind Koglek‘s aesthetic-defining heavy psychedelic and progressive expolorations, but it’s also a standout in their catalog for being the only album on which Koglek doesn’t sing lead, instead providing backup vocals to standalone frontman Felix Neuenhoff, who was in the band for this record and gone by the time its follow-up was released the next year.

So in some ways, what you have is Colour Haze‘s sound beginning to take shape. The basic feel of the songs still holds some of the brooding tendencies of Chopping Machine, but it’s pretty clear that the band would’ve heard Kyuss in the three interim years there — also, three years is the longest break the band would have between outings for the next decade, so clearly there was restructuring happening on multiple levels — as there is a tinge of desert rock in early rockers like “Self” and “Pulse” never mind the later slow-into-the-roll of “Second Man” or the way the title-track builds itself up across its eight minutes. But Colour Haze were a classically inspired band as well, which they nod to in the opening “White Room,” though their take on the Cream classic is about 15 seconds of feedback and a couple notes credited to Jack Bruce before “Self” kicks in. Nice to see a bit of humor there, maybe.

Seven, though it was never released on vinyl, is also the first real Colour Haze 2LP, running 14 tracks and a sprawling CD-era-room-for-all-on-one-disc 71 minutes. But the structure hints at vinyl, with the title-track capping the first platter and the subsequent “House of Rushammon” starting the second. Longtime fans might recognize “House of Rushammon” as it’s one of just a couple songs here that would be reworked onto subsequent outings — “Pulse” can be heard on 1999’s Periscope, and “House of Rushammon” and “Self” show up on 2001’s Ewige Blumenkraft (reissue review here) — and one that still might make its way into a live set. And in terms of flow, the band were beginning to figure out how to structure an album to highlight dynamic, putting a faster song like “Mine” after an airier nodder like “Planet” and letting the residual feedback after the dual-vocal crescendo of “Second Man” go before the subsequent “Ride (Morrison)” picks up from the silence and begins its own gradual build as the sort-of finale, coming as it does ahead of “Rewind,” which indeed is 41 seconds of rewinding a tape, and an instrumental take on “Pulse” that isn’t listed as a bonus track but is kind of an epilogue for the album anyhow.

But the point is that, sound-wise, they were getting there, and in both the songs that would later be reworked and in the material that surrounds, one can hear the roots of Colour Haze‘s longterm creative chase beginning to establish themselves. I recognize that this wouldn’t have been something known in 1998, but Neuenhoff as a singer is not so far removed from Koglek‘s vocal style as to sound out of line entirely with Colour Haze from here on out, and the parts where the two come together are genuinely satisfying. Seven is a rocker. It’s not perfect, and the band may think of it as more of a demo testing out this short-lived incarnation of the band from which a core trio would emerge and spend the next 22 years refining their approach, but it’s not like Colour Haze had nothing to offer listeners at this point.

Of note is that Koglek and Neuenhoff shared lyric-writing duties, and cuts like “Under Water” and “House of Rushamon,” were worked on by both. These songs, along with “Superstar,” by Neuenhoff alone (he’s also solely credited with “Mine,” “Seven,” “Second Man” and “Garden”) have an explicitly christian, faith-based point of view, which certainly makes Seven a further outlier in the Colour Haze catalog. Whether that’s part of what’s held back a reissue, I don’t know, but it’s another among the album’s standout aspects and demonstrates that the exploratory penchant that was taking hold for them instrumentally was happening on multiple levels.

For those who, like me, would become familiar with the band through their later work, Seven is both a curio and a showcase of their nascent character. Its value is partially academic for that, admittedly, and the fact that it’s never been reissued/re-pressed makes it feel like something of a forbidden artifact. But it can tell you things about the band that no other release in their discography can, and especially for fans, it marks out a step on the broader path that needed to be taken.

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

—

School starts Monday, we found out yesterday. Last week, The Patient Mrs. hired an attorney. We went into mediation with the district — fuck the district forever, by the way; let me say that before I maybe have to sign an NDA and not talk about this anymore — on Monday and yesterday we went to the place where we wanted to send her for an open house and the head of the school was like, “yeah, she can start Monday, full day.” So, school starts Monday.

Knowing that is a relief, and a weight off all of our shoulders, perhaps most of all The Pecan’s, who has spent much of the summer asking where she’s going to go to school in the Fall. We have more dealings with the district — and here I’ll pause to credit The Patient Mrs. for running point on this process; she is both boots-on-the-ground and the overseeing admiral in terms of parenting; I am a grunt on my best days — to do, papers to sign, but again, knowing the where and when, and having gotten the placement we wanted feels pretty big.

The town fucked us out of her having a para — she’s never been to school without one — but settling on something is better than nothing, which is exactly the dogshit situation the district wanted us in in the first place. Next year, when we have to rejustify the placement, I think maybe we’ll just start with the lawyer, knowing what we know now about the Parsippany Troy-Hills School District’s inability to negotiate in good faith in the best interests of its special education students, whom it would rather sweep away into an ERI classroom and not think about.

Months of my life on this crap. Months.

And it’s not over, because invariably there will be complexities in her experience at the new school, hard days, trouble transitioning from one thing to another, the persistent work avoidance issues and refusals, redirects, etc. The difference is she’s in a space — we. hope. — better equipped to recognize these things as the neurological challenges than they are rather than “bad behaviors” like it’s the 1980s and kids just need a good spanking or whatever the fuck the district’s position was; they were never actually able to produce data for refusing the placement, and yes, we asked multiple times.

Bitter relief, perhaps.

Her starting this new school is the beginning of a new day-structure for me as well. Her old school, while unable to effectively educate her, was three minutes from the house. This is at least a half-hour each way, which means if I drop her and come back home, then make another trip to pick her up, that’s an hour’s drive twice a day, which is more of a commute than I’ve done in years. I don’t know that I’ll be able to find somewhere to be over that way, there for the day, and if I was, I’d be concerned about the dog being alone for that long, so that will be a thing to navigate/figure out, and it will take time.

Meanwhile, this week started The Patient Mrs.’ Fall semester, which makes this coming week her first full one of classes, and that’s always an adjustment as well. What I’m telling you is please give me a couple weeks to settle into the routine. If posts go up at weird times or there are days with only one or two posts like this week (I think Tuesday had two, where usually I want three or four a day), bear with me. I’m not going anywhere — in the sense of ending the site; I am going somewhere in terms of the back and forth of the aforementioned commute — but while I’m getting used to this new routine in my day, I’ll probably need some time, just going by past experience in such changes.

Also meanwhile, next week is lined up to be one of the best I’ve had this year. I’ve got premieres set for The Machine, Buzzard, Spirit Mother, Tooms and Rapidly Aging, not in that order, but all of which are front-to-back awesome. I write about a lot of stuff I think is cool — that’s the point of the thing — but rarely do things line up to highlight so much I dig in so condensed a span of time. I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I know I will.

I don’t know what’s on this weekend. We don’t have grand last-weekend-of-summer plans in no small part because until yesterday we didn’t know this was the end of the summer. I assume ice cream will happen, but beyond that, I just have shrugs and we’ll-figure-something-outs.

Whatever you’re up to, I hope you have a great and safe weekend, provided you’re not a fascist, which I’m reasonably sure you’re not because in my headcanon all the dickweeds have shown themselves the door and everyone who remains can count basic human empathy among their superpowers. Rest assured, if that’s not you, please continue to fuck off. The world without you is paradise.

FRM.

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The prevailing narrative around Chopping Machine — which starts with the sound of… wait for it… a machine, chopping — is that it’s not indicative of the band that Munich’s Colour Haze would become. Its sound, not unlike its cover art, is darker, more aggressive at points and more obscure genre-wise, its lineup is different, and it lacks the crucial patience and warmth that would come to the band over time. Recorded in winter in early 1995 and released later that year through David Records — though I recall reading somewhere the pressing was self-financed — it is exceedingly rare in the physical space and has never been properly reissued, even as a curio for those who’ve become Colour Haze fans since. As Colour Haze do not shy generally from remasters, reissues, reworked versions and so on, the abiding message is that it’s not a thing they’re dying for people to hear beyond the bootleg versions already out there on the internet.

Fair enough. The band at this point was comprised of guitarist/vocalist Stefan Koglek, bassist Christian “Wonna” Wiesner (who sings lead on “Chosen Way”) and drummer Tim Höfer (later of Ugh!). Koglek and Wiesner were bandmates at the time in the gothy, punky, noisy cult outfit Organized Noise, of whom Wiesner was a founding member, and would feature together on that band’s 1996 outing, Same, but it seems that lineup didn’t last, and Koglek would of course move in a different direction over the coming years. At eight songs and a 60-minute runtime, Chopping Machine is for sure a product of the peak CD era, and listening to Wiesner‘s punch of bass in the 14-minute opener/longest track (immediate points) “Subversive” — which does have some violin later, if you’re looking for connections to later Colour Haze — I can’t help but be reminded that these songs were coming together just about a year after Primus released Pork Soda. The bounce in “Why Don’t You” and the closing title-track make this relevant, but on the whole, Colour Haze seemed to be searching for something more post-punk and atmospheric rather than quirk for its own absurdist sake.

But songs like “Mud” and the nine-minute Mudhoney-strumming skronkfest “Dirt” carry a more cacophanous impulse, and are pretty raw in terms of presentation. It is a sound reflective of the time it was made, but is not at all lacking aesthetic value, particularly three decades of hindsight later. The aggression behind the push of “Chosen Way” as Wiesner and Koglek share vocal duties gives a sense of what their chemistry might have become had the band continued on this path, but at the same time, the impulse toward extended craft in “Subersive,” “Dirt” and “God’s Eyes” can be seen as indicative now of some of where their songwriting was headed, and though it’s the shortest song on the album, the penultimate “Sometimes” has a kind of proto-desert lean, not quite fully embracing the post-Kyuss style that would take hold in the European underground toward the end of the ’90s, informing the work of Colour Haze, Dozer, 13eaver and other landmark bands as Gen-X post-grunge heavy rock found its initial shape, but riding the groove of its rhythm guitar in a way that feels like it’s speaking to something similar, even as the surrounding context is different tonally and, to an extent, in terms of mood.

The CD’s liner reveals that the album was made in five days with the mix and master taking place thereafter, and among the thanks listed is Günther Koglek at Fender Deutschland, Stefan‘s father, who is also a singer-songwriter and photographer. I don’t know in what capacity the elder Koglek might’ve helped the fledgling band at the time, but family support is always good to have. Still, there’s no getting around the rough edges of who Colour Haze were at this point, in composition and execution alike, and I’m not sure there needs to be. The trio as they are here bask in the racket they’re making, pushing themselves from the outset (or near to it, after that machine intro) on “Subversive,” in both physical and creative terms. The resulting sound is weird, dug-in, and individualized, which is to say it has a persona of its own despite being reflective of its moment as noted. Much of the back half of “Subersive” is instrumental following a watery-vocal chorus in the midsection, and while it seems to be plotted as it moves toward the eventual incorporation of the aforementioned violins, the sense of Colour Haze undertaking an exploration is still palpable, to and through that string-inclusive crescendo, which was co-arranged by Koglek.

And of course, that exploratory aspect would become crucial to the band in the years that followed, as the lineup solidified around Koglek and the band pushed forward in sound and songwriting. Expressively in terms of shaping songs and as a singer, Koglek‘s developing his voice was a defining aspect of this, but Chopping Machine has more than academic value for fans of Colour Haze‘s subsequent work. It reminds that some roads need to be traveled to know where they lead, and that creativity is something shaped over the course of a lifetime, that one doesn’t need to be locked in a mode or informed only by influences from the time they’re a teenager. Gradually, over a period of years playing live and seeing the encouragement of a growing audience, Colour Haze became a different kind of band than Chopping Machine finds them, but their first album is an undeniably important step along that line. They might have evolved into another band entirely.

I’ll note that, 14 years after the fact, this is still the most money I’ve ever paid for a compact disc, and I’ve not once regretted the shelling-out in that time. No, it’s not the one I reach for when I want to listen to Colour Haze, and I’m not about to make a rallying cry for a reissue unless the general audience demand is there, but it is the first showing of what became one of the European heavy underground’s most essential progressions, and most of all, I’m glad it is what it is in no small part because of the lessons the band would draw from it and what it ultimately led to their being.

As always, I hope you enjoy.

—

I had neither the will nor the time to close out the week last Friday. I was engaged in a snitty back and forth with a representative of the school district who, while neither knowing nor caring about our situation, was busy denying our parental rights to participate in our daughter’s placement for the rapidly-approaching school year. Rumor has it I hurt some feelings. Seems like the very least I could do in the situation, which is ongoing. Somehow this child will be educated.

We had a meeting with our advocate — not quite a lawyer, not quite not — earlier this week, who has been working subsequently on the complaint we’ll likely file with the state by the end of today or Monday, unless The Patient Mrs. can work something out lawyerly between now and then. Then I think it’s mediation, which is likely another couple weeks. So we’ll probably be into October by the time we’re sending her to school, but honestly, we’ve wasted three years sending her to a building that’s done little more for her than reinforce noncompliance and care about nothing so much as that, and I’m not sure what difference another month might make. She’ll read more at home anyhow. She continues to ask where she’s going to go to school.

I could go on here, but I’m exhausted thinking about it.

The Patient Mrs.’ semester is impending as well, and that’s always an adjustment. She’s Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday this term, with, as she put it “sometimes Thursday,” which reminded me of the way ‘y’ is a vowel. She’s teaching fewer classes but is the head of her department now, so has an entirely different kind of wrangling to do. I have no doubt she will learn, grow and be an effective leader, because that’s who she is. We’ll be here when she gets home.

I wish I could say I was sorry to see the summer going, but I’m not. It’s been difficult and unpleasant. We haven’t gone swimming every day, and I wouldn’t say The Pecan is significantly less burned out than she was in June in no small part because ‘school’ has been ever-present in the house and, seemingly, in her mind, though she isn’t going to talk about feelings basically at all beyond letting her opinions and preferences be known. The days have generally been long, and whether it’s some draining event or the boredom of a non-day’s dragging, I’ve felt both anxious and stagnant. Three months-plus of hurry-up-and-wait later, I’m still hurrying and waiting. It has sucked, and not knowing what Fall will bring also sucks.

I wish I was going to Emissions From the Monolith. I wish I was going to Ripplefest Texas. I wish I had money to fly to either or a car to drive in. Full of wishes.

If you’re wondering, yes, I’m starting a catalog series with Colour Haze. I think it’ll take me through the end of the year to get through all their stuff, especially if I do the live albums, but I can easily think of much worse ways to spend my Friday mornings writing. Like Sabbath and Fu Manchu, it’s more than a bit me treating myself to a thing, in this case, engaging with the discographical context of one of my favorite bands. Escapism? You betcha.

That should do it for me, I think I could do a Zelda update, but it’s pretty short since I haven’t had a ton of time to play, but started a playthrough of Ocarina of Time‘s Master Quest in Ship of Harkinian. The Pecan has one too, and has a game in The Minish Cap going on the arcade, and was playing Twilight Princess but I think broke it with the moon jump, which will happen.

Enjoy your weekend, whatever you’re up to. Fuck fascism, fuck genocide, fuck the school district of Parsippany, New Jersey, which, yes, I say with the acknowledgement that my wife is on the Board. Fuck them anyway. I could go on.

I always drop the merch link here, but haven’t actually done merch in at least a year. Let me know if you’re interested in some older or newer designs. If not, that’s fine too.

FRM.

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Colour Haze tonight begin their Obelisk-copresented tour alongside My Sleeping Karma, delivering warmth, sonic-care and — I’ll just say it — hope to chaotic times. The Munich-based forebears of heavy psychedelia have a 2LP’s worth of new material structured as four extended pieces — I’m curious if they’re instrumental or with vocals, as guitarist/vocalist Stefan Koglek says below they don’t follow verse/chorus structure — and after working them out on the road for this run, which will take them into May, they’ll hit Clouds Hill Studio in Hamburg to track the actual record for release reportedly in Fall as the follow-up to 2023’s Sacred (review here), and not a moment too soon.

If you’re going somewhere on this tour, get video and send it to me, please. Colour Haze aren’t strangers to longform composition, but their arrangements have grown broader in the last decade-plus, and I’m curious how keys, maybe strings, percussion and other ‘kaleidoscopic’ elements might be put to use.

From the band’s newsletter, via the PR wire:

Dear friends,

we are on tour soon – come to the shows!

Besides our many shows we worked on new music the recent years and now we want to show it live first at the Karma Haze Tour before we’ll enter the Clouds Hill Studio in Hamburg in May to record the basic tracks of our new album. And as time for rehearsals is always too short we are glad My Sleeping Karma agreed we play first (and a bit shorter than we usualy use to).

It’s only four new songs. But each in LP-side-length. None of the new pieces has any usual song-structure but is a long narrative journey in a linear structure without repeating parts the same way at all. We worked very intensively on composition and arrangement as the music should flow naturally, even if some parts are arranged in a sort of kaleidoscopic manner on purpose. We hope you will enjoy travelling with us through these songs, even at first listen at our shows – and even if we maybe won’t achieve a perfect performance on instant. We will maybe also play the one or other classic as well : )

The doublealbum is scheduled to be released in autumn.

We are looking forward to see you! Best Wishes

Stefan Koglek

Tourdates (more to be announced):

03.04.26 ATHINA // GR – Arch Club – Live Stage
04.04.26 SOFIA // BG – Club Pave
05.04.26 THESSALONIKI // GR – Soul
17.04.26 KARLSRUHE // DE – Substage
18.04.26 WIEN // AT – Arena
19.04.26 KRAKÓW // PL – Hype Park
20.04.26 WARSZAWA // PL – Hydrozagadka
21.04.26 LEIPZIG // DE – WERK 2
22.04.26 NIJMEGEN // NL – Merleyn
23.04.26 KÖLN // DE – Die Kantine
24.04.26 HAMBURG // DE – Markthalle
25.04.26 BERLIN // DE – Festsaal Kreuzberg
26.04.26 BIELEFELD // DE – Forum Bielefeld
27.04.26 SINT-NIKLAAS // BE – De Casino
28.04.26 PARIS // FR – La Machine du Moulin Rouge
29.04.26 TÜBINGEN // DE – Sudhaus
30.04.26 AARAU // CH – KIFF
01.05.26 SEGRATE (MI) // IT – Circolo Magnolia
02.05.26 MÜNCHEN // DE – Backstage Club
12.09.26 FREIBURG IM BREISGAU // DE – Jazzhaus
02.10.26 ALMERIA, TABERNAS // ES – Tabernas Desert Rock Fest
12.11.26 OSNABRÜCK // DE – Botschaft
13.11.26 HUSUM // DE – Speicher Husum
14.11.26 BREMEN // DE – Tower
11.12.26 NUERNBERG // DE – Z-Bau

https://linktr.ee/colourhaze
http://colourhaze.de/
https://www.instagram.com/colourhazeband/
https://www.facebook.com/COLOURHAZE.official/

Colour Haze, Live at Duna Jam 2024

I mean, you’ve got hometown Athenian heroes Planet of Zeus at the top of the bill with no less than Colour Haze immediately beneath, so yes, Heavy Psych Sounds Fest Athens 2026 basically looks like a party from the word go, since as the first lineup announcement, this is the word go. Those two names will surely catch the eye, but Witchthroat Serpent from France and Greece’s own 1782 remain monsters, and I don’t know Dismiss, but I bet you’ll see the name around again before April gets here, and bluesy rockers Fuzzrider provide further hometown representation in this initial lineup.

Can’t help but wonder if Colour Haze touring in Spring means their new album is or will be done by the time they head out, though either way that they’ll be on a stage someplace, somewhere, at any time, is always good news for the planet in general. Interesting mix of some darker sounds here, and the Sab-worship riffing of 1782 is welcome anytime, but of course there’s still more to come so we don’t have the complete picture either. I have a hard time keeping up with HPS Fests around Europe and the US, since I believe the Italian label/booking agency is up to a baker’s dozen of them (not really, but maybe; let me know if you want to do one in the absolute heavy rock hotbed that is Parsippany, NJ) as they admirably spread the good word of heavy vibes and blowout times, and between fest and label news sometimes it feels like the press releases don’t stop, but when I can cover, as here, I want to, because this is an important era in the heavy underground, and gatherings like these are worth celebrating.

That’s my two cents. I know, no one asked. You’ll find the actual information you came for below, courtesy of the PR wire:

HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST – ATHENS 2026 – FIRST CONFIRMED BANDS ANNOUNCED

THE HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST is landing in Athens again on April 3rd and 4th 2026, bringing with it an unstoppable rock earthquake! For two electrifying nights, ARCH Club and Universe will transform into hotspots for the stoner, doom, and psych rock scene, hosting some of the genre’s most legendary names.

Today Heavy Psych Sounds Records in cooperation with TMR Entertainment Group is announcing the FIRST CONFIRMED BANDS !!

– HPS FEST ATHENS 2026 –
3rd April @ ARCH Club
4th April @ Universe

– FIRST CONFIRMED BANDS –

PLANET OF ZEUS
COLOUR HAZE
WITCHTHROAT SERPENT
1782
DISMISS
FUZZRIDER
+ more TBA

TICKETS PRESALE: https://www.more.com/gr-el/tickets/music/heavy-psych-sounds-fest-2026

Artwork made by Mirkow Gastow

www.heavypsychsounds.com
heavypsychsoundsrecords.bandcamp.com
https://www.instagram.com/heavypsychsounds_records/
https://www.facebook.com/HEAVYPSYCHSOUNDS/

Planet of Zeus, Afterlife (2024)

Both Colour Haze and My Sleeping Karma were both featured on the bill of Desertfest Belgium 2025 this past weekend. Not their first time sharing space, by any means, but another example of the small world the underground becomes over time. That they’d tour together — also I think not their first time doing so — isn’t a huge surprise either. The relationship goes back to probably before My Sleeping Karma existed, and when My Sleeping Karma started out, their first albums were issued through Stefan Koglek of Colour Haze‘s now-mostly-inactive label, Elektrohasch Schallplatten. Meanwhile, Matte Vandeven of My Sleeping Karma happened to found a little booking company called Sound of Liberation, which of course has booked Colour Haze in Europe for 20 of that band’s total 30 years.

Colour Haze were out earlier this year celebrating passing that three-decade mark, and My Sleeping Karma have been taking stages all year across Europe as part of their return to the stage after losing drummer Steffen Weigand to cancer in 2023. This tour — which, your eyes don’t deceive you; it is co-presented by The Obelisk; can somebody save me a physical poster if any are printed? — will see them out for much of next April and into May, ahead of the Desertfests in Berlin, London and Oslo in which Sound of Liberation always plays a central role.

I was fortunate enough to see My Sleeping Karma for the first time (frickin’ finally) at Freak Valley Festival (review here) and if all goes according to my evil plans, I’ll see them again next summer in Croatia. It was spiritual and emotional, in addition to being sonically rad. I don’t believe in ‘blessed,’ but I do believe I’m blessed to have seen Colour Haze as much as I have over the years. Maybe I’ll get lucky again next year at some point, if not on this run. The two together on stage, however, is nothing short of magic in my mind.

Thanks to SOL and the bands for having me on board as a co-presenter. Here’s the poster and the tour announcement, to make it official:

⚡️MY SLEEPING KARMA + COLOUR HAZE ⚡️

Together, the two German psychedelic rock institutions MY SLEEPING KARMA and COLOUR HAZE celebrate 50 years of heavy underground road life.

To honor this special moment, both bands will play extended headline sets, performing brand new songs each night.

Tour Dates 2026:
17.04. Karlsruhe, Substage
18.04. Wien, Arena
19.04. Kraków, Hype Park
20.04 Warszawa, Hydrozagadka
21.04. Leipzig, Werk 2
22.04. Nijmegen, Doornroosje
23.04. Köln, Kantine
24.04. Hamburg, Markthalle
25.04. Berlin, Festsaal Kreuzberg
26.04. Bielefeld, Forum
27.04. Sint-Niklaas, De Casino
28.04. Paris, La Machine Du Moulin Rouge
29.04. Tübingen, Sudhaus
30.04. Aarau, Kiff
01.05. Milano, Circolo Magnolia
02.05. München, Backstage

See you on the road,
Your Karma Haze Crew!

www.mysleepingkarma.com
https://www.instagram.com/mysleepingkarmaofficial/
www.facebook.com/MySleepingKarma/

http://colourhaze.de/
https://www.instagram.com/colourhazeband/
https://www.facebook.com/COLOURHAZE.official/

My Sleeping Karma, Atma (2022)

Colour Haze, To the Highest Gods We Know (2025 Edition)

Perhaps some extra interest in seeing how the lineup for Desertfest Belgium 2025 takes shape over the next few months considering how heartwrenching the bill for 2024 was. They have not gone small to answer that question in this first reveal — you can see the names for yourself on the poster below — which covers a range of styles and has an according geographic reach. Note New Mexico’s Blue Heron taking part, supporting their rightfully-well-received 2024 LP, Everything Fades (review here), and note Lowrider because it’s notable anytime they play anywhere. Go them both, along with the rest, if you can.

As regards “the rest,” the names are their own best argument, I guess. Desertfest Belgium has become an integral part of the Fall underground touring circuit, a nexus point where various individual tours converge and split off again, so I’ll be interested to see, say, who The Obsessed will be out with, or how many times in your life you might be able to say you saw Colour Haze and Lowrider on a bill together in 2025. Just for examples.

So yeah, good start. Take their word for it in the “much more to be announced” part too. From socials:

FIRST NAMES! GRAVEYARD, BONGRIPPER, MASTERS OF REALITY & MORE!

Hi Desertfans,

Are you ready to rip it up? Here are the first names for Desertfest Antwerp 2025!

We’re very excited to welcome this divine & dangerous bunch to our stages:

Graveyard 🌑 BONGRIPPER 🌑 Masters Of Reality 🌑 Oranssi Pazuzu 🌑 The Obsessed 🌑 Bongzilla 🌑 monkey3 🌑 Lowrider 🌑 Colour Haze 🌑 Mars Red Sky 🌑 Psychlona 🌑 NEGATIVE BLAST 🌑 Alber Jupiter 🌑 Hedonist 🌑 Blue Heron

If you are as delighted as we are then head over to our ticket page below and grab a weekend pass for a guaranteed three days of sonic delirium 🪐

https://www.desertfest.be/antwerp/information/ticketing/

Hasta la vista!
The Desertfest Belgium team

http://www.desertfest.be/
https://www.facebook.com/desertfestbelgium/
https://www.instagram.com/desertfest_belgium/

Bongripper, Empty (2024)

Colour Haze first released To the Highest Gods We Know (review here) just as 2014 was rolling over to 2015 — I remember because I couldn’t tell which year to count it as during list time; ultimately I went with 2015, which I think was wrong; not an isolated incident — and while one doesn’t generally think of a band’s 11th full-length as an especially pivotal moment, from the moment it arrived, the five-song outing had a daunting task: following-up 2012’s She Said (review here), which is inarguably the most expansive album of the band’s genre-setting career.

To the Highest Gods We Know was purposeful in the direction it took, stripping back what had become a borderline-orchestral sound on the record prior to a band-in-room kind of feel with guitarist/vocalist Stefan Koglek, then-bassist Philipp Rasthofer and drummer Manfred Merwald still looking beyond themselves in terms of arrangements, but basing the songs much more on the root performances of the core trio, though if you read that to mean their dynamic was absent from She Said, that’s not the case. Either way, it is the Colour Haze record that perhaps has the most room to expand.

And it has expanded. As Koglek has done with 2008’s All (discussed here, also here), 2017’s In Her Garden (discussed here, review here), a 2021 revisit to 2003’s Los Sounds de Krauts (reissue review here) and various other remasters, the new take on To the Highest Gods We Know is more than a volume raise and an artwork refresh. There are counterpoints added, arrangements fleshed out, and the songs progressed in a way that highlights the original character of the performances while giving new impressions therefrom. It’s a fan-piece, for sure, but Colour Haze have always encouraged deep listening one way or the other. Basically they’re giving their listenership a chance to get to know their catalog all over again. It’s a terrible time to be a human being, but a good time to be a Colour Haze fan.

Their latest newsletter, complete with order link and the 30th anniversary touring the band will start this week with Mario Lalli and Mathew Bethancourt supporting. That in itself is good news. The album’s also streaming on Bandcamp, so that’s below as well:

30 Years of Colour Haze Tour Dates, To The Highest Gods We Know, T-Shirts, Patches, Pins

Dear friends,

30 Years Tour

After the recent shows have all been such a great pleasure – especially thanks to all who made our 30 Jahre Colour Haze Fest end of December this great party! – we are looking forward to our European tour starting next friday in Vienna! We are in company of our dear friends of Josiah (and for the second half Mathews Hidden Museum playing a best of Josiah, Kings Of Frog Island and Cherry Choke) and the Rubber Snake Charmers with desertrock-pioneer Mario Lalli.
Don’t miss us, we don’t come too often! : )

To The Highest Gods We Know

Order: https://colourhaze.de/de/shops-de/shop-de/colour-haze-to-the-highest-gods-we-know-2

The next in the line of our reworked albums. And this one turned out especially well in my opinion.

After the exhausting production of She Said in 2014 we just intended to make a nice little record in between. Unfortunately it suffered from the hassles around the loss of our studio-place in the end. Completely remixed, in parts with new vocals und little extras here and there To The Highest Gods We Know now became a real highlight in our discography.

The artwork is new as well. The wolf howling to the moon of our intersubjective realities moved on the backside while on the front a beautiful explosion-mandala by Alix Bischoff shows what happens every time when men wants to shape reality by his beliefs, imaginations, concepts and ideas – instead of trying it the other way round once….

Have a listen!

Downloads (equivalent to the vinyl master) are already on. CD and LP are on preorder. The LP has been cut and I’m waiting for the testpressing – it won’t take too long this time….

T-Shirts, Patches, Pins

We finally have patches and pins for your jacket – soon in the shop and at the shows. Shirts are available in new colors. Due to many requests I also reprinted the Elektrohasch shirt – in a nice green!

Liebe Grüße & Best Wishes
Stefan Koglek

Tourdates:
14.02. A – Wien – Arena
15.02. PL – Kraków – Hype Park
16.02. PL – Warszawa – Proxima
17.02. D – Leipzig – Werk 2
18.02. D – Hamburg – Knust
19.02. D – Hannover – Faust
20.02. NL – Groningen – Vera
21.02. NL – Nijmegen – Doornroosje
22.02. LU – Esch-sur-Alzette – Kulturfabrik
23.02. F – Paris – Petit Bain
24.02. CH – Genf – L’Usine
25.02. IT – Milano – Legend Club
26.02. CH – Düdingen – Bad Bonn
27.02. CH – Aarau – Kiff
28.02. D – Freiburg – Jazzhaus
01.03. D – Tübingen – Sudhaus

https://www.facebook.com/COLOURHAZE.official/
https://www.instagram.com/colourhazeband/
http://colourhaze.de/

https://www.facebook.com/elektrohasch
www.elektrohasch.de

Colour Haze, To the Highest Gods We Know (2025 Edition)