I don’t know about you, but I’m about ready for some new Sons of Otis. Summer 2017 will make it five full years since their sixth album, Seismic (review here and here), came out via Small Stone, which by any measure is far too long to go without the Toronto trio’s megarolling, tone-crushing psychedelic stoner drift. Concrete Lo-Fi Records has stepped up to provide some means of relief for this by means of an LP revisit of their 2001 third offering, Songs for Worship, that’s available to preorder now ahead of a May release. At this point, I’m inclined to take what I can get.

Songs for Worship — the original version of which you can hear below because, unlike 1999’s Templeball, it’s on YouTube in its entirety; something I mention because I feel like I’ve had my eye out for months for somebody to upload that earlier record so I can close out a week with it — had the circumstantial misfortune of being released on Sept. 11, 2001. Not that they or their label, which was The Music Cartel, knew it at the time, but if you had to pick the worst release date of this century so far, that’s probably it. That bit of trivia aside, the album is easily worth the reissue, so pending any generation-defining terrorist attacks on May 1, keep an eye out.

For those not looking to take their chances, Concrete Lo-Fi have preorders available now. Info follows:

Sons Of Otis – Songs For Worship – Concrete Lo-Fi

SONS OF OTIS are pioneers of the lethargic heavy blues that fell from space in the early 90s. Along with Sleep in the US and Electric Wizard in the UK, Sons of Otis laid the foundation for a new stoned doom sound.

We are proud to present the Sons of Otis 2001 classic, Songs For Worship, on vinyl for the first time. Remastered with care by Golden Mastering and sequenced for vinyl by the artist.

Expected release May 1st. All editions include download card.

Sons of Otis is:
Ken Baluke – Guitars, Vocals
Frank Sargeant – Bass
Ryan Aubin – Drums

https://www.facebook.com/sonsofotis/
https://www.reverbnation.com/sonsofotis
http://clfrecords.com/
http://facebook.com/clfrecords

Sons of Otis, Songs for Worship (2001)

By virtue of their ready drive to experiment, it seems preordained that Queen Elephantine will remain somewhat underappreciated in the wider sphere of heavy, but their droning explorations engage both hypnotism and conscious acknowledgement, and when they burst forward, they can be viciously, unrepentantly weighted. The somewhat amorphous Providence, Rhode Island, outfit released their Scarab (review here) full-length last year, and it was an album both ambitious and expansive, stretching and pulling the mind like taffy with this or that evocative nuance. Truly one to get lost in, and a joy for that.

In addition to the dates listed below for their April tour of the Northeast, Queen Elephantine will also play this coming Sunday at Dusk in their native Providence, alongside Satan‘s Satyrs and somebody-sign-them-already doomers Magic Circle, at a gig presented by Armageddon Shop. Info on that is here.

Also note the appearance among the enviable lineup of the Hudson Valley Psych Fest on April 18:

QUEEN ELEPHANTINE —-Northeast US Tour—-

April 16 – 26, 2014

The heavy ‘avante’ psych band was formed in 2006 in Hong Kong but is currently based in Providence, RI. They have released four albums and several EPs, including splits with Sons of Otis and Elder. Scarab was released mid-2013 on Heart & Crossbone (CD, Israel) and Cosmic Eye (LP, Greece).

-APRIL 2014-

16 – Boston, MA.
O’Brien’s. w/ The Modern Voice, Glacier

18 – Kingston, NY. Hudson Valley Psych Fest
BSP. w/ White Hills, It’s Not Night: It’s Space, The Golden Grass, Eidetic Seeing

19 – Wilmington, DE.
1984. w/ Heavy Temple, Wizard Eye

20 – Brooklyn, NY.
Don Pedro. w/ Theologian, Prana-Bindu, Sonic Suicide Squad, Andrew Barker/Michael Foster/James Ilgenfritz trio

23 – Florence, MA.
13th Floor Music Lounge. w/ Palace In Thunderland, Murder And The Timelords

24 – Portsmouth, NH.
The Red Door. w/ Green Bastard, Northern Curse

25 – Portland, ME.
Geno’s.

26 – Providence, RI.
Psychic Readings. w/ Darsombra, The Vomit Arsonist, LVMMVX

Poster + tshirt art by Josh Yelle / Pencilmancer Art

https://www.facebook.com/queenelephantine
http://queenelephantine.clfrecords.com/
http://queenelephantine.bandcamp.com/

Queen Elephantine, Scarab (2013)

About two weeks ago, I visited the “Not Just” Rock Expo outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and while I found some pretty killer stuff there, one thing I didn’t pick up was the 2007 Concrete Lo-Fi Records split CD between Queen Elephantine and Sons of Otis. The dude wanted $20 for it and that was more money than I had left to spend. I was bummed out about leaving it behind, and all the more so since I couldn’t find a copy on the interwebs once I got back home and tried looking. Seemed like I was going to have to let it go, at least for the time being, and maybe keep an eye on eBay or Amazon or hope to randomly run into it at Armageddon Shop somewhere down the line.

Well, a couple days ago, Indy Shome from Queen Elephantine dropped a line and said he was sending a copy over. It showed up today and it’s been the perfect thing to get me through an overtired fuckoff of an afternoon. The split is comprised of three songs, two from Toronto stoner lords Sons of Otis and one from Queen Elephantine, totaling just under 44 minutes, and comes complete with Adrian Dexter artwork and vibe to spare. For Queen Elephantine, it’s one of their earlier releases, after they made their 2006 debut on a split with Elder, but before they released their first album, Surya, and for Sons of Otis, it arrived two years after their Small Stone debut, X, and two years before its follow-up, Exiled.

Sons of Otis go first, their “Tales of Otis” embarking on an eight-minute march that seems to slow time along with it. There’s little more to it than thud and vague riffing, but somehow it manages to be grooving anyway. There are no vocals on either of the Canadian band’s inclusions, and interestingly, both songs include drums, though only bassist Frank Sargent and guitarist Ken Baluke are listed as playing on it. Could be a loop, I guess. Both “Tales of Otis” and the subsequent “Oxazejam” are repetitive enough in their rhythms to have that be the case (and that’s not a knock on them), the latter also a slow-burning jam that keeps the smoked-out feel of “Tales of Otis” going as Baluke‘s guitar seems to sort of wisp into and out of lead progressions. They’ve always excelled that that kind of ultra-chilled semi-consciousness, and in the six years since this release, that hasn’t changed at all.

Unless I’m mistaken, Shome, who handles guitar and vocals in Queen Elephantine and is the only remaining member from this incarnation — the band having since parted ways with bassist Daniel Quinn, drummer Michael Isley and percussionist J. Alexander Buck — was based in New York at the time this split was issued. He gets around, be it to Providence, Rhode Island, or Hong Kong. In any case, the band’s 26-minute exploration “The Battle of Masscoit (The Weapon of the King of Gods)” is a fitting precursor to the types of jammed-out contemplative psychedelic experiments Shome has been leading even up to this year’s Scarab (review here), albeit somewhat less expansive in the sonic ingredients used and the overall atmosphere. The will to drone is there, however, and it serves Queen Elephantine well as the piece unfolds, molten and held together somewhat by the drums but by no means beholden to them.

Because the idea entertains me, I’ll use the phrase “ambient as fuck,” but let the point be that Sons of Otis and Queen Elephantine worked remarkably well side-by-side on this release, and both give ample opportunity to let your mind wander in their psychedelic and engrossing haze. I’m glad I got to hear it on disc, and I’ll look forward to future sonic escapes like the one it provided me today. Sometimes you just gotta check out for a while. May I suggest:

Queen Elephantine, “The Battle of Massacoit (The Weapon of the King of Gods)”

Sons of Otis on Thee Facebooks

Queen Elephantine on Bandcamp