This is a good way to spend a couple of nights in Denmark. Hot damn. I missed I think, wait, let me check, yes, all of the batch announcements for Esbjerg Fuzztival 2023 due, I assume, to the whims of the algorithm, but when it finally occurred to me to check in on the fest precisely because I hadn’t seen anything about it, well, there was the full damn lineup waiting for me.

And it’s looking sharp, as well. There isn’t one band on this bill I wouldn’t want to see, from Nebula and Greenleaf to Slowjoint and Vestjysk Ørken. Not a clunker in the bunch. And hell, I’ve never seen Clouds Taste Satanic and they’re from New York, so catching them in Denmark would be a hell of a way to see them for a first time. And Ecstatic Vision, High Desert Queen, Edena Gardens, Kryptograf, getting to check Causa Sui off my all-time must-see list? Yeah. Sounds fucking amazing, actually. Throw in Kanaan, Valley of the Sun and oh, say, Deathchant, and you’ve got yourself a deal. I’m not trying to be glib when I say this, but it looks like a lovely time.

I pieced the below together out of the aforementioned posts I missed, so if it reads clunky or they come off as excessively proud, perhaps, that’s why. Here you go:

Complete lineup for Fuzztival ’23!

Who are you most excited to see this year!?

Get your tickets in now!

Fuzztival are PROUD to announce our Friday night headliner NEBULA, bringing the desert to Denmark! ECSTATIC VISION, VALLEY of THE SUN and KRYPTOGRAF will be joining! And as always the Fuzztival house band VESTJYSK ØRKEN will be opening the festival for the 6th consecutive time!

We are PROUD to present another round of bands! Adding KANAAN as well as EDENA GARDENS (feat. members of Causa Sui & Papir) and CLOUDS TASTE SATANIC to Fuzztival 23!

We are proud to be adding the OG desert Rockers FATSO JETSON alongside DEATHCHANT and HIGH DESERT QUEEN! The riffs will be plenty and scorching hot! SLOWJOINT will be returning to Fuzztival with a special surprise set!

The almighty riff machine GREENLEAF will be headlining Saturday at Fuzztival ’23! Closing the fest with a shake and a bang so bring your dancing shoes!

Last but not least we are PROUD to welcome back the KINGS of Heavy Psych CAUSA SUI to Fuzztival ’23!

This wraps up the bands announced for this year! Final call to save some dough for more Fuzz Ales!

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Valley of the Sun, “Devil I’ve Become” official video

[Click play above to stream the self-titled debut from Edena Gardens. Album is out Oct. 28 via El Paraiso Records with preorders here.]

The meeting of vibes taking place throughout Edena Gardens‘ self-titled debut is not entirely unexpected, and it’s in keeping with the Causa Sui/El Paraiso Records psych-as-jazz-and-also-sometimes-psych-jazz ethos that, like collaborating soloists, Martin Rude and Jakob Skøtt of the venerable Danish explorers should unite with guitarist Nicklas Sørensen of established countrymen post-jammers Papir for an album that harnesses strengths from all of them. With Skøtt on drums and Rude swapping between bass and guitar, and Sørensen stepping into a kind of featured role, Edena Gardens offer mellow-psych immersion throughout the entirely-instrumental 44 minutes of their self-titled debut — on El Paraiso, naturally — echoing through synth-laced cosmic pastoralia on “Now Here Nowhere” and, crucially, seeming to find its way as it goes, with cymbal wash and guitars waking at the outset of 10-minute opener and longest track (immediate points) “Aether,” which marks out the fluidity with which the proceedings will play out.

Rude, on guitar or bass, is the unifying factor in bringing together Sørensen‘s guitar and Skøtt‘s guitar, and while it’s a jazz-born ethic, one might also recognize it from a near-infinite number of rock power trios, including to some extent Papir, so the argument might be made for some carryover on Sørensen‘s part there, but the thunder-rumble under “Aether” as it comes gradually to life is the rhythmic center around which the song takes shape, a light lumber with a correspondingly light warning of the tonal heft that may or may not follow.

It does, at least a little, but it doesn’t really have to. And that’s not a complaint in the slightest. These seven songs find Edena Gardens willfully embracing the tenets of heavy psychedelia, whether it’s the gathering-consciousness-for-exhale taking place in “Aether” or the immediately more active “Sliding Under” picking up from that extended leadoff with what sounds like Yawning Man-style pedal steel or slide; dreams cast in intertwining lines of guitar, hear-every-string strums and a soft, ethereal, jammy roll.

The song might be titled after its ending fadeout, in which indeed the guitar and drums slide under a line of synth to finish and give way to “The Canopy,” which follows the guitar’s deceptively plotted course — that is to say, just because the listener doesn’t yet know where Sørensen is headed doesn’t mean he doesn’t know either — sweet detailing of synth/effects and quiet drums behind, maybe some chime percussion? It’s hard to know what’s real and what’s imaginary after a while, but the drift factor in “The Canopy” is a righteousness unto itself, finishing with a brief moment of drone that is like a reveal for what’s been filling the song out all the while.

So much flow. And whether or not you can go with it is going to determine basically the entirety of the impression Edena Gardens is making, but it’s hardly an effort to follow Rude, Skøtt and Sørensen through these pieces that make up the whole of the album. “The Canopy” wraps side A with the exact opposite of a feeling of ceremony, as if just to quietly note the passing of time, the fleeting nature of even the universe itself, let alone anything to temporary as art, music, humanity, and so on. One of just two songs under four minutes long — the other is the penultimate “Iod” — it leads to the centerpiece/side B opener “Hidebound,” which pushes the synth forward in cyclical washes alongside a steady progression of guitar and drums, the spirit more cool-river than molten-ooze, with a rise in volume serving as a perfunctory crescendo as that synth line runs by again for the comedown.

This they follow with the aforementioned “Now Here Nowhere,” putting Skøtt‘s drums along with the synth and Rude‘s bass out there on the quick with Sørensen joining a moment later, a perfectly executed, smoothly realized methodological swap that puts the listener in a different place almost without realizing it. All they had to do was change up who starts playing and where the drums are in the mix, and it works to give a different vibe, more like some lost Hendrix studio track, readily meandering blues licks and tripped-out effects for aural detailing coinciding with a progression that, I’m not sure it’s right to call it straightforward, but perhaps on a relative level.

“Now Here Nowhere” pays off the light warning of “Aether” in its apex, and prefaces the rock aspects in the finale to come, with the droner “Iod” ensuring breath and breadth alike, the ambience so much a factor in what Edena Gardens have been able to conjure in this material. Even in what’s essentially an interlude on a completely instrumental record, the band manage to offer headphone-worthy depth and mood, and though it’s over quick, the open spirit plays well into “An T-Eilean Dubh” (say “anti-alien dub,” which I guess/hope means they’re worried about invaders from outer space), with a far-away-at-first rush on the drums and a central figure of guitar that feels specifically like homage to Colour Haze in its movement.

That also, not a complaint. With Rude‘s bass underscoring the tom work from Skøtt and Sørensen‘s solidified but still laid back lead lines, the volume swells subtly as the closer moves through its 6:51, seeming to come to a head near its halfway point but saving its standout moment for the improvised-sounding dawn-of-enlightenment solo that rounds out before the entirety comes apart and the record ends in duly understated fashion.

I will not pretend to know what will become of Edena Gardens, if it will be an ongoing collab between Sørensen, Skøtt and Rude or if it’s a one-off happening, but it’s hard to listen to the songs on Edena Gardens and not appreciate the fact that somebody in the studio that day hit ‘record.’ The tracks have obviously been edited with the fadeouts and so on, but they’d have to be to accommodate format, the mix becomes part of the art, and accordingly, the album feels like glimpses of and short visits to another world, where at least today it’s sunny and warm if not all the time.

The potential for expansion on what they do here is likewise planetary in scale, but the sweetness of Edena Gardens is something essential and organic that arises from the music, and toward whatever reaches they might ultimately adventure (or not), there will only ever be one first time out. This is it, and they make the most of the occasion.

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El Paraiso Records

This is me feeling like I can’t keep up, I suppose. Even in like the week, two weeks?, since the Quarterly Review ended, I’ve basically got another one full, and I’ve been feeling suitably overwhelmed as we move into Fall. The releases keep coming, keep being announced, and it’s just so much. I’m doing my best, and a lot of this stuff will be covered hopefully before December comes around, but I can’t promise that at this point. It would matter way less if records like Sky Pig, Smokes of Krakatau, Teverts, Deadly Vipers, Tons and Witchfinder, Grin, Grandier, Giant Mammoth weren’t as cool as they are.

I should’ve called the show ‘Punk Rock Guilt,’ but no one would get it anyway. I’m not sure anyone gets it now. I’m not sure why Gimme Metal continues to let me do this, but I’m happy they do. Anyway, for me personally this one’s all about the moment when it hits into Caustic Casanova’s “Bull Moose Against the Sky” from their just-released Glass Enclosed Nerve Center (review here) album, but I’m also reminding myself how much I dug that Ufomammut album and how just because Scott Kelly turned out to be a phony and a shit it doesn’t mean everything Neurot Recordings ever put out should be shunned like a mouthy Amish person. Also threw in some Kyuss, to remind myself I like them. Like, oh yeah, Kyuss. That’s a thing the internet and I agree on.

Bottom line is it’s a show with music I think will help your day, from All Souls and Sasquatch to Faith in Jane and the new Papir/Causa Sui collaboration Edena Gardens. If I’m going to take up two hours of Gimme Metal’s precious airtime — space on the internet may be unlimited and ever expanding, but time is still time — the least I can do is play good shit. So that’s what I’m doing.

Thanks if you listen and thanks for reading.

The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com.

Full playlist:

The Obelisk Show – 10.14.22 (VT = voice track)

The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is Oct. 28 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.

Gimme Metal website

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I just put this on for the first time. Right now. And I’m about 30 seconds into the opening track, which is called “Aether” and is also the longest (immediate points) of the seven inclusions at 10 minutes and two seconds, and I already feel compelled to note the occasion. If you’d ask why, just look at the lineup here. Edena Gardens is bassist Martin Rude (who plays bass and guitar here) and drummer-and-then-some Jakob Skøtt of Causa Sui and Nicklas Sørensen collaborating for the first time on a release together, and from the languid but voluminous heavy psychedelia that manifests in “Aether” and through the synth-inclusive reaches of first streaming single “Hidebound,” there’s breadth and breath alike in this material (so far), pulling in part from Causa Sui and El Paraiso Records‘ psych-jazz fusion and topping those rhythms with the dream tone of Sørensen, who every bit earns the forward position of his guitar here.

Oh I’m stoked on this one. The release date is Oct. 28. There’s so much to live for.

From the PR wire:

Edena Gardens – Edena Gardens – Oct. 28

Listen here: https://song.link/edena-gardens-hidebound

Three musicians with their own compass: Martin Rude & Jakob Skøtt have shared a wide range of musical quests: from Causa Sui’s “Bitches Brew of Stoner Rock” crossing the folk meditations of Sun River and arriving most recently as members of the pre-fusion electric dealings of the London Odense Ensemble.

Papir guitarist Nicklas Sørensen is not merely adding a new layer to an established duo, but his presence to the party have brought it into more meditative dwellings. These pieces move slowly, evolving like the slow growth underneath the ground. Whereas Causa Sui & Papir have always excelled at blistering panoramic and often sundrenched sounds, Edena Gardens take a dive inwards and downwards rather than outwards. But there’s also an electrically charged ecstatic rawness to the dealings. Like Æther, the 10 minute opener’s 2 guitars-and-a-drum kit improv, finding it’s way from tumbling drones into monolithic slow riffage. Elsewhere, we find trails of electronic vapors, misfiring bursts of noise and slow drones stretched out.

Edena Gardens is a thing to be experienced first hand – it’s not for everyone, but those who decide to stay are greatly rewarded. It’s a debut unlike any other record on El Paraiso, perhaps unlike any you’ve ever heard.

Welcome to Edena Gardens

Preorder soon: Album out on LP and CD, run of 500 copies each. Release date October 28th! On El Paraiso Records.

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