Nashville four-piece All Them Witches initially released their Effervescent EP last June with about as little fanfare as possible, depositing it on YouTube for anyone who might be interested in finding it. A free digital version (review here) followed about a month later, and it’s to the credit of both the band and the self-recorded material that even after making it universally available digitally, there was enough of a response to warrant a self-released physical version. The available-at-shows-only 12″ Effervescent is still technically an EP, though if you were to take both tracks included and put them side by side, the runtime would be a little over 50 minutes. This is because the single song that makes up Effervescent appears once on each side. The second time around, it’s backwards. Yes, backwards.

The really terrifying part about it is that it works. Sure, All Them Witches — who are newly signed to New West Records for their impending third album and the follow-up to 2013’s Lightning at the Door (review here), also digitally issued first with a physical version later — probably could’ve taken a live track, or their version of “Born under a Bad Sign” or some other rarity, and stuck it on side B and been done with it, but since the 25-minute instrumental “Effervescent” was released, its greatest appeal has been its hypnotic, molten psychedelic vibe, a classy, dreamy jazz that doesn’t even need to sample a rainstorm to make you think you might be hearing one while it plays out, and the band are right in their assumption that the vibe is maintained when “Effervescent” on side A is answered by “Tnecsevreffe” on side B. By then, consciousness is long gone anyway.

And the shift from forward to back is made easier by the fact that “Effervescent” has a decent amount of backward layers anyway. The song is comprised of two larger movements at the front and back and one shorter in between — you can see the change in the patterning of the LP, but for keeping track, the first jam is roughly 13 and a half minutes long, there’s a minute-long transitional march, and then the second jam picks up right before the 15-minute mark to build from the ground up across the remainder of the runtime — and since that midsection piece is backwards on the original, it makes a weird sort of sense to have the band play off that in this reworking. In “Tnecsevreffe,” that part takes on an eerie, almost industrial quality around Robby Staebler‘s drumming, long departed from the smooth bass work of Michael Parks, Jr. or the interplay of Ben McLeod‘s guitar and Allan van Cleave‘s Fender Rhodes that makes the second part of “Effervescent” (or the first part of “Tnecsevreffe,” if you’re keeping track of the reverse) so memorable in its nod.

Still, coming from the opening movement of “Tnecsevreffe,” which more or less begins with the somewhat more bombastic backwards version of the apex of “Effervescent,” it’s not as if a context for “weird” hasn’t already been playing out for the last 11 minutes or so. The last 13 minutes of “Tnecsevreffe” have their weirdo shakeout as well, but are less structured overall — not that any of it sounds particularly structured backwards — whereas in “Effervescent,” the central guitar figure that emerges in the back half feels more grounded than the opening movement, which comes across if not more improvised than at least more laid back. Though the whole thing is pretty laid back. And groovy. And psychedelic. And deep. Man, that mix runs deep. It’s not lush in the sense of being overblown, but the moody sensibility that takes root in the first part of “Effervescent” — much bolstered by Van Cleave‘s ambient keys — is a huge part of what has given the track such return-listen appeal over the last year.

That said, there is a point throughout “Effervescent”‘s 25-minute run at which one could point to any individual member and say, “That guy makes the band,” because the truth is that whether it’s Parks‘ nestled-in groove and tonal warmth, Staebler‘s ghost-noting snare, McLeod‘s ability to step forward for a lead and then melt back into the overarching jam or the pervasive atmosphere that Van Cleave seems to cast at will, it’s all necessary as a part of the whole affect. One knew prior to Effervescent that All Them Witches were more than competent jammers — both Lightning at the Door and their 2012 debut, Our Mother Electricity (review here), demonstrated that plainly enough — but Effervescent was an outright sampling of the kind of fluidity they could work solidly within and the chemistry that was coming together between them. I’d argue that chemistry, which makes Effervescent the more-than-a-stopgap release that it is, is still in its formative stages.

As All Them Witches have begun to tour and are moving toward their New West debut this fall, they’re by no means a band that has stopped growing either in terms of their songwriting or in terms of how they collaborate instrumentally on stage and in the studio. For the already considerable achievements they’ve claimed sonically at this point in their career, Effervescent proved when it first came out that they were by no means ready to stagnate or fall into a formulaic approach, and it seems fair enough to read the fact that they paired the song with a backwards version of itself on this vinyl as only one more signal that those who might think they know what to expect from the band are bound to be mistaken. All the better.

All Them Witches, Effervescent (2014/2015)

All Them Witches on Thee Facebooks

All Them Witches website

All Them Witches on Bandcamp

Click here to listen.

There doesn’t seem to ever be a break with this stuff. 16 records joined The Obelisk Radio playlist today, and that’s still got me behind on checking out more to add. I don’t know what the state of that hard drive is, but I might not be far off from needing to add a second one. It’s become an archive for me.

Diligent and admirable bastard that he is, Slevin is working on an automatically refreshing script that will allow listeners to see what was played over the last 24 hours, which will be a big help if a file is missing its ID3 tags — that being how the player identifies the songs — as I know things sometimes are. I get asked regularly what was played at a specific time, so hopefully this will be able to answer that question.

So things are in the works, but of course there’s a ton of music to talk about in the meantime, and that’s the fun part anyway.

The Obelisk Radio Adds for July 11, 2014:

All Them Witches, Effervescent EP

There are at least two distinct jams at work in the 25-minute single track that makes up Effervescent, the 2014 EP from Nashville psych-blues rockers All Them Witches. The Fender Rhodes of Allan Van Cleave and airy guitar of Ben McLeod feature heavily in both, as bassist Michael Parks, Jr., and drummer Robby Staebler (interview here) provide a foundation on which to space out, and the two pieces find a bridge in hypnotic, psychedelic stretching and backwards noise beginning at around 13 minutes in before building back up. All throughout, the vibe is central, there is movement, and the four-piece demonstrate that the chemistry they showed burgeoning on last year’s brilliant Lightning at the Door (discussed here) was no fluke, but the beginning of a grand and creative exploration that finds its next installment here. It may be a stopgap — formerly their primary means of release, they’ve recently pulled their full-lengths down from Bandcamp; one expects big, got-signed-type news from them at any moment — but Effervescent is fluid and rich, and as deep as you want to go in listening to it, it’s willing to take you there and further. All Them Witches on Thee Facebooks, on Bandcamp.

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Nyarlathotep, The Shadow over Innsmouth

Some six years after releasing their initial The End is Always Near demo, New Jersey black metal outfit (whom, in the interest of full disclosure, I know personally) Nyarlathotep follow-up with the Lovecraftian full-length, The Shadow over Innsmouth. Based around the  short story of the same name, the album breaks down into five extended tracks plus an intro of rage-fueled atmospherics. Using programmed drums to their advantage on “Old Zadok Allen” — the only proper song here under 10 minutes — they add an industrial feel with a keyboard-led midsection backed by vague, ambient screams. The density in the material is striking, but even at their most unbridled — as on the blasting, solo-topped early moments in the title-track — Nyarlathotep hold their commitment to setting a mood firm, and the blown-out, distorted soundscape they create across the release is grim and otherworldly enough to be worthy of its subject matter. It is a complex, biting execution that won’t be for everyone, but that seethes in its quiet parts and gnashes its pointed teeth with monstrous force. Nyarlathotep on Thee Facebooks, on Bandcamp.

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Idre, Idre

Oklahoma City trio Idre specialize in ambient fluidity and deeply-weighted tonal crush. Their self-released, self-titled debut long-player is comprised of two extended cuts — “Factorie” (26:41) and “Witch Trial” (13:17) — that each impress with their patience, their impact and their ability to contrast the generally claustrophobic feel of post-metal with an open-spaced, salt-of-the-earth pulse. Within its first 10 minutes, “Factorie” has moved from undulating waves of riffing to vast, strumming, Across Tundras-esque roll, and never does it seem to be meandering without purpose in the noisy stages to come. It builds and collapses, and when they seem the most gone, the clean, twanging vocals return to finish out, leading to the parabolically constructed “Witch Trial,” which marries Earth-style drone and galloping drums effectively to create a decidedly Western feel while still building toward, and eventually moving through a sonically pummeling apex. Once again, vocals are sparse, but perfectly placed almost as if to remind the listener of how small a human being can be in so wide a space as the Midwest. Like that landlocked region, Idre‘s Idre is expansive and lets you see for miles. Idre on Thee Facebooks, on Bandcamp.

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Rainbows are Free, Waves ahead of the Ocean

Led by the substantial pipes of vocalist B. Fain Kistler, Norman, Oklahoma, four-piece Rainbows are Free seem keen on finding the place where classic doom and heavy rock meet, and on their second full-length, Waves ahead of the Ocean (released by Guestroom Records), they just about get there. Kistler is a singer worthy of comparison to Grand Magus‘ JB Christoffersson, but Rainbows are Free are less grandiose overall, early songs like “The Botanist,” the title-track and the cumbersomely-titled opener “Speed God and the Rise of the Motherfuckers from a Place beyond Hell” nestling into heavy, engaging grooves marked out by the choice riffing of Richie Tarver, the bass work of Chad Hogue and drums of Bobby Onspaugh. Unpretentious and professional in their presentation, they doom up an otherwise Clutch-style boogie in “Cadillac” before going full-on trad metal in “Snake Bitten by Love,” and ably making their way through a Dio Sabbath push on “Burn and Die,” which works well despite feeling a long way from the upbeat rockin’ of earlier highlight “Sonic Demon” and leads smoothly into closer “Comet,” the six-and-a-half-minute spacier thrust of which seems to be seems to be where Rainbows are Free most choose to harken to the psychedelia one might expect from their moniker. They most drive toward the epic in their finale, and the payoff there is churning and insistent in a way that more than justifies the song’s position on the 37-minute record, but even then have a keen eye for structure and holding the attention of their audience. An impeccably put together album from a band more than ready to turn heads. Rainbows are Free on Thee Facebooks, Guestroom Records on Bandcamp.

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Panopticon, Roads to the North

Despite the bluegrass influence and liberal inclusion of banjo amidst its blackened onslaught, Panopticon‘s Roads to the North (released on Bindrune) is perhaps most American of all for its pulling together seemingly disparate elements in defiance of European traditionalism. Billed as and creating the standard for American folk metal, it nonetheless is in conversation with European black metal — a conversation that in my head looks something like it’s being chased à la Benny Hill for its heresies — while purposefully working against its tenets. Roads to the North is the fifth full-length from the one-man project of Kentucky’s Austin Lunn, and made in collaboration with Krallice‘s Colin Marston (among others), it elicits a sprawl through both its metallic extremity and its devotion to the aesthetic it pioneers. It makes for a heady 74-minute listen, but Panopticon are cohesive throughout — five records deep, they should be — and one doesn’t embark on an album like Roads to the North lightly or without wanting full immersion into an evocative and blistering landscape. That’s just what you get. Panopticon on Thee Facebooks, Bindrune Recordings.

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For the full list of albums added to The Obelisk Radio this week and to see the latest updates, click here.

Thanks for reading and listening.

I was hoping this would happen sooner or later. Last month, when All Them Witches released their new EP/single Effervescent — a single instrumental jam spanning over 25 minutes — the Nashville four-piece only put it up on YouTube. Not the worst thing in the world, at least it was out there, but for those of us who might like to, say, add the mp3 to an online radio playlist that already includes All Them Witches‘ two albums, Our Mother Electricity (review here) and Lightning at the Door (discussed here), it made things a little more difficult. Fortunately, the band has rectified the situation and posted Effervescent on their Bandcamp page for a free download.

And by “free,” I don’t mean “name your price.” I mean they’re not charging for it. And they probably could. Yeah, it was recorded on a four-track, and yeah, it’s basically the dudes the band noodling out for nearly half an hour, but the fact of the matter is simply that there are people who undoubtedly would shell out some cash to hear what All Them Witches sound like in the rehearsal space. It doesn’t sound like the worst way to blow a couple bucks. Nonetheless, this one’s on the house. If you haven’t heard it yet, “Effervescent” is an engaging, hypnotic and psychedelic affair that still maintain’s the band’s connection to the blues. There isn’t a huge wash of effects, but a feeling of raw exploration throughout that makes it a pleasure to get lost in as

You can download All Them Witches‘ Effervescent EP via the Bandcamp player below. The band will be touring this fall with Rochester, NY, outfit King Buffalo on the East Coast in advance of heading to Europe to play the Keep it Low festival and Desertfest Belgium, and will reportedly have Lightning at the Door out on vinyl prior to hitting the road. Dates follow the player.

7/30-Atlanta, GA – The Drunken Unicorn
7/31-Chattanooga, TN – JJ’s Bohemia
8/1-Birmingham, AL – Secret Stages
8/21-New York, NY – Mercury Lounge w/ KING BUFFALO
8/22-Philadelphia, PA – MilkBoy Philadelphia w/ KING BUFFALO
8/23-Stroudsburg, PA – Sherman Theater Living Room w/ KING BUFFALO
8/24-Richmond, VA – Strange Matter w/ KING BUFFALO
8/26-Ithaca, NY – The Dock w/ KING BUFFALO
8/27-Rochester, NY – Bug Jar w/ KING BUFFALO
8/28-Nashville, TN – TBA

https://www.facebook.com/allthemwitches
http://allthemwitches.bandcamp.com/
https://twitter.com/AllThemWitches