Album Review: Causa Sui, From the Source
Posted in Reviews on July 17th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
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.
