They’re buried pretty deep in the languid interstellar groove at first, but there are vocals at least in “Part I” of Glasgow jammers The Cosmic Dead‘s new 12″ release, EasterFaust. Given the fact that side A is 22 minutes, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that the whole LP, which is being put out in a limited edition of 400 copies via Sound of Cobra Records, is one long song, and that “Part II” is no less far out than its companion, which you can stream below.

One bit of subtle good news within the overarching good news of a new The Cosmic Dead LP is where in the quote below the band say “the first slab” from the sessions, as if to imply more are coming.

Vinyl is due next month in 180 gram edition of 400. The PR wire brings details:

THE COSMIC DEAD “EasterFaust” 12″ LP

Since 2010, The Cosmic Dead have been exploring the outer reaches of kraut rock, doom and psychedelia, tasting the extremes of sound and fusing them into a single, all-enveloping web of stratospheric riffing, otherworldly ambience and kosmic textures that has spread itself across countless shows throughout all Europe.

Remember that satanic drug thing you didn’t understand? Forget about it! Here comes the new breed and it’s a fierce and fiery force! A creeping barrage of sound that embodies the spirit of heavy psychedelic freak-outs from the Godz and Hawkind to early Monster Magnet („25… Tab“-era) and Acid Mother’s Temple to set you afire. Want some? Tune in, turn on, get burned!

“For anyone who hasn’t yet stood before the Dead and their live homage to the cosmos, expect religious devotion to synthesised dreamworlds, subsonic grooves, guitaristic splendour and the vast, hypnotic sounds of Hawkwind and Popol Vuh eternally jamming in the Möbius strip of time and space.”

“Last year we spent a week with our spirit yogi Luigi Pasquini making unrelenting noise in a tiny garage nestled in the valleys of Kyle of Lochalsh.. from this manic session the first slab of vinyl is right now being pressed via Sound of Cobra.. have a wee preview and get yourself a pre-order below as this one is cosmogonical and we are in a major joy state knowing we can now present it to you!”

The album is EASTERFAUST and it comes out in a limited edition of 400 copies on a 180 gr. marble coloured vinyl

Release date : 20th of february, today starts the presale for 20 euro shipping included worldwide. Be quick cause they will run fast!

drop us an email or paypal directly to: soundofcobra@gmail.com

https://www.facebook.com/thecosmicdead
www.soundofcobra.com

The Cosmic Dead, “EasterFaust Pt. 1”

Just a week after Glasgow-based jam worshipers The Cosmic Dead showed off their new ambient collection, Orbiting Salvation (info and music here), the band has put out word that not only are they hitting the road next month on a tour through Europe, but that Orbiting Salvation is just one of three new releases coming. In addition to a limited CDR of that droning bliss, they’ll also have the new Inner Sanctum and Live at the Note limited cassettes. My only hope is there are some left by the time they get to Roadburn on April 20.

Here’s the latest, courtesy of the band:

The Cosmic Dead – European tour and new releases

This April the astral Glaswegian quartet known as The Cosmic Dead are set to embark on their first voyage overseas, reaching out to new heads and lands unknown on an extended exploratory mission across the European continent. Amongst the highlights of the trip are an appearance alongside Mars Red Sky and My Sleeping Karma at this year’s Stone Rising Festival in Oullins, France on the 12th of April, a veritable indoor street party with fellow sonic experimentalists Gnod in Berlin, Germany on the 19th of April and a late night materialisation at this years premier pilgrimage to the riff; Roadburn festival in Tilburg, Holland on Saturday 20th of April.

The tour will also be a platform for these Scottish psychonauts to introduce a wealth of new material to all ye astronauts out there in the form of three new releases; Inner Sanctum, a massive slab of tweaked out, head-spinning, jammed out recordings set to limited edition cassette tape by Sheffield based label Evil Hoodoo. Live at the Note, a pretty much exactly as it says on the tin live recording from our base of operations and spiritual epicentre The 13th Note in Glasgow, is also to be released on limited cassette tape by Stabbed In The Back Records. Orbiting Salvation, a collation of jams, drones and mythological mantras released by the band in limited edition subtly hand-made CD-R. Alongside the availability of new material comes a reawakening of old in editions of the acclaimed self-titled album and it’s postliminary successor The Exalted King on super deluxe gatefold vinyl via Cardinal Fuzz and Cosmic Eye respectfully.

All this in 2013, the year no-one expected to happen.

COSMIC DEAD EURO TOUR – APRIL 2013:
8th ? Sheffield (ENGLAND) ? The Redhouse
9th ? Basingstoke (ENGLAND) ? Sanctuary
10th ? London (ENGLAND) ? The Unicorn
11th ? Brussels (BELGIUM) ? Café Central
12th ? Oullins (FRANCE) ? Stone Rising Festival
13th ? Milan (ITALY) ? Lo-Fi
14th ? Legnago (ITALY) ? White Rabbit
15th ? Salzburg (AUSTRIA) ? Shakespeare
16th ? Prague (CZ REPUBLIC) ? Klub 007
17th ? Dresden (GERMANY) ? Ostpol
18th ? Liepzig (GERMANY) ? Zoro
19th ? Berlin (GERMANY) ? White Trash
20th ? Tilburg (HOLLAND) ? Roadburn Festival
21st ? Antwerp (BELGIUM) ? Trix
23rd ? Dudingen (SWITZERLAND) ? Badbonn
24th ? Toulouse (FRANCE) ? Le Saint des Seins
25th ? Bordeaux (FRANCE) ? Heretic
26th ? Paris (FRANCE) ? La Mécanique Ondulatoire
27th ? Portsmouth (ENGLAND) ? Southsea Social Club
28th ? Bristol (ENGLAND) ? The Croft
29th ? Middlesbrough (ENGLAND) ? The Legion
30th ? Edinburgh (SCOTLAND) ? Banshee Labyrinth

You can track our progress at the following Facebook event page:
http://www.facebook.com/events/429621680459261

The Cosmic Dead, “Djamba” Live at the 13th Note, Glasgow

Released concurrent to a new tape Live at the Note that finds the at home in their space rock improv element, Glasgow-based jam heads The Cosmic Dead have today unveiled Orbiting Salvation. A release of a much different kind — and digital only — it brings together four ambient pieces put together by the band based on synth and drones rather than the band’s usual psychedelic swirl. A different lineup is featured on each of the tracks, but with the ultra-subdued vibe each of the extended works presents, it’s easier than ever to lose yourself in the sounds. If you have headphones handy, I hope you also brought a snorkel.

Orbiting Salvation has been made available at The Cosmic Dead Bandcamp page, where one can explore a host of releases. That the band would have two put together for release already only three months into 2013 speaks well of what might be a very good year to hit up deepest space (rock).

Far out and then some:

Okay, we’re happy to announce our second new release of the month, a wee album of various drone/ambient odds and ends for your collection! Features cover artwork by our very own Lewish ‘Ganga’ Cook! (Download – only £7)

1) Solar Cycle Invocation
Recorded sometime in 2012 in the 13th Note.
Lewis Cook – Synths
Alasdair C Mitchell – Percussion
James T Mckay – Guitar

2) Orbiting Salvation
Recorded at Carlton Studios, Glasgow, Nov 2012.
Lewish Cook – Synths
Julian Dicken – Drums

3) The Left Hand Path
Recorded in a kitchen, Glasgow, September 2010.
Julian Dicken – Guitar
Josh Longton – Guitar
James T Mckay – Tambourine, Vocals, Radio

4) Abouridha Kuhuk
Recorded at Carlton Studios, Glasgow, Mid 2012.
Omar Aborida – Bass
Lewish Cook – Synths

Mixed by Moonshaker.
Artwork – Lewis Cook.

Listen close enough to the 34-minute opening title track of The Cosmic Dead‘s The Exalted King and I’m pretty sure you can hear the universe expand. Have balls, will trip.

The Glasgow-based foursome recorded the tape (yes, tape, released by Dub Ditch Picnic) in their rehearsal space, and its three tracks — “The Exalted King” (34:07), “Anatta” (15:30) and “Anaphora” (20:40) — are slowly unfolding, molten jams. Their prior cassette, a 2011 self-titled (review here), followed a similar course (there was also the Cozmik Live Aktion Vol. I in between the two studio outings), but The Exalted King vibes even more patiently, the guitar of James T. McKay ringing out space effects on the title-track, topping the manic drum fills of Julian Dicken and Omar Aborida‘s smooth running basslines while Lewish Cook‘s synth adds ethereal melody to the vivid, ultra-psychedelic soundscaping.

It’s the kind of album born and bred for late-night headphone listens. The parts feel and likely are improvised — at least in part, if not entirely — and as it takes up nearly half the runtime, the opener is a focal point, but though it’s a full-length unto itself, “Anatta” and “Anaphora” answer back with progressions of their own, structurally open but not simply wandering either. Cook‘s synth, Dickens‘ samples and the varied vocal contributions of Aborida, Cook and McKay give “Anatta” a building feel, morphing gradually from silence to a blown-out apex, dripping in its lysergic viscosity but still ultimately moving toward something. Even in comparison to “The Exalted King” and “Anaphora,” hearing “Anatta” feels like walking into a temple, its sense of ritual and vague Eastern influence coming through clearer than the production itself.

About that. The Exalted King was recorded in a rehearsal space — presumably The Cosmic Dead‘s — and it plays well off that roughness. The ending of “Anatta” approaches bombast thanks in no small part to its sonically raw presentation, and the echoed voice samples — I don’t even know why I should have to point out that they’re echoed; fucking everything is echoed, and rightly so — that begin “Anaphora” come off all the weirder for the canned sound. That said, as “Anaphora” develops, McKay‘s guitars offer some melodic sensibility in playing off the bass line, and that actually comes through pretty clearly in a kind of jazzy progression, so it’s not like The Cosmic Dead are relying on their production (or lack of production) to convey their aesthetic. More likely they just wanted the tape to sound as natural as possible.

I can’t argue either with the intent or the result. While I might wonder what these players might be able to do in a studio setting, bringing their blend of drone and heavy psych to bear in layer after layer of full-bodied guitar swirl, like a live album from similarly-minded German trio Electric Moon, part of the appeal of The Exalted King is its purported lack of structure and how stable The Cosmic Dead are able to keep the flow in these songs, “Anaphora” reveling in decades of space rock development to hone a mood at once laid back and, thanks in no small part to Aborida‘s repetitive and slowly changing basslines, resoundingly hypnotic. It’s almost like they don’t play music in measures. Like these used to be five-minute instrumentals that broke the cell wall and are leaking out over the course of 70 minutes.

It’s not going to be for everyone. The Cosmic Dead may not be growing or blasting or screaming or pummeling, but make no mistake. This is extreme music. The Exalted King puts the Scottish outfit at the fore of a still-rising movement of heavy psych jammers, and its live feel is frighteningly genuine. As the fourth release from The Cosmic Dead since April 2011, one imagines we’re standing on the launch point of a considerable discography. So long as they can continue to come together to serve an overarching atmosphere rather than give into noodling indulgence (not to say there’s no self-indulgence at work here, I’m speaking relatively), these explorers should find themselves in the hall of the mountain grill in no time. Jam on, gents.

The Cosmic Dead on Thee Facebooks

Dub Ditch Picnic Records

Having released a live album earlier this year and a self-titled tape in 2011 (review here) and the prior Psychonaut, Glasgow space rockers The Cosmic Dead have made their new full-length, The Exalted King, available on tape through Dub Ditch Picnic and for download through their Bandcamp page. News just came in as well that they’ve been added to the formidable Roadburn 2013 lineup, so get your head into some jams:

Glasgow’s The Cosmic Dead will bring their  jammy space-rock to Roadburn Festival 2013 on Saturday, April 20th at the 013 venue in Tilburg, Holland.

“Since 2010, The Cosmic Dead have been exploring the outer reaches of Krautrock, doom and psychedelia, tasting the extremes of sound and fusing them into a single, all-enveloping web of stratospheric riffing, otherworldly ambience and kosmische textures that has spread itself across countless shows throughout the UK, two full-lengths and a live collaboration with the king of Can, Damo Suzuki.

“For anyone who hasn’t yet stood before the Dead and their live homage to the cosmos, expect religious devotion to synthesised dreamworlds, subsonic grooves, guitaristic splendour and the vast, hypnotic sounds of Hawkwind and Popol Vuh eternally jamming in the Möbius strip of time and space” –David Bowes.

Roadburn Festival 2013 will run for four days from Thursday, April 18th to Sunday, April 21st, 2013 (the traditional Afterburner event) at the 013 venue in Tilburg, Holland. Pre-sales will start, October 4th, 2012.

They’re on a search for space, and on their 80-minute debut cassette, Scottish psych rockers The Cosmic Dead find it. The tape is self-titled and also known as Cozmik Tape I, released by Who Can You Trust? Records, and the band seems to be centered around a varied lineup, mostly instrumental guitar-bass-drums three-piece with synth added. If all that sounds pretty nebulous, the music contained on the four tracks of The Cosmic Dead follows suit, geared as it is toward massive Hawkwindian swirling jams. Side A feels grand enough, with opener “The Black Rabbit” stretching toward 19 minutes, “Spice Melange Spectrum” at a relatively manageable 6:45 and “The Slow Dead of the Infinite Godhead” at 13:44, but The Cosmic Dead are just waiting for the side to flip so they can unleash the interstellar sprawl of timebending they’ve dubbed “Father Sky, Mother Earth” – a solid 40 minutes (okay, it’s only 39:59) of multidimensional psychedelia. Kudos to the band for being able to pay attention to what they’re doing for that long, let alone making something anyone might want to hear out of it.

But then, I guess that is the question. As The Cosmic Dead propel toward the outer limits of deep space (rock), the number of those who are going to be willing to follow them on the trip is going to dwindle, and though “Father Sky, Mother Earth” unfolds gracefully over the course of its first 10 minutes or so, James T. McKay topping oscillator noise with sporadic soft guitar flourishes, one might already be so hypnotized by the preceding 39 minutes of material that they miss it completely when the song begins to pick up. I guess that’s the tradeoff with this kind of psychedelia, that in part you’re just supposed to go with it wherever it takes you, but to miss out on the quality bass work of Omar Aborida (who appears on “Father Sky, Mother Earth” and “The Slow Death of the Infinite Godhead,” while Josh Longton handles duties for the first two cuts on Side A) is really a loss. The songs are worth paying attention to, is the point I’m making, but it’s hard to do that on a release so densely packed and purposefully repetitive. Life is busy. A lot can happen in 80 minutes.

Read more »

So the headline’s a bit misleading. They’re going to jail more in the Johnny Cash sense than the Nick Oliveri sense. Either way, it’s a fascinating story. The classic Scottish heavy rockers will also release their soon-to-be-reviewed new album, A Different Game, through Ripple Music on Oct. 4. Obviously, more on that to come, but in the meantime, it seems playing to prisoners isn’t the extent of Iron Claw‘s charitable nature.

The PR wire has details:

Scottish proto-metal pioneers Iron Claw return with a long-awaited album of gritty, blues-based melodic heavy rock that is already garnering album-of-the-year accolades from the press. The 13-track album, A Different Game, is scheduled for UK release on Oct. 3 and worldwide release on Oct. 4, just in time for the band’s CD release event to be held at the Barlinnie Prison in Glasgow, Scotland on Oct. 5.

“The release of this album marks the realization of a lifelong dream for each of us in the band,” says guitarist Jimmy Ronnie. “To be honest, it’s something that I had thought had passed me by. But it’s not just any album. It’s the record that Iron Claw always needed to make — hard, heavy, guitar-based rock with its roots in the blues. I’m delighted to say that we’ve succeeded in capturing the live spirit of the band on this record.”

The Barlinnie Prison gig is more than just a CD release event. The performance is sponsored by Governor Derek McGill to help show the prisoners that there are healthier alternatives to crime, such as playing and creating emotionally stimulating music.

“I am confident the prisoners in Barlinnie will love this gig,” McGill states, “This is not about entertainment for prisoners; it is to let them see alternative recreational pursuits that can lead them away from crime, introduce them to hobbies such as music that can give them a fresh start.”

The benevolent beings of Iron Claw have also announced that they will be headlining a charity event on Sep. 25 at Comlongon Rocks, which will assist Cash for Kids and Cancer Research. 22 bands and six DJs, and all for a mere £10! For more information, please follow the link: http://www.comlongonrocks.com

It would be literal nonsense — in that it wouldn’t make any sense at all — for me to review Hawk, the new collaboration record between Isobel Campbell (formerly of Belle and Sebastian) and Mark Lanegan (ex-Screaming Trees, Queens of the Stone Age, etc.), but I got it today and some of it is pretty killer in a moody pop kind of way. I don’t know what it’s doing out by you, but “Snake Song” is perfect for the gray humidity inflicting itself on the valley this evening. Enjoy: