There are few psychedelic escapes as distinctive as that of Craig Williamson‘s Lamp of the Universe. The Hamilton, New Zealand, solo artist is now 27 years deep into the exploration with the project — this year makes it 25 since the first album, The Cosmic Union, which has already been reissued — and Existence of the Self reconciles with some of that personal history in a piece like second cut “Ship of Eternity,” based around acoustic guitar and sitar drone with tabla percussion and Williamson‘s at-times-fragile vocals, the human presence conveying a searching that’s been evident in creative growth now across (I think?) 15 full-lengths, but also accounts for later movements in its mellotron-centered second half.

Layering has always been a part of Lamp of the Universe‘s approach, both by necessity — it would be difficult for Williamson to handle the sitar, the guitar, the percussion, the various synths and the singing all at once — and by aesthetic, which is to say, the balance and depth of the mix is also an instrument being utilized in the recording. Existence of the Self is characteristic in this at its outset as “Sceptre of Healing” unfolds with lush and ethereal melody that will be familiar to those who have followed Williamson on this journey likewise outward and inward, and the opening track signals some measure of departure from late 2023’s Kaleidoscopic Mind (review here), which had been following a trajectory toward a more full-band-style sound, principally expressed in the use of a full drum kit.

Williamson, of course, is no stranger to bands. His roots in the heavy rockers Datura, or his stint with the trio Arc of Ascent in the first half of the 2010s, or his current, ongoing solo band Dead Shrine, whose second album, Cydonia Mensa (review here), came out in April 2025, all provide relevant examples, but while Lamp of the Universe has a history of collaborations and in the last couple years has produced releases working with Dr. Space of Øresund Space Collective (review here) and Trappist Afterland (discussed here), it also retains an identity that’s readily apparent throughout the six-song arc of Existence of the Self.

Some of what that means is you’ll know it’s Lamp of the Universe when you hear it, if you know the project or Williamson‘s work with and around it. That’s a strength in terms of aural persona and the material in question, even if the tradeoff is there’s probably little in Existence of the Self that will be a blindside, even with the drums in “Mantric Waves” and the eight-minute penultimate title-track and the cinematic blend of mellotron and other keyboards in subsequent closer “Arkkadian Ritual,” but this too is part of the appeal.

Especially given the longterm nature of the project and its expressive, Eastern-stylized core, a strong thread of continuity exists from album to album while a fittingly organic progression in songwriting, arrangement, delivery and production. Thus, while most of the ‘shock factor’ for longtime fans will be in how folkish “Ship of Eternity” is in relation to Williamson‘s recent output, or in the way “Mantric Waves” (the longest inclusion here at 8:49) uses repetition to create a sense of drone that’s just as likely as not what the title is speaking to without giving up actual forward movement, the album is part of a throughline of crafted manifestation.

All of this is to say that whatever elements across Existence of the Self might feel familiar to longtime listeners, that’s an asset, not a hindrance to the listening experience. And every record is somebody’s introduction. I’ve been listening to Williamson‘s records for over 20 years, and writing about them nearly that long as well (predating this site), but in the warm fluidity of strum in “Sceptre of Healing,” the swirl and shaker-based movement of “Into the Light” and the outbound direction of “Existence of the Self” and “Arkkadian Ritual” at the record’s finish, I have to think that this LP, more than some of the other recent offerings under the Lamp of the Universe banner, would make a suitable place for a new listener to get on board. I know that sometimes when a band, artist, etc., has a significant back catalog, that in itself can be a barrier since as a newcomer it seems like there’s a whole world (spoiler in this case: there is a world) to take on and who the hell knows where to begin that process, but much of the scope of Lamp of the Universe is accounted for here, in some measure or another.

For that reason, if Existence of the Self — and surely there’s no lack of self-awareness at this point in Williamson‘s songwriting — is or would be your first experience with Lamp of the Universe, it’s a good place to start, because while it speaks somewhat to the molten psych-folk serenity of early days, it does so as part of a framework that’s grown broader-reaching over the last two and a half decades while maintaining its central crux. The acoustic guitar, the sitar, and Williamson‘s voice are, in some ways, part of that crux, and the expanded arrangements around them feel built up through exploration. In some ways, one might approach Existence of the Self in pairs.

“Sceptre of Healing” and “Ship of Eternity” set forth on the journey. “Mantric Waves” and “Into the Light” carry a sense of motion and push deeper through the psychedelic far-out, while “Existence of the Self,” with its soulful strum and down-to-get-down sleek underlying groove mark the arrival point and “Arkkadian Ritual” backs that with a particular feeling of space. I don’t know if Williamson intended the flow of Existence of the Self to be that kind of pilgrimage narrative or not, but it’s a structure that has let me engage the album as a whole work while accounting for the shifts in mood and tone throughout, and to which the overarching procession holds up. It’s a fitting moment for Lamp of the Universe to look back and see the path laid out behind, but Williamson has always kept a (third?) eye directed on the future, and that very much remains the case. In concept and realization, singular.

Lamp of the Universe, Existence of the Self (2026)

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It’s technically true that the last Lamp of the Universe LP was 2023’s Kaleidoscope Mind (review here), it’s also true that’s not as long ago as it seems. Three years? Well that record came out in November and it’s January, so really more like two-plus. And in the interim, Craig Williamson — auteur of the project for over 25 years — has released a 2024 collaborative LP with Dr. Space (review here), and a limited 7″ collab with Trappist Afterland (discussed here), while also putting out the second full-length from his other solo-outfit, the heavier-rocking Dead Shrine (review here), so there hasn’t been any real dearth of activity. Suits me just fine.

That said, a new Lamp of the Universe album is only going to be welcome in my mind, and Existence of the Self bears out the assertions below of things like “looking backwards and forwards” and harkening back to the early days of Williamson‘s acid folk exploration, laced with sitar and meditative vibing. Comprised of six songs, it’s a divergence from, well, some of Williamson‘s divergences, relying less on drums, synth and other elements that have surfaced in his work in recent years, and instead digging into the foundations of the project.

I’ll have more to say about it closer to the release, but here’s the news for now, hoisted from socials and Bandcamp:

LAMP OF THE UNIVERSE – New Album “Existence of the Self”. Out on Sound Effect Records February 26th 2026.

“Emerging from the New Zealand wilderness and first new album in almost 3 years, Craig Williamson has returned. With a very transcendental, meditative, tranced album, somehow looking backwards and forwards at the same time.

All the familiar aspects are present from that early Acoustic, Sitar, Folk/Psych Lamp of the Universe sound, but there is a more enlightened spiritual vibe that exists here.”

February 26th “Existence of the Self”
Lamp of the Universe
Sound Effect Records SER151

Tracklisting:
1. Sceptre of Healing
2. Ship of Eternity
3. Mantric Waves
4. Into the Light
5. Existence of the Self
6. Arkkadian Ritual

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Lamp of the Universe, “Ship of Eternity”

 

[Click play below to stream Dead Shrine’s Cydonia Mensa in full. Album is out tomorrow through Kozmik Artifactz and can be ordered here: https://kozmik-shop.com/search/?qs=dead+shrine.]

Prolific songwriter Craig Williamson offers Cydonia Mensa as the second full-length from the heavy-swinging, psych-rocking Dead Shrine, his third solo-project. It follows behind the project’s 2023 debut, The Eightfold Path (review here), and the 2024 collaboration Lamp of the Universe Meets Dr. Space (review here), for which the Hamilton, New Zealand-based composer, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist donned his long-running acid-folk band persona shortly after reissuing the debut album from his turn-of-the-century-era heavy rock outfit, Datura, on Ripple Music. One could go further back — Lamp of the Universe‘s second LP has a reissue out on Sound Effect Records, and that project’s last album, Kaleidoscope Mind (review here), came out later in 2023 after The Eightfold Path — but to place Cydonia Mensa in Williamson‘s oeuvre, it’s not difficult to hear the love of heavy psychedelic forms driving the material.

That is to say, Williamson sounds like he’s having a blast across the eight songs and 42 minutes that comprise the album. Despite the full-band sound, the committed DIYer is able to hone a sense of intimacy in the penultimate “Evolution Garden” that harkens back to earlier Lamp-style acoustic-based fare while also reinterpreting at its root the strum from Alice in Chains‘ “Rooster.” That’s a dig-in unto itself on the album, but by no means does it take that long for the fun to make itself known.

The opening cut, “Serpents of the Sun” is a hooky blowout that introduces itself with a crash-in and almost immediate movement into the verse. Big swing, big tones, and plenty of space in the mix for all of it. It’s a rocker and he knows it and there’s more to come. Some bawdiness in the vocals, a little burl tossed in, perhaps, adds to the song’s encouraging push, and soon, “Cydonia Mensa” picks up with its lower-ended, slower roll, with choice backing vocals and time kept on the bell of the ride.

It’s a sleek, grooving classic stoner boogie, and it speaks to genre in a way that Williamson‘s last outwardly heavy-rocking project, the trio Arc of Ascent, wasn’t necessarily willing to do. And where Lamp of the Universe explores spiritual ideas through music drawing from folk traditions, space experimentalism, melted-cortex psych, and so on, Dead Shrine expresses itself in the motion of its riff worship.

I’ll say as well I can’t remember the last time I heard a drummer have as much fun as Williamson sounds like he’s having wailing on his snare coming out of the first verse of “Sacred Light.” It’s a short stretch on the cowbell-infused third cut, from a couple seconds before it hits the one-minute mark until about 1:10 when the next verse starts, but that pop-pop-pop surrounded by the crashing of cymbals and the kick beneath, to me, is exactly what Dead Shrine is all about in terms of Williamson‘s raw enjoyment.

The end-product is different enough to be a different band, but the joy of exploration is the same. It’s there in “Sacred Light,” as well as in the “Yeah, baby!” of the title-cut, the way “Monuments” subtly brings in sitar drone and a synthier psychedelia — it might be mellotron behind the more forward instrumentation of the mix, but if not, it’s some other kind of vintage whathaveyou leading into the appropriately wah-drenched solo — expanding the relatively straight-ahead scope up to that point ahead of pushing further out on side B, swaggering in “Temple of Saturn” with a shove in the chorus rawer vocal.

The vocals feel like a standout. Not so much because they’re radically changed from what Williamson has done before in Dead Shrine or Arc of Ascent or even latter-day Lamp of the Universe, but as someone constantly redrawing the lines and adjusting the balances between the various intentions of his craft, the vocal performance here is striking in its confidence, and while he’s long since been able in the studio to do the work of a complete band one layer at a time and mix it together to get a players-in-room feel, I don’t know if Williamson has ever sounded as much like a frontman as he does on Cydonia Mensa.

Returning in “Redeemer,” the backing vocals of the title-track highlight just how forward the leads are and how much of Cydonia Mensa‘s personality derives from the attitude on display and the strut that coincides with the rampant swing in these songs. For that alone, the impression is that Williamson has figured out something about what he wants Dead Shrine to be in terms of method, and while it’s ultimately well within the reach of his songwriting as demonstrated up to this point — that is, he’s not taking on an entirely new stylistic approach to writing heavy music — it’s emblematic of what drives him that after more than a quarter-century of banging away at various ideas and projects and directions, he’s able to create a piece like the near-eight-minute capper “Illumination Through Knowledge,” which makes a point of uniting all the sides for one final outbound march into the noise and hand-percussion that ends the album.

In the interest of honesty, you should know that I approach this second Dead Shrine album as a fan, but given the reception of the debut, I don’t think I’m alone in that. The fact that Williamson is still exploring and still finding new ways to write and arrange songs that are both fresh and so distinctively his own underscores in my mind his singular contributions to the heavy underground, and the resonant joy of some of Cydonia Mensa‘s heaviest moments — I’m not taking away from “Evolution Garden” there; the penultimate track is essential to the flow for side B and putting the listener in the proper headspace for the closer — adds a feeling of serenity that not even the most blissed-out effects could hope to hone. Whether you’ve followed Dead Shrine since its inception or you’ve never heard of Williamson, this or any of his other projects, it doesn’t matter. The album will still grab you if you let it. I advise you do.

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You know how many of these they’re making? Well, probably not yet if you haven’t read the info below, but the answer is 60. Sixty.

That’d be fine if “Lakeland Storm” — the single song broken up across two sides of the notably limited collaborative 7″ from Melbourne weirdo-folky Trappist Afterland and New Zealand psych-folk experimentalist Lamp of the Universe — wasn’t so gosh darn encompassing, but it is, pulling from both sides of its component songwriter team, growing tripper in the A side as it plays out while easing on acoustic strum into a Mellotron-laced contemplation after its soft verses have subsided.

Look. I don’t know that either party will see this — I’m in touch with Craig LOTU sometimes about records and stuff but I wouldn’t presume either he or Roger from Trappist Afterland necessarily catch everything written about their projects — but I’ll say regardless that what comes through most from Lakeland Storm is potential. If I was the bigwig industry fatcat calling the shots on such things, I’d send them back into the studio to come up with six more songs plus a solo interlude from each of them, take the best four or five plus whatever other weirdo noises happened in the process and make an LP. I’m not in charge of that stuff, however. Mostly these days I do the dishes.

But let the potential here be your takeaway, and golly, I hope they do more. The full stream from Trappist Afterland‘s Bandcamp is below, as well as info on how to order if you’re feeling lucky:

Lamp Of The Universe & Trappist Afterland
Lakeland Storm
Transluscent Red Vinyl 7″ Lathe Cut
60 Copies
(Future Grave FG 32)
PREORDER

It a delight to announce this superb collaboration from Lamp Of The Universe and Trappist Afterland.

This one had been on the cards for a while and I was really excited to hear the finished results which are really superb. Here we have one long psychedlically enhanced folk track which perfectly blends both artists’ stylings. The track has been split into two parts to fit onto a 7″ 45rpm lathe cut.

Cut onto transluscent red vinyl in an edition of 60 numbered copies.
The cover image has a old photograph of Anzacs in the trenches in Gallipoli.
Covers printed onto cream 300gsm hammered finish card.
Lathes cut by Phil Macy @ 345 RPM.
ONE COPY PER PERSON PLEASE.
++++THIS IS A PREORDER WHICH WILL BE HOPEFULLY POSTED/SHIPPED OUT TOWARDS THE END OF APRIL.

Cost as follows:
The lathe cut costs £15.00 plus the following additional postage/shipping cost:
UK = £3.00
Europe = £5.50 GBP
USA & ROW = £7.50 GBP
Australia = £8.75 GBP
Paypal to roger.linney@btinternet.com
PLEASE CONTACT ME BEFORE ORDERING

Head over to the Reverb Worship group to pre-order.

Trappist Afterland
Roger Linney

https://www.reverbworship.com/

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Lamp of the Universe & Trappist Afterland, Lakeland Storm

Wasn’t it just last week I was talking about Craig Williamson? Just to save you looking, yes, it was, and while that post may have been about his Lamp of the Universe solo-project, I did dare to go so far as drop a hint near the end in case anyone read that deep saying a Datura reissue was in the works. Well, full disclosure, the reason I knew that last week was because it was a couple months ago I suggested Datura to Ripple Music for the ‘Beneath the Desert Floor’ series of underheralded turn-of-the-century reissues. Frankly, there are few bands who come to mind more readily to fit the qualifications.

Datura‘s 1999 sophomore LP, Visions for the Celestial (discussed here), will be out through Ripple Music on Jan. 17. Can confirm it sounds great. You’ll find more background and such from the PR wire below, and of course the full thing is already streaming because it’s been out for 25 years. Go figure, I know.

Dig it:

New Zealand stoner rockers DATURA to reissue “Visions For the Celestial” album on January 17th via Ripple Music; preorders available now.

Early 90s groundbreaking stoner rockers from New Zealand DATURA are set to reissue their quintessential 1999 studio album “Visions For The Celestial” as part of Ripple Music’s “Beneath The Desert Floor” special vinyl series this January 17th.

Stream + preorder “Visions For the Celestial” at this location: https://ripplemusic.bandcamp.com/album/beneath-the-desert-floor-chapter-8-datura-visions-for-the-celestial

Formed in August 1992 in Hamilton, New Zealand, DATURA started as a four-piece Sabbath-worshipping outfit. After a few member changes, the group settled on the lineup of Craig Williamson on bass and vocals, Brent Middlemiss on guitar, and Jon Burnside on drums. Three now long-lost cassette demos ensued they hit the studio to record and then release their February ’98 debut album “All Is One”. Quickly moving forward with intermittent touring and continuing to write new material, the band gathered in the studio again in early 1999, to tape what was to be the final album “Visions for the Celestial”.

Written by Williamson and jammed on with the band, “Visions For The Celestial” was his outwardly spacious, psychedelic, mindset at the time — his visions for the outer realms of space and time. With a myriad of inspirations ranging from Hawkwind, John Coltrane, Monster Magnet, Kyuss, Sleep, Man’s Ruin Records and acid folk, DATURA was set. Says the band: “2025 will be 25 years since their sophomore and last studio album was originally released, and Datura are beyond honoured to have Ripple Music re-release “Visions For The Celestial” once again, in glorious vinyl, for you all to experience!”

“Visions For The Celestial” is the 8th chapter of Californian label Ripple Music’s “Beneath The Desert Floor” vinyl series, which unearths treasures from the golden days of stoner and desert rock with releases from Fireball Ministry, The Awesome Machine, Glitter Wizard, Witch White Canyon, Rollerball, The Sabians and Dear Deceased. All reissues can be streamed and purchased at this location: https://ripplemusic.bandcamp.com/

DATURA “Visions For The Celestial” reissue
Out January 17th on Ripple Music (LP/digital)

Bandcamp preorder: https://ripplemusic.bandcamp.com/album/beneath-the-desert-floor-chapter-8-datura-visions-for-the-celestial

US preorder: https://ripplemusic.bigcartel.com/product/beneath-the-desert-floor-chapter-8-datura-visions-for-the-celestial-vinyl

TRACKLIST:
1. Magnetise
2. Sunshine in Purple
3. Reaching Out
4. Euphoria
5. Voyage
6. Mantra

DATURA:
Craig Williamson – Bass & vocals
Brent Middlemiss – Guitar
Jon Burnside – Drums

https://www.facebook.com/daturastonerrock
https://daturastonerrock.bandcamp.com/

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Datura, Visions for the Celestial (2025 reissue)

Because Lamp of the Universe has never stopped growing over the last 23 years since the project’s first release, it’s easy to listen to 2002’s second album, Echo in Light, as a more primitive version of what the solo-project of multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and producer Craig Williamson (now also Dead Shrine, ex-Arc of Ascent, ex-Datura) has become over time. But, hearing the second Lamp of the Universe full-length unfold over an otherworldly 54 minutes, Williamson was already building on what the one-man-band’s debut, 2001’s The Cosmic Union (reissue review here, discussed here), laid out in terms of scope with its Eastern inner-universe-exploration aesthetic and depth of arrangement, and it’s kind of astonishing in hindsight how much there is happening in songs like “Freedom to Godliness,” which opens with its nuance of sitar and nylon-string acoustic, tabla-style hand percussion, and Williamson‘s sweetly floating melodic vocals, and the sense of adventure brought to the aptly-named “Resonance,” which adds synthesizer drones to the procession; a tantric, cosmic vision of psychedelic folk for which I’ve now spent more than two decades trying to find an analog and failing outright.

To put it another way, there’s plenty of psych-folk out there. No shortage. I’ve never heard anyone else do psych-folk, coming from a background in heavy rock, with a specific bent toward Subcontinental influences but yeah definitely also space, while sounding (A:) not at all like a put-on and (B:) both exploratory and memorable. The repetition of “Resonance” as it moves into its last stretch, organ coming back over sitar and guitar after the vocals have dropped to silence, for example. That’s a march. And in an outwardly-heavier Williamson incarnation like Dead Shrine (also a solo-project), it might hit harder, but Lamp of the Universe‘s gentle, music-as-a-kindness approach doesn’t lose the feeling of worship or ritual or celebration. It is singularly gorgeous and, to my experience, a unique sound built from familiar elements. It occupies its own space in terms of aesthetic and again, I’ve had an ear out for something that might fit a decent “more like this” recommendation for over 20 years to no avail whatsoever. If you’ve got one, I’d love to hear it and be like, “yeah, okay, but not quite,” which is how it usually goes.

Included on Echo in Light are two longer-form mostly-instrumentals, “Our Celestial Flow” (10:38) and the album-closer “Dream Sequence” (16:59), the latter of which uses distant, echoing voice as part of its ambient affect. Both emphasize experimentalism. “Our Celestial Flow” lays out a backing thread of organ and low-mixed rock drums behind mellow strums of wah guitar, as if to remind via the subtlest of funk that the first album was in decent portion about screwing, and unfolds as a graceful self-jam. By the time Williamson is four minutes in, he sounds like a room full of players dug into feeling their way through the proceedings, prescient of mellow-psych as a style and as hypnotic in reality as it seems to be in intent. Lead guitar weaves through most of it, but after the eight-minute mark, there are vocals over the drum fills for a moment, wavering and disappearing again as though to make the long-since-entranced listener question whether or not the actually happened until they’re confirmed by the intertwining voices at the finish. “Our Celestial Flow” is not mistitled.

And neither is “Dream Sequence,” for that matter, with its drifting collage of sound, departing from the love-as-spiritual-act ethic through which much of Echo in Light operates in pieces like the penultimate “Pyramids of Sun,” “Freedom to Godliness” or the flute-laced “Love,” which follows “Our Celestial Flow” by redirecting the mantra rather than breaking it. Cohesive and expressive in its purposes, Lamp of the Universe is of course patient in the execution, but even as it approaches 17 minutes long, “Dream Sequence” doesn’t lose sight of its goal in manifesting a psychedelic impressionism while maintaining the ambience and mood of the album that precedes it, and it even answers some of the wah and soloing of “Our Celestial Flow” as the suitably hallucinatory course unwinds, though the context is more serene in the closer with synth sounding like manipulated birdsong (maybe also being it) and washes of cymbals and chimes filling out the reaches of the mix.

In light of Williamson‘s collaboration earlier this year with Scott “Dr. Space” Heller for the hopefully-not-a-one-off Lamp of the Universe Meets Dr. Space LP, Enters Your Somas (review here), “Dream Sequence” feels particularly prescient of Lamp of the Universe‘s experimentalism in a way that defines a lot of Echo in Light as compares to The Cosmic Union, but even as it expands the parameters, the sophomore outing reaffirms the stylistic lean of the first. In doing so, however, Echo in Light works vividly to set up and set forth a progression in songwriting that Williamson is still following today. Lamp of the Universe‘s last couple standalone albums — let’s say 2023’s Kaleidoscope Mind (review here) and 2022’s The Akashic Field (review here) — have leaned more into a rock-based sound, and that shift feels organic in light of Williamson‘s three ’10s-era albums with Arc of Ascent, which was a full band, and the fact that between those two Lamp records, Dead Shrine made its own full-length debut with The Eightfold Path (review here). It’s not always easy listening from one end to the other as releases vary in their degrees of drone, heft, groove and melody, but there’s an awful lot you can hear informed by the work being done across Echo in Light, and a revisit finds it not only a worthy successor to a first LP that I consider a landmark, whatever anyone else thinks of it, but a preface to continued sonic evolution.

It won’t be long before Williamson is heard from again. Dead Shrine already has a single up from an impending second record, and again, Lamp of the Universe does have a release out this year (the aforementioned Dr. Space collab), so it’s not like there isn’t current work to dig into. And I hear a Datura reissue might be in the works as well. If you want to believe rumors you read on the internet, that is.

As always, I hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading.

—

Taking yesterday off for Thanksgiving was the right idea. I spent most of the day back and forth doing hosting stuff. We had 16 people, which is about the usual complement of family and close friends. It was The Patient Mrs.’ show. She baked for days, ran point on turkeys (we had two 18-pound birds; investment in future leftovers) and the timing of everything. It all went well. Nobody left mad, and everybody left full. The Pecan mostly played on the Switch all day, but at least she was around if not at the table with us. We’ll get there. She’s seven.

Today’s Black Friday, which is sad because no one has any money, everything costs a ton and the idea that people are actually saving on sales rings hollow to me. I worked retail. A month before Black Friday, the prices go up. Black Friday doorbusters! Get ’em before the tariffs kick in as if the cost of any such thing would ever be passed anywhere but the consumer. I guess capitalism just makes me sad now. Needless to say I’ve been letting a lot of the big-merch-sale Bandcamp updates that’ve come in this week go unread. Artists shouldn’t be scraping for bucks. Just imagine a better world. For two seconds. It won’t take you long to get there.

But yeah, I don’t think we’re hitting up the strip mall today. The Patient Mrs. mom has been around the last couple days, and helped out yesterday a lot, which was doubly impressive because she had her knee replaced like a week and a half ago. Gravy would be made, dammit. I’m not that tough. On Tuesday, I drove to Providence, Rhode Island — yes, I made a stop at Armageddon Shop; bought a Blind Guardian CD; they were playing Candlemass when I walked it and it felt welcoming — to pick up two turkeys from the farm we used to get our chicken from when we lived in Massachusetts, and picked up The Patient Mrs.’ mom on my way back south in Connecticut before proceeding to sit in some of the worst traffic of my life. I-95, man. Too many people, not enough road. It took four hours to get from CT to NJ. I’ve done it in less than two.

Living to tell the tale from that doesn’t feel like nothing. Tomorrow we’ll take her back north — she can make gravy, but handling a car would be a big ask — and I assume hang out for a bit in Connecticut, then Sunday we’re having a playdate/brunch for The Pecan because, well, I already vacuumed and when your kid plays with another kid now you hang out with the parents, apparently. When I was a kid that wasn’t the case, I don’t think. But whatever. It’ll be fine.

Whatever you’re up to, I hope you have a great and safe weekend. On the Thanksgiving theme, I am incredibly grateful for the continued support this site gets in its weird, quirky kind of mission to Share Music And Write About Stuff™, and if you’ve never heard Lamp of the Universe before and are listening to Echo in Light now for the first time, golly I hope you dig it.

Thanks again for reading. Back Monday.

FRM.

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The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Dave Buschemeyer of Omen Astra

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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

Hi. My name is Dave Buschemeyer. I am a musician, a printmaker/ artist and have been recently diving into performance art. I play guitar in Omen Astra and have spent time in New Day Rising, Spread The Disease, Die In The Light and a bunch more. I came to make music in the hardcore scene in the early 90’s. It quickly became a passion of mine after being introduced to punk (as a thrash metal head) in the late 80’s and going to see shows in the grimy punk scene in Toronto. Shortly after, I became interested in mixed-media art, went to University for Philosophy and ended up developing a love for print. I am currently back in University to finish a BFA in Print Media with an eye to transitioning to an MFA in either print or Interdisciplinary studies. Inside this very shortened timeline… I was a plumber by trade, which is a very long story.

Describe your first musical memory.

I’m unsure it can be considered the first, because memory is always being changed anytime you think of a thing, but I would say that one of the earliest memories I have is as a child watching my mom sing “Only The Lonely” by Roy Orbison in the kitchen. My mom really loved to sing and Orbison was one of her favorites. Years later, as a teen, my parents asked me to go and see him live in concert with them. I said no. I now recount that as one of those regrettable things you do as a young person that thinks they know some things. Of course, I am now a huge fan of Roy Orbison, and I wish I could go back in time and convince my younger self to stop saying No to everything.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

Best is a tough thing to consider because I strive pretty hard to avoid summing up experiences in a pyramid. However… I will answer it this way… One of my most notable musical memories is seeing Faith No More in 1990 in Mississauga, Ontario. At this show, I got kicked out for stage diving and security wouldn’t let me back in, but by some luck someone affiliated with the band opened the door and motioned to Security to let the few of us standing out there to come back in. We promised profusely not to stage dive anymore… and then quickly made our way to the front to continue. This was probably the one event that set up my love for Faith No More and almost all things Mike Patton.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

This is a big one for me… as a young adult man I had my ill-informed sense of atheism tested to the core via experiences developed in meditation. In particular, I had a couple “experiences” that made me see just how interconnected all of existence is. This was an incredibly profound shift in my own consciousness that informs who I am today and has sparked a whole printmaking path based on wanting to find ways to visually show something of this inner understanding. Quickly, I recognized that words, being finite packets of meaning, would never be able to show something of the depth of insight as Interconnectedness. So, art being the language of soul and the heart was the closest I could come to doing so. When it comes to music, I am always trying to write something cohesive and final, something closed, something that feels complete and whole. The closest I have come to that is the Omen Astra album. For me, it is a high water mark in my creative music making because it feels the most resolved and completed. I am very fond of that record.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

Artistic progression either leads one of two ways. An artist is either singular-minded and decides to forge a path based on their ideological assumptions, or an artist is open to existence and allows the dizzying depths of it to inform them of their path. In this, I am describing stages of how I have approached making creative work. There was a point where I realized that performing an action ideologically, or for ideological reasons, was somehow less important or felt less meaningful than if I made work based on what is bubbling up in me in the moment. Without going into it too much, I am starting to find that art that is based on ideology is often boring and rarely gets me to ask more questions of the work. But art that comes from a sense of openness and free play, and originates from a place of curiosity is often art that has me looking deeper. The first kind of art, as I see it, is making statements about the world, and comes from a place of supposed knowing. The second kind is art that comes from a place of openness and wonder. It is this second kind that I am often drawn to. So, an ideologically driven person will make statements like “you cannot take the politics out of art”. A more nuanced and “open” artist may say “There are political ramifications in everything, but I choose not to engage in that because it only says something about the social realm… whereas I am attempting to talk about the feel of a snowflake on the tip of my tongue.”

How do you define success?

I have no specific definition of success, except that for me if it feels right, and everything is aligning after all of the effort, then it is successful.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

I have witnessed a couple people die in front of me. And there have been times where I wish I was spared that somehow, but I’m honestly of a different mind now. I think those experiences have served to give me a much greater appreciation for people and life. I try to say Thank You, and to smile, and to be helpful as much as possible… all because I’ve seen just how short and tragic human existence can be. I guess the answer is… at this point in my progression there isn’t anything I wish I hadn’t seen/ witnessed.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

I have this notion that at some point I will make some visual representation of my experiences in meditation that will be so compelling and so profoundly understood that I will no longer wish to keep creating because no better example is possible. Of course, I do realize that this will never happen, but at some point, this became heavy motivation for me to keep trying new things in my print practice in order to discover some new way of communicating it. In writing this out, I am struck by just how romantic this sounds… and also possibly how futile it really is.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

Art is a mirror for the soul. It’s most essential function is to draw out those key qualities in human existence that transcend ephemerality…. At heart, I suppose I am a Platonist. For me, the reason why great art talks to us is because on some level it’s tickling at an understanding that is already within us. And so the role of art in this way is to show our deepest, truest selves to ourselves. It is very fashionable to talk about Ephemerality and to assume that change is the nature of the entirety of existence. But, for me, when you’re art is about a pre-ephemeral state of being, about something that stands resolutely outside of change and decay, I have to reject it as a fundamental, but keep working within it to show it’s opposite. Dont’ get me wrong… ephemerality is the playstuff of the artist. I lean into it without even recognizing it, but ultimately I am always striving to say something lasting. And perhaps it is the striving itself that outlasts. I am aware that these ideas fly in the face of post-modernism and I wrestle a lot with the contradiction and feel like I’m a man displaced out of his rightful time. LOL

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

I am looking forward to art openings, record releases and any other creative thing I can get my hands into. Thank you for this interview.

LINK TREE- https://linktr.ee/davebuschemeyer

WEBSITE- https://www.davebuschemeyer.com/

PERFORMANCE- https://vimeo.com/davebuschemeyer

INSTA MUSIC- https://www.instagram.com/davebuschemeyer_music/

INSTA ART- https://www.instagram.com/davebuschemeyer_artist/

PERSONAL BC- https://davebuschemeyer.bandcamp.com/

OMEN ASTRA BC- https://omenastra.bandcamp.com/

SPREAD THE DISEASE BC- https://spreadthedisease.bandcamp.com/

NEW DAY RISING BC- https://newdayrising-hardcoreband.bandcamp.com/

DIE IN THE LIGHT BC- https://dieinthelight.bandcamp.com/

THOUGHT WAVE BC- https://thoughtwave.bandcamp.com/

THE CHINA WHITE BC- https://thechinawhite.bandcamp.com/album/the-gun-of-the-enemy

THE ABANDONED HEARTS CLUB BC- https://theabandonedheartsclub1.bandcamp.com/

THE FORMLESS FORM BC- https://formlessform.bandcamp.com/album/stillest-embrace

WITHOUT LUNGS BC- https://withoutlungs.bandcamp.com/album/simpler-times-ep

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http://www.facebook.com/omenastra

http://linktr.ee/hypaethralrecords
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http://www.instagram.com/momentofcollapserecords

Omen Astra, The End of Everything (2023)

Lamp of the Universe‘s Kaleidoscope Mind is the second full-length of 2023 from Hamilton, New Zealand’s Craig Williamson. Delivered through Sound Effect Records, it bookends the year with The Eightfold Path (review here), the debut from Williamson‘s Dead Shrine project, which is the rock-psych to Lamp of the Universe‘s psych-rock as lines that used to be more stark blur with time. Williamson late in 2022 also oversaw a reissue through Sound Effect of Lamp of the Universe‘s 2001 debut, The Cosmic Union (review here; discussed here), that followed the early-2022 LP, The Akashic Field (review here). These, together with the seven-song/40-minute Kaleidoscope Mind, are the latest manifestations of a creative progression that’s been under way for over 20 years, before Williamson even began the one-man psych-folk outfit that’s grown so cosmically expansive in the years since, weaving through bands like Arc of Ascent and Dead Shrine with an inescapable love of heavy riffing while keeping the e’er molten Lamp of the Universe separate, distinct, in its own special place.

And keeping it his own. Williamson — who sounds like he’s having fun drumming on “Ritual of Innerlight” and in the funky “Codex Moon” — plays all the instruments, as always, for Lamp of the Universe. Synth to sitar, flutes and chimes, guitar, bass, the aforementioned drums that a couple records ago were unheard of from this band, vocals, probably this or that vintage keyboard, all written, arranged, performed and recorded DIY — it is the very definition of ‘dug in.’ At nine-plus minutes, “Ritual of Innerlight” is both opener and longest track (immediate points) on Kaleidoscope Mind, and it welcomes returning and new listeners alike with a hypnotic backing drone and swirling, ethereal verses. Grounded by the drums in a way that the additional hand percussion bolsters rather than detracts from, the songs that follow the extended leadoff are by and large shorter, with the let’s-make-feedback-sexy “Codex Moon” and the righteously organ-happy, blown-out-the-drums finisher “Transfiguration,” the central riff remains extrapolated from Sleep, however far that extrapolation has taken it.

But, much like the 60-ish-year history of psychedelic rock music, Williamson has no trouble bringing these ideas into his own aural context. At the same time, it has to be pointed out that after two decades, Lamp of the Universe‘s continuing evolution is something unto itself in underground acid psych, prog, space rock, cosmic folk or whatever other genre you want either to name or make up. Kaleidoscope Mind might be the 14th full-length under the Lamp of the Universe moniker — that doesn’t include splits, etc. — and it is both in line with the trajectory of everything that’s come before it and a realization unlike anything else in the band’s catalog for the places it goes in terms of songwriting. As second cut “Golden Dawn” backs up “Ritual of Innerlight,” there’s a discernible pivot toward more straightforward structures. The song moves smoothly and fluidly over its drumbeat with a pulsing kick, and the vocals are still mellow and softly delivered, but harmonized layers are used to emphasize the chorus, and when the electric guitar sweeps in for a solo before the three-minute mark, it becomes clear that Lamp of the Universe might just be writing rock tunes this time out.

This is not a thing about which one might complain. At all. With the penultimate “Immortal Rites” notwithstanding, as that 4:42 piece is laden with sitar and acoustic guitar, very much to the roots of Lamp of the Universe on records like the aforementioned The Cosmic Union. But even that is catchier and more forward structurally. And before it, the centerpiece “Procession” anchors itself to its Mellotron line and complements it with organ and delay in low guitar notes so that even as it fades out, the presence and atmosphere remain, and the subsequent “Live of the Severing” is perhaps the most blatant hook I’ve ever heard from Lamp of the Universe, and it works. A wah solo follows the chorus and bridges to the verse, but the next chorus isn’t far off, and Williamson has organ, guitar, massive drums and a general impression of breadth in four and a half minutes. This is a project that in the past has had songs longer than 20 minutes, and whose work has in the past been expansive meditations on spirit and the universe. Four of the seven cuts here don’t hit five minutes.

Clearly some shift in methodology has taken place, but the truth is that, as noted above, Lamp of the Universe has never really been about doing the same thing over and over. Williamson‘s style is highly identifiable and characteristic — you know it when you hear him sing, and that’s true here or in Dead Shrine — and often in Lamp of the Universe is used to enhance the fluidity or the melody of the arrangements surrounding. That’s happening on Kaleidoscope Mind, but to hear Williamson bringing together ideas from the more rock-aligned side of his craft into Lamp of the Universe is satisfying, and frankly, there’s more of it. Tracks on The Akashic Field were shorter than on some other Lamp records too, and Kaleidoscope Mind is a another progressive step in that direction. But what has to be emphasized is that it’s another progressive step — on the 14th album! It’s the 14th progressive step (unless I have my numbers wrong). Williamson has been exploring just what the hell a Lamp of the Universe might be for the last 22-plus years and he’s still finding out.

That journey, and this record’s place in it, is singular. It is Williamson‘s own, and if one is a longtime fan — as I’ll profess to being, not so much as a brag as an admission of dorkdom — then Kaleidoscope Mind, with its wide open third eye and expanded definitions of heavy, is a pun-totally-intended no-brainer. That the album has “Ritual of Innerlight,” “Codex Moon,” and “Transfiguration” only makes it multifaceted and all the more a demonstration of the various places Lamp of the Universe can and does go, in this dimension and otherwise.

Lamp of the Universe, Kaleidoscope Mind (2023)

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