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

http://linktr.ee/omenastra
http://www.instagram.com/omen_astra
http://www.facebook.com/omenastra

http://linktr.ee/hypaethralrecords
​​http://instagram.com/hypaethralrecords
http://www.facebook.com/hypaethralrecords

http://www.instagram.com/protaginc

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)

Lamp of the Universe on Facebook

Lamp of the Universe on Instagram

Lamp of the Universe on Bandcamp

Sound Effect Records on Facebook

Sound Effect Records website

For however long I’ve run this site (and I know how long, I just don’t feel like talking about it), a consistent thread has been nerdery for the work of Craig Williamson, also known as the psych-mantra-folk solo-outfit Lamp of the Universe. The first post about the band on this site was in May 2009, and I’d already been a geek for that stuff for years at that point. Based in New Zealand, Williamson has stayed active all the while, putting out more than a handful of Lamp of the Universe records, as well as doing three albums with the trio Arc of Ascent — a more heavy rock-based outfit; Williamson began Lamp of the Universe following the demise of Datura, in which he played. Earlier this year, he branched back into rock territory with the new solo band Dead Shrine.

And this whole time, I’ve gone on and on about how righteous all this stuff is, how affecting and engrossing the psychedelia of Lamp of the Universe is, the creative range that takes Williamson through inner and outer universes, blah blah blah blah blah. Years of this.

So you know what happened? I saw Kaleidoscope Mind — the new album from Lamp of the Universe out Nov. 10 — was coming in the Sound Effect Records newsletter, and next thing I know I’m stopping myself from writing Williamson an email being like “OMG ANOTHER RECORD CAN I HEAR IT????” A few days later, he reached out, and I got to feel a little less embarrassed for myself.

But yeah, I’ve heard this one, and as I invariably would, I think it’s brilliant. He’s trying some new stuff, working in some funk and sexy grooves. Also sounds like he bought some new mics for his studio, and it’s pretty clear in listening that particular attention has been given to the vocals, which I don’t know if that’s true or not but it sure is what it sounds like. And the drums are killer as well. So basically, here I am, nerding out again to a Lamp of the Universe record, and I guess I don’t give a shit if I look like a goon because now I’ve told you this entire story. Is it a little embarrassing at this point? Yes. Is that going to stop me from reviewing the album? Come on.

Here’s news. A single will be premiering this week. Not here, but you’ll be able to see it on the embed below. Something to enjoy on the 12th:

Lamp of the Universe – Kaleidoscope Mind

Release date : 10th November 2023

Sound Effect Records presents the new album from New Zealand’s Psychedelic artist, Lamp of the Universe.

Multi-instrumentalist and Psych guru Craig Williamson returns with an album of classic Lamp of Universe tunes. Full of artifacts from the original era, including Mellotron, fuzz guitar, Sitar, swirling effects and trippy vocal harmonies, this album touches the Psychedelic Psoul.

7 new songs re-calling times of yester-year, and also the unlimited expanses of the future. Take a dive into the Kaleidoscope Mind.

https://www.facebook.com/lampoftheuniverse/
https://lampoftheuniverse.bandcamp.com/
https://instagram.com/craig.lotu
https://projectionrecords.bandcamp.com/

http://www.facebook.com/SoundEffectRecords
https://soundeffectrecords.bandcamp.com
https://www.soundeffect-records.gr/

Lamp of the Universe, “The Golden Dawn”

Lamp of the Universe, The Akashic Field (2022)

[Click play above to stream Dead Shrine’s “Enshrined.” The Eightfold Path is out this Friday, Feb. 24, on Kozmik Artifactz and Astral Projection.]

Dead Shrine‘s The Eightfold Path is a debut album with deep roots. The band — complete with backing vocals on “Through the Constellations,” liberal doses of organ on side A’s “Kingdom Come,” the megafuzzed “The Blackest Sun,” maybe even a bit of Echoplex on its two longer tracks, “Enshrined” and “Incantations Call,” and no shortage of depth, reach and swirl throughout — is Craig Williamson, whose more-than-two-decade pedigree in Datura, Lamp of the Universe and Arc of Ascent has made him the most crucial figure in New Zealand heavy rock and psychedelia since the days of Human Instinct and The Underdogs half a century ago.

He’s the only person involved — writing, performing all the instruments and vocals, recording, mixing, mastering; a genuine auteur — but Dead Shrine is very much a band that, if he wanted to assemble a lineup, could play live, and seems to draw from similar impulses that led to the formation of the trio Arc of Ascent circa 2010. By that time, Williamson had already established himself as a solo artist through the experimentalist acid folk of Lamp of the Universe, a go-everywhere project with a foundation in traditions psychedelic and earthbound that in recent years, and particularly on 2022’s The Akashic Field (review here), has pushed in a direction hinting toward a heavier rock sound. The dissolution of Arc of Ascent after their 2018 split with Germany’s Zone Six (review here) left Williamson without a ‘band,’ and Dead Shrine emerges as the answer to that problem, combining the solo-act construction of Lamp of the Universe with a heavier sound not unlike that fostered by Arc of Ascent but even more kin in style to Datura, who formed in 1992 and released two LPs in their time, 1998’s Allisone and 1999’s Visions for the Celestial (discussed here).

Perhaps a bit of nostalgia on Williamson‘s part? Could be, but one hesitates to assign motive. If you said he started Dead Shrine as an excuse to wail on drums and try to find the heaviest bass sound he could harness, it would be impossible to listen to The Eightfold Path opener “The Formless Soul” or the lumbering “Kingdom Come,” which follows, and not find that statement believable. Still, songs like “As Pharaohs Rise,” with its backward cymbals at the outset, open-air soloing and casual riding groove, or “Through the Constellations” on side B, executed with a languid swing and classic acid rock flourish on top of a firmly-held verse-chorus structure, resonate with a vibe that seems in conversation with both Lamp of the Universe‘s lyrical mysticism and turn-of-the-century era heavy/stoner rock more generally, playing to strengths hardly dormant in Williamson‘s output over the last 10 years but given new focus as this outfit — which is named after Lamp of the Universe‘s 2020 album (review here) — branches off to follow its own, well, path.

But whatever birthed it, and however far out it ranges in terms of heavy psych atmospheres, The Eightfold Path is a rock record and arranged accordingly. A bit of sampling at the launch of side B with “Rainbow Child” provides the only use of sitar (also some chanting), and the songs are drawn together through elements like the weight of the low end, Williamson‘s vocal patterning and melodies, the consuming levels of fuzz that drench these riffs and the blowout that ends each half of the LP in “Enshrined” and “Incantations Call” — which, as noted, are the two longest inclusions; placed penultimate “The Blackest Sun” tops six minutes, while none of the remaining cuts hits five — the former which rolls gradually into cosmic oblivion and the latter inclusive either of Mellotron or some synth adjacent to it in sound as oscillations of guitar circle across channels even after the self-jam march has hit its last crash.

As a songwriter, Williamson has little to prove, and “The Formless Soul” sets out on The Eightfold Path with a definite in-wheelhouse vibe that those who know his work will recognize, but it’s worth noting that in the long history behind him, Williamson has never made an album like this on his own. That in itself stands Dead Shrine apart, be it for newcomers or longtime followers, and is maybe some of what led to it being a new project rather than a redirection for Arc of Ascent, but these administrative concerns are tertiary at best when set alongside the realization that after about 30 years of making heavy music, Williamson is still finding yet-untrod avenues and modes of expression for his craft. That the record sounds so full — so very, very full; so very, very, very fuzzed — is a testament to his growth as a producer/engineer as well, as with even just the kick drum at the start of “Kingdom Come,” he makes clarions to the converted out of what to most groups would be passed-over afterthoughts and missed opportunities.

And the more one listens, the more is revealed throughout The Eightfold Path‘s 44 minutes (note there are eight tracks, and four plus four in 44 minutes makes eight; the concept also comes from the Shaolin branch of Buddhism). Groove is paramount across the leadoff salvo and it’s that much easier to get on board for it, but the expansion in “Enshrined” that continues to flesh out on “Rainbow Child” and “Through the Constellations” — which are exploratory and structured in kind — ahead of the all-in wah and thick bottom end wallop of “The Blackest Sun” and the not-coming-back fourth dimensional alignment in “Incantations Call,” with the vocals drawing closer to Lamp of the Universe even as the surrounding heft pushes farther into its own sphere, isn’t to be ignored. One hesitates to make predictions when it comes to an artist whose work has already proven so distinctive and multifaceted, but if this is the launch of a new progression for Williamson either aside from or more likely coinciding with Lamp of the Universe, then the scope of Dead Shrine even at this potentially nascent stage is all the more welcome.

I’ve said on multiple occasions that I’m a fan of Williamson‘s various outfits and incarnations, and the excitement of doing something new on The Eightfold Path is palpable, whether one has the context of prior bands and albums or not. Contrary to the moniker, Dead Shrine sounds very much alive, vital, and ready to move forward from here. Fans new and old, myself included, should be so lucky.

Dead Shrine on Facebook

Dead Shrine on Instagram

Dead Shrine on Bandcamp

Kozmik Artifactz on Facebook

Kozmik Artifactz website

This is not a new album, but it is a new release. Based in Hamilton, New Zealand, the solo-project Lamp of the Universe debuted in the long-ago memory fog of 2001, issuing The Cosmic Union (discussed here) through Cranium Records. The lone figure behind the outing, who has kept the project to himself ever since, was and remains Craig Williamson, who at the time was only two years out from the breakup of his prior band, the more directly riff-rocking and still-prime-for-reissue Datura, and though he might not have guessed it at the time, The Cosmic Union would become the starting point for one of the most engaging progressions in psychedelic music of any stripe.

Through the years since, that’s been true be it the Eastern-informed acid folk represented in this first offering or subsequent adventures in tantric drone, krautrock-style synth and keyboard work, or even more band-style heavy psych rock, all taking place under the umbrella of Lamp of the Universe and the auteurship of Williamson. Also reissued in 2011 through Williamson‘s Astral Projection imprint and through Krauted Mind in 2018, The Cosmic Union finds a ‘definitive’ vinyl incarnation through Greece’s Sound Effect Records, and I won’t even pretend to pretend I’m not happy to have the excuse for a revisit.

From the first strums of acoustic guitar and sitar on “Born in the Rays of the Third Eye” across the vast distance to the tabla-percussed pre-Om meditative sprawl folk of “Tantra Asana” and the subsequent chime-peppered stretch of sitar, chimes, and keyboard-string sounds that cap the record, The Cosmic Union has a patience and a presence unto itself. In its full eight-song/53-minute run — the digital version also includes the bonus track “By the Grace of Love,” not on the vinyl — it does not feel like a minor undertaking, because it isn’t. This was the CD era, and Williamson‘s experimentalist crux in the lysergic, vaguely-Britfolk “Give Yourself to Love,” here the closer of side B on the first LP, and the relative minimalism in the echoing, purposefully-left-open spaces of “Her Cosmic Light” require a conscious engagement.

While it’s never overbearing even in its lushest arrangements, the trade for that is that following Williamson along the album’s complex, universally molten and slowly shifting course can be a challenge for short attention spans. Different listeners will have different experiences; duh. In mine, The Cosmic Union is singular in its beauty and effect on the listener. I’ve chased down records upon records, styles upon styles trying to get some semblance of what comes together so fluidly and naturally in these songs — even some albums recommended by Williamson himself — and I’ve never found one that delivers its vibe with such grace. It is an album that, when heard properly, slows time.

“Born in the Rays of the Third Eye” and “Lotus of a Thousand Petals” brought together and isolated, just the two of them, on side A feels like a landmark, even 21 years after the fact. Those two songs, in almost unassuming fashion, would become touchstones for Lamp of the Universe, and as Williamson moved forward quickly with 2002’s Echo in Light, 2005’s single-song-broken-into-parts long-player, Heru (discussed here), and 2006’s assemblage of mostly longform pieces From the Mystical Rays of Astrological Light, they would remain definitive — there’s that word again — in terms of serving as a primer for the heart of Lamp of the Universe‘s aesthetic project.

Hearing them coupled with side B’s “In the Mystic Light” with its scorching solo work, hand-drumming and one-man jam, and the aforementioned keys-forward twist of “Give Yourself to Love” only emphasizes the point, as well as the breadth that was in Lamp of the Universe from its very beginnings. I’ve tended in recent years to think of Williamson as growing more inclusive of synth and keys with time, and maybe that’s true in terms of adjusting a balance from one element to the next in his composing methods or arrangements, but so much of what Lamp of the Universe has become in the years since is laid out here, or at very least hinted toward, even the bluesy lead rollout and on-a-kit-toms and snare of “Freedom in Your Mind” are prescient, let alone the flowing organ and tambourine that are added later, to fold together on side C with “Her Cosmic Light,” about half as long at 4:12, but resonant just the same in its melodic seeking.

There is not one among the eight songs on The Cosmic Union that doesn’t include the word “love” somewhere in its lyrics. And that’s what the album is. Just as side A sets the foundation for the rest of what unfolds (here and beyond), maybe the strumming circa-1965 George Harrison singer-songwriterism of “What Love Can Bring” and the pushed-farther-out moment when sitar and keys align after the 3:30 mark in “Tantra Asana” on side D are a foundation of their own, if one built in ether. They are united, certainly, as all the material on The Cosmic Union is, by Williamson‘s voice, by their light-touch, inclusive but never overwrought arrangements — that’s a high compliment for an album that has this much sitar and flute and keys, etc. — and by the feeling of love that pervades as the central thematic. As the cover more than hints, The Cosmic Union has a very terrestrial, sometimes downright dirty if you’re lucky, interpretation, but it’s the sharing and proliferation of love that comes through most of all, and if this edition of the album is definitive, it is that love that defines it.

Williamson‘s early-2022 offering, The Akashic Field (review here) — maybe his 13th under the Lamp of the Universe banner — provided hints of what’s to come in 2023 as he moves forward with the heavier as-yet-still-solo band Dead Shrine, whose debut album is impending, but even it was in conversation in some ways with The Cosmic Union, in songs like “Minds of Love” or “Mystic Circle.” This shouldn’t surprise, necessarily, anyone who has charted Williamson‘s progression lo these last two decades, but it does emphasize just how expansive, how inclusive and how crucial The Cosmic Union is. I’ve said before and I’ll say here that on a personal level, this is a record I love. Hearing it again in this new form — new to me, anyhow, since I didn’t have it on vinyl before — it is all the more special for the conversation the material has with itself as well as the surrounding spectra. If you seek healing, this is music that heals.

Lamp of the Universe, The Cosmic Union (2001)

Lamp of the Universe on Facebook

Lamp of the Universe on Instagram

Lamp of the Universe on Bandcamp

Sound Effect Records on Facebook

Sound Effect Records website

Don’t get me wrong, there’s precious little in this world for which I’d trade the acid-drenched psych and cosmic explorations of Lamp of the Universe, but damn, when Craig Williamson hits into a riff, fuzz on, amp loud, drums behind, bass under, you gotta just let that groove ride. Dead Shrine — a solo-project for the Hamilton, New Zealand, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, singer and producer — is an extension of impulses previously shown in Arc of Ascent and Datura in the long-long-ago, and “The Formless Soul,” which you can and should hear at the bottom of this post, is the opening track and one of the eight appearing on The Eightfold Path, the debut full-length that’s due out next year through Kozmik Artifactz.

If you’ve hung around here a while, chances are you’ve heard me at some point or other going on about how fucking righteous this dude’s work is. And not to toot my own horn there, but I’m only correct in doing so. The Eightfold Path plays out like a heavy rock and psychedelic bonfire, rolling through two sides of epic nod on the way to the absolute blowout that is “Incantations Call” at the back end. I hate to be all “if you know you know,” because the truth is you know way more than I do about basically everything, but god damn, what a record this is. No bullshit, it’s the first name on my best-of-2023 list, which, yes, I’ve started.

From YouTube and Williamson direct:

DEAD SHRINE – The Eightfold Path

Release date: Late February 2023 on Kozmik Artifactz and Astral Projection (Vinyl/CD/Digital)

The new album, and “band” as I like to call it has been a long running idea I’ve had since the Datura days, and that was to continue to play in a heavier 70s acid rock way on my own… in Datura and especially in Arc of Ascent I’d write the songs, produce them, record parts … even extra guitars, percussion and keyboards on the albums… so really, its been a natural progression to starting the Dead Shrine thing. I guess mostly it’s a return to a more rock thing as I used to do 20 plus years ago in Datura, still heavier, still with the Psych overtones…

https://instagram.com/dead.shrine
https://www.facebook.com/deadshrinenz
https://deadshrinenz.bandcamp.com/

http://kozmik-artifactz.com/
https://www.facebook.com/kozmikartifactz

Dead Shrine, “The Formless Soul”

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: Craig Williamson of Lamp of the Universe

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

Music, so I guess artistic expression, is part of what and who I am. I define Lamp of the Universe as a catharsis, a deeper expression of what is going on in my subconscious.

I came to do this through necessity, through not having like minded individuals, mostly, to create what I heard in my head, and by needing to move forward creatively, to not have limits, and to satisfy the curiosity i have musically.

Describe your first musical memory.

Being very excited seeing a lot of vinyl records laying on the floor, wondering what they all sounded like.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

Getting the first Lamp of the Universe album released. Being locked away for two years working on songs by myself, alone, no band, and then having it come out was an absolute revelation for me.

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

Many times actually, too numerous to list them all. When you ask yourself “is this really worth all of this shit?” Unfortunately all centered around bands I’ve been in, or the people that have things to do with them, but I guess that’s the business.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

To personal and collective fulfillment, growth, understanding. It leads to doors being opened in a metaphysical sense.

How do you define success?

For me it’s being able to continue, to be creative, and have no limits on what I may want to do – what paths I can go down. That’s both successful and exciting

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

Obviously, war….and how it affects innocent people. Also the disregard for animals really gets to me… the world is a horrible place at times.

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

A full blown concept album, one track, maybe over 90 minutes… one day.

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

To bring enjoyment, to the creator and the listener, on as many levels as you can understand. And I’m not just talking about cliché uplifting music… but an experience that can stimulate anyone wishing to engage.

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

Catching up with friends I haven’t seen for awhile mainly, getting new tattoos, looking at classic cars, watching sport.

https://www.facebook.com/lampoftheuniverse/
https://lampoftheuniverse.bandcamp.com/
https://projectionrecords.bandcamp.com/

Lamp of the Universe, The Akashic Field (2022)

[Click play above to steam the premiere of ‘Minds of Love’ by Lamp of the Universe. The Akashic Field is out Jan. 11 on HeadSpin Records.]

The most reliable trajectory to think of when it comes to Lamp of the Universe is outward. Far outward. The long-running solo-project of Hamilton, New Zealand’s Craig Williamson, begun during his late-’90s run with Datura and continued through his founding and releasing three albums with the heavier-psych trio Arc of Ascent, has consistently held to an exploratory standard, and with a foundation in acid folk and a unifying depth of arrangement, Williamson has shone his Lamp on an entire cosmic spectrum, from sitar-laced meditations to the pulses of atmosphere-breaching space rock and beyond.

The Akashic Field is the follow-up to 2020’s Dead Shrine (review here) and something of a spiritual successor to Arc of Ascent‘s 2017 third and final-at-least-for-now LP, Realms of the Metaphysical (review here), finding Williamson enacting full-band sounds on his own in the recording for the eight included tracks, emphasizing the backing of a drum kit, which is something that’s been intermittent throughout the Lamp of the Universe catalog.

It’s no small shift. Album opener “Return as Light” (premiered here) finds its momentum quickly by swirling backward melodies and various keys around a central drum pattern with tambourine added for extra movement, given complement by layers of Williamson‘s laid back, gently-styled vocals. The subsequent “Emerald Sands” adds a fuzzed out electric guitar to its own acoustic baseline procession, and pushes the group-all-together further while holding to the lysergic spirit that pervades here much as throughout the Lamp of the Universe discography. This blend of an established approach and a corresponding will to find new expressions for it is the core of what Williamson does with Lamp of the Universe.

For anyone unfamiliar with the outfit’s past work, the aesthetic shifts of The Akashic Field will of course be less palpable, but suffice it to say there’s a linearity to the progressive sound realized across this record’s 42-minute span. Even if it seems stark in comparison to some of Lamp of the Universe‘s other output, a song like “Return as Light” or its side-B-opening counterpart, the grit-fuzz-distorted riffer “Descendants” (premiered here), isn’t coming out of nowhere, as ethereal as it might ultimately seem to be.

As narrative goes, that’s the story of The Akashic Field. It is Williamson putting himself to work across a broader scope of rock arrangements, working as producer as well as performer as he does and has for over 20 years. And it should be noted that, even as The Akashic Field seems to brim with this purpose, the album does not merely stick to one idea or the other. “Minds of Love,” with its ’60s harpsichord-esque midsection, Mellotron drone and watery lead vocal over more drums and tambourine, finds its own balance between elements, coming down somewhat from “Return as Light” and “Emerald Sands” even as it crafts a multi-tiered hook of its chorus and keys.

This leads into “Seventh Seal,” which ends side A, and is the first of two songs over six minutes long — the other is the side B finale, “The Messianic Rule,” so there’s an intentional play for a vinyl structure evident as well as a general tightening of the songwriting throughout — which is a mellow roll marked by guitar-as-sitar-or-maybe-that’s-just-sitar-oh-who-the-hell-knows and a breadth of vocal echo over the hypnotic but not overly repetitive rhythm, executing a linear build that finds payoff in melody as well as its overarching fullness.

That in itself is something Lamp of the Universe has never done quite to the degree as on The Akashic Field, and in answering with “Descendants” — even after a platter flip — Williamson leaves nothing to question as to the aim toward incorporating a heavy rock feel. “Descendants” could be the work of a revived Datura or Arc of Ascent, but it says much that Williamson has chosen to present it on his own under the guise of Lamp of the Universe.

It is new territory being actively claimed by the project — “now I can do this like this” — and though it’s done thanks in part to the practicalities of Williamson expanding his production setup as discussed in a recent interview here, that does nothing to lessen the accomplishment that either “Descendants” or “Minds of Love” before or the ensuing shimmer of “Re-Ascension” represent. It may (or may not) be backward flute-Mellotron making its impression in “Re-Ascension,” but that comes after an initial guitar line that, by Lamp of the Universe standards, is relatively busy, and a break to open-space for contrast. Immediately the message is reinforced that The Akashic Field, and thus Lamp of the Universe itself, can be all of these things.

Which leaves the closing duo of “Mystic Circle” and “The Messianic Rule” to round out, and it should say something that the former, which is a mellow, sitar-led and minimally-percussed stretch most reminiscent of ‘traditional’ Lamp of the Universe fare, is by virtue of being so a sonic outlier among these surroundings, which also highlighting the effect of Williamson‘s voice in pulling and holding the entire release together.

Calling the sole presence of a solo-project pivotal is redundant — without him there’s no band — but as “Mystic Circle” feeds into the revitalized nod of “The Messianic Rule” and The Akashic Field hits its moment of last summation on a meld of buzzsaw lead guitar and molten, languid rhythmic backing, the underlying sense of creative design is even more apparent. In whatever manner or order the album was pieced together, however the songs happened as they did, the final result is that The Akashic Field has a classic LP-style flow, brought to bear with the confidence of one who’s been making records alone for as long as Williamson has even as one can note increased confidence in vocals, drums and keyboard arrangements.

Lamp of the Universe has not stopped and seemingly will not stop growing, and whatever path Williamson takes with the project after The Akashic Field, the ground he treads is only richer for his having done this work. A great place to start for new listeners willing to be drawn in, and an especially bold statement in context.

Lamp of the Universe, “Return as Light” official video

Lamp of the Universe, “Descendants” official video

Lamp of the Universe on Facebook

Lamp of the Universe on Bandcamp

Projection Records on Bandcamp

HeadSpin Records website