https://www.high-endrolex.com/18

Album Review: CB3, Exploration

Posted in Reviews on August 31st, 2022 by JJ Koczan

CB3 EXPLORATION

It seems unlikely that, if you went back seven years and asked the jazzy instrumentalist three-piece CB3 releasing the self-titled Charlotta’s Burnin’ Trio full-length what they’d sound like by the time they got to their third record, neither guitarist Charlotta Andersson nor drummer Natanael Solmonsson would be able to predict the turn wrought on Exploration. Even if you go back to 2018’s From Nothing to Eternity EP (discussed here), when the Malmö, Sweden-based outfit brought in bassist Pelle Lindsjö, it seems unlikely.

Thus it would seem that Exploration — the follow-up to 2020’s Aeons (review here) and 2021’s companion Aeons Live Session (review here), as well as the group’s first offering through Majestic Mountain Records — is a genuine manifestation of its title.

With a recording helmed by Joakim Lindberg (Malsten, Hater, Octopus Ride, etc.) and splatter-painted art by Robin Gnista, the five-song/45-minute Exploration arrives led by its longest track (immediate points) in the 11-minute “Daydreams,” and almost immediately pushes against expectation in replacing the band’s heretofore instrumental jams with vocal-topped cosmic dream grunge, Andersson‘s own voice coming to the fore to add melody and structure to the procession. It is as if CB3, having explored their way outward through increasingly psychedelic terrain over the course of their first two albums and handful of other live outings and EPs, have brought a new meaning for themselves to the titular ideal here presented. It’s almost playful. They’ve done an awful lot of exploration to this point in their tenure, but never like this.

To say the stylistic shift suits them is playing it diplomatic. Exploration holds firm to the immersive instrumental depths CB3 fostered on Aeons and its subsequent live incarnation, and brings them to someplace new and expressive. Andersson‘s voice is coated in echo and reverb, spacious and delivered languid in the tradition of some of Acid King‘s more floating stretches, and from the quick drum-fill-into-riff beginning of “Daydreams,” there’s a sense of immediacy that comes through despite the smoothness of the rolling grooves that ensue. It is a delicate balance skillfully attained, and since three of Exploration‘s inclusions top 10 minutes — that’s “Daydreams” (11:07) and the side-B-consuming closing duo “In a Rainbow with Friends” (10:42) and “Through Space and Time” (10:33) — it’s hardly as though Andersson as a songwriter has abandoned the prior spaciousness.

The embrace of structure has added to their sound overall rather than detracted from it, and “Daydreams” demonstrates this as it moves from its verse into a bassier jam/solo section, the guitar ringing out over an ever-more-solid rhythmic foundation, brightly toned and heavy in kind, accomplished enough in the playing to be prog but more interested in texture than technique, at least there, and leading into a break of standalone guitar and vocals, vague chime percussion, sitar-ish drone and a hypnotic, swelling build.

This triumph they reinforce with less than 30 seconds to go, bringing back the more grounded central riff just before ending and giving way to “To Space and Away” (8:05), the hook of which is a landmark for the album and the band in kind, picking up the grunge cues from the buzz-tone guitar in “Daydreams” and setting them into a righteously mellow tempo with repetitions about melting away into space and away and away into space and away into space and so on into another ethereal lead, build back to the verse, more melting. Some Zeppelin-ish touches emerge in the midsection jam amid a more fervent moment of chug, but by the time the song reaches its midpoint, they’ve broken it all the way down with Solmonsson‘s drums holding it together as the guitar and bass both, indeed, seem to have melted.

cb3

Just before 5:40 into the eight-minute “To Space and Away,” the guitar effects fade into the background and Andersson‘s circular lyric returns, fading in over a light strum to reignite the zero-gravity hook, full fuzz thrust, bass rumbling and drums back on board providing the push to the suitably ethereal, long-fade finish. Wrapping side A, “Going to the Horizon” (5:26) is even more straightforward, beginning with sharp start-stop hits and diving into its verse — “Going to the horizon/I see colors all around…”; the title repeats but the other lines change — to show CB3 having discovered solid ground for all their psychedelic adventures.

As with “Daydreams” and “To Space and Away,” there’s a shift into an instrumental section, as if to remind of the jammed-out underpinnings from which these songs are built — could even be the vocals were added after the fact, but the way it flows and all fits together hints otherwise — and they once again come back to the verse to round out, emphasizing the meta-exploration taking place, CB3 trying what’s for them a genuinely new approach and succeeding outright in manifesting a new stage of the band. They haven’t quite reinvented themselves on Exploration, but they’ve harnessed a vibe across the span of the album that feels very much like a payoff moment for the work they’ve done to this point.

That holds true as “In a Rainbow with Friends” moves from its post-rock bliss into a long stretch of drumless swirling drone, a solo and a gradual build, not quite so predictable as to be wholly linear, but able to provide a blueprint of structure anyway, even without the vocals. One might be tempted to call it side B branching out if it weren’t a central component of CB3‘s approach all along. “Through Space and Time” finishes by bringing together the instrumental reach with a more daring, more confident vocal — one wonders if it wasn’t the last to be recorded as well — that nonetheless summarizes the amalgam of exospheric jamming and more direct heavy rock, Andersson‘s guitar tapping through swirls as the bass and drums keep step, smoothly redirecting from the verse into a slowdown/crashout before the vocals once again step into a forward position in driving the material and shaping the impact of the finale that follows in the second half of the song, still slow, but marked by a vitality that is further representative of Exploration as a whole. They leave no doubt as to their capacity to pull this off live, which, if past is prologue, they might just choose to do on a subsequent release. If such a thing were to occur, in the parlance of our times, I’m here for it.

What Exploration makes even truer, though, is that it has become harder to predict where CB3 might go next. If one takes their progression album by album, from the standup-bass-inclusive Charlotta’s Burnin’ Trio through the psychedelic flourish of Aeons and now Exploration, they’d be believable as three separate bands despite just one lineup change with Lindsjö taking over for Jonas Nilsson on bass, and while one certainly wouldn’t mind if they followed this path forward through blending open jams and structured craft with the consistent aura of live performance as they do here, perhaps toying with the balance of one to the other as they seem to in formative fashion between the likes of “Going to the Horizon” and “In a Rainbow with Friends,” they give no indication that their whims won’t take them someplace else entirely next time. As much as the resonance of “To Space and Away,” “Daydreams” and “Through Space and Time” seems to ooze itself like so much nebular gas, CB3 are all the more exciting for wondering what might still follow. If this is them exploring — and clearly it is — then may they continue to explore.

CB3, Exploration (2022)

CB3 website

CB3 on Facebook

CB3 on Instagram

CB3 on Bandcamp

Majestic Mountain Records webstore

Majestic Mountain Records on Facebook

Majestic Mountain Records on Instagram

Tags: , , , , ,

Deville Announce New Single “Killing Time + Caution”; New Album Coming Soon

Posted in Whathaveyou on August 4th, 2022 by JJ Koczan

deville

The next full-length from Swedish hard-edged heavy rockers Deville is yet untitled, but will see release this Fall through Sixteentimes Music. I have precious little information on the record other than that, but the veteran outfit led by guitarist/vocalist Andreas Bengtsson have trickled out singles like “Speaking in Tongues” (posted here) and “Hanged, Drawn and Quartered” (posted here) to follow-up on their 2018 album, Pigs With Gods (review here), and their emergent aggression was certainly on display there. The new two-songer, Killing Time + Caution, shifts the narrative a bit.

Set to release Aug. 19, “Killing Time” is a three-minute burst of energy, but there are hints of the band’s rock side poking back through, and “Caution” confirms that with an even more prevalent melody, with Bengtsson joined on vocals by fellow guitarist Andreas Wulkan, the rhythm section of bassist Martin Nobel and drummer Michael Ödegården propelling the Queens of the Stone Age-esque hook straight into your brain, where it’s likely to stay, stuck in your head for at least the rest of your afternoon. There are far worse fates, you understand. Songwriting has always been a strength for Deville, and both of these tracks show that hasn’t changed even as the four-piece from Malmö draw nearer to the 20-year mark since getting their start in 2004.

More to come? You know it. This for now? You know that too. Only bummer here is neither of these songs are streaming yet, but there’s time:

deville killing time caution

First single taken from epic new album “Heavy Lies The Crown” by Deville, Malmoe, Sweden´s biggest rock/metal band. With over 500 shows done around the world, it is a perfect introduction to the bands come back with a great hit chorus, downtuned guitars and lyrics of a waiting, frustrated conqueror. And don´t forget the tribal drums. With three songs from the last album making it to the great lists it is time again for a return to the big stages.

Pre-save it here: https://music.imusician.pro/a/Su-0qUkq/

Deville:
Andreas Bengtsson – Vocals, Guitars
Michael Ödegården– Drums
Andreas Wulkan – Lead Guitar,Vocals
Martin Nobel – Bass

http://www.deville.nu
http://www.facebook.com/devilleband
http://www.youtube.com/devilleband
http://www.instagram.com/devilleband

https://www.facebook.com/sixteentimesmusic
https://sixteentimes.bandcamp.com/
https://www.sixteentimes.com/

Tags: , , , , ,

Suma Announce ’20 Years of Noise’ Tour

Posted in Whathaveyou on July 25th, 2022 by JJ Koczan

SUMA (Photo by JJ Koczan)

Some bands are never going to be for everybody, and the extremity of noise and pummel wrought by Suma places the Swedish four-piece distinctly in that category. All the more impressive, then, is the fact that they are preparing to tour celebrating their 20th anniversary — actually their 21st, since the tour was delayed like everything else — flying in the face of accessibility with volume on loan from that thunderstorm you remember from when you were a kid. I finally saw Suma at Høstsabbat 2019 (review here) in Oslo, and they delivered every bit of the synth-affected harshened crunch I had been hoping for. Good show? Good show. That was quite a day, looking back at it.

Their most recent studio LP, 2016’s The Order of Things (review here), continues to resonate its disaffection, and while there was talk of a new album in the works as far back as 2020, they seem to have been spending more time doing shows than recording — as one does — and with the upcoming run of shows, one imagines that’s where their heads are at now, though if they wanted to sneak into a studio and put together another five or six or seven tracks of their particular noise-atmosludge-aggro-your-arms-off kind of crunch and downer vibe, you wouldn’t hear me complain. Whenever, if ever, such a thing shows up, it’ll be welcome.

From the band via socials:

SUMA TOUR

SUMA 20 years of noise tour October 2022

NEWS & UPDATES >>TWENTY YEARS OF NOISE tour in OCTOBER.

new venue in LJUBLJANA, BERLIN moved to 10/10 and we’ve been added to the DESERTFEST ANTWERP lineup… great times ahead!!!

04/10 HAMBURG (de) – hafenklang
05/10 DRESDEN (de) – chemiefabrik
06/10 WIEN (aut) – arena
07/10 ZAGREB (hr) – mocvara
08/10 LJUBLJANA (si) – channel zero
09/10 LINZ (aut) – kapu
10/10 BERLIN (de) – schokoladen
11/10 LIEGE (be) – la zone
12/10 PARIS (fr) – le klub
13/10 BRUXELLES (be) – magasin 4
14/10 BREMEN (de) – zollkantine
15/10 ANTWERP (be) – desertfest

SUMA:
>P. guitar
>J. bass/vocals
>E. drums
>R. samples/noise

https://www.facebook.com/sumanoise/
https://www.instagram.com/sumanoise/
https://sumanoise.bandcamp.com/

Suma, The Order of Things (2016)

Tags: , , ,

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Charlotta Andersson of CB3

Posted in Questionnaire on July 5th, 2022 by JJ Koczan

CB3-(Photo-by-Tova-Nyberg)

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: Charlotta Andersson of CB3

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

I see myself as an explorer of music and art. The guitar, my pedals, composition, improvisation and jamming together with others and playing live are my tools to explore the never-ending wonderful world of experimental rock, improvisation and space rock.

It all started with playing Swedish folk music on the violin. When playing folk music, I discovered the fantastic feeling of playing together with others and to improvise when playing. Later I started to play guitar and got a teacher who was a jazz and fusion nerd, at that time I discovered improvisation for real and Allan Holdsworth, John Mclaughlin and Mahavishnu Orchestra. And then the musical journey has continued towards improvisation, heavy riffing and experimentation with sounds.

Describe your first musical memory.

Hmm…that’s a hard one. As a kid I had a lot of VHS tapes of Disney movies. I remember the intro scene from The Beauty and the Beast. It gave me chills and still does – the music is so epic.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

That’s maybe when I booked a mini-tour in Germany. And when we played at La Betto Lab in Berlin, a really cool bar/restaurant/art place run by an Italian guy. It was such a cool atmosphere and they were so nice. It was a small place and our drummer Natanael sat on a big wooden stump. It was not our best gig in the world, but it was a memorable experience.

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

I guess when I worked with music full-time. I realized that I needed more structure in my life and to do something else to feel good. So I also teach guitar nowadays and can combine it with doing CB3 and other interesting projects that I want to do.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

I feel that artistic progression can depend on each person and their goals with their art. I think it leads to new experiences, more opportunities, friends in the scene and knowledge of the scene/music/instrument/band or whatever goal you have.

How do you define success?

When the life you live feels meaningful, is filled with love and that whatever you do feels important, meaningful to yourself and others.

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

Gatekeeping, bullies and other toxic people

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

I would like to create music inspired by film scores, based on improvisation, synths, drums. I’ve got myself a synth and am exploring it and how I could use it together with my guitar.

Something centered around CB3.

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

To make the audience of the art feel something. Then to keep exploring and breaking boundaries.

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

Walk around in my garden and trim the grass.

www.charlottasburningtrio.com
https://www.facebook.com/charlottasburningtrio/
https://www.instagram.com/cb3jams/
https://cb3jams.bandcamp.com/

http://majesticmountainrecords.bigcartel.com
http://facebook.com/majesticmountainrecords
http://instagram.com/majesticmountainrecords

CB3, Exploration (2022)

Tags: , , , , ,

Deville Post New Single “Hanged, Drawn & Quartered”; New Album Finished

Posted in Whathaveyou on May 30th, 2022 by JJ Koczan

deville
Swedish heavy rockers turned metallers Deville have finished recording their next album for release on Sixteentimes Music. Back in December, they released the single “Speaking in Tongues” (posted here) and “Hanged, Drawn & Quartered” — am I crazy in thinking that’s a kind of cheeky poke at High on Fire‘s “Hung, Drawn & Quartered?” or am I the only one in the universe who thinks that kind of grammatical callout exists? — and said they were headed to the studio, so because it’s now still March in my brain, their being finished sounds about right. Wait, what?

Guitarist/vocalist Andy Bengstsson and company grew even more aggressive on 2018’s Pigs With Gods (review here), and they’re certainly not letting up here, so one expects the album will be a likewise push. Although, neither “Hanged, Drawn & Quartered” nor “Speaking in Tongues” are going to be on said record, which means that once it’s announced Deville will still have the chance to, if it’s in their plan anyhow, offer up singles from the album too. The lesson: Bands: record everything. Deville end up with like nine months’ worth of material to keep their name out there ahead of an album release and it’s two extra tracks. Brilliant.

From the PR wire:

deville hanged drawn and quartered

DEVILLE – Hanged, Drawn & Quartered

During the writing sessions for our new album out later this year (yes it is recorded and ready!) we decided to release some singles that will not be on the album. This is the second single and it is a heavy one called “Hanged, Drawn and Quartered”. Click on the pre-save button in the link and you will have it the second it is out on the 20th of May!

https://sixteentimes.com/hanged-drawn-and-quartered/

Deville:
Andreas Bengtsson – Vocals, Guitars
Michael Ödegården– Drums
Andreas Wulkan – Lead Guitar,Vocals
Martin Nobel – Bass

http://www.deville.nu
http://www.facebook.com/devilleband
http://www.youtube.com/devilleband
http://www.instagram.com/devilleband

https://www.facebook.com/sixteentimesmusic
https://sixteentimes.bandcamp.com/
https://www.sixteentimes.com/

Tags: , , ,

Time Dwellers Stream Debut Album Novum Aurora in Full; Out Tomorrow on Argonauta Records

Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on May 26th, 2022 by JJ Koczan

Time Dwellers

Swedish heavy progressive rockers Time Dwellers will release their debut album, Novum Aurora, tomorrow through Argonauta Records. The outfit — and really, aren’t we all dwellers in time? — is a relatively recent project from some clearly-aware-of-what-they-want-to-do players, including Martin Fairbanks, whose prior band The Graviators released their last album, Motherload (review here), in 2014, and vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Kristofer Stjernquist, who had previously worked together with Fairbanks in the group Nymf.

Together with The Graviators‘ founding drummer Henrik Bergman (also percussion and backing vocals, as listed below), the three-piece bring forth Novum Aurora as a suitable discovery of new light in sound, pulling together classic prog lushness from the likes of Gentle Giant or Greg Lake-era King Crimson and melding it with a post-McCartney bounce on “At Least We’re Having Fun” or “Seasons Change,” among a slew of heavy rock songcraft impulses. Fairbanks, with a mellow, breathy vocal delivery, harnesses a psychedelic edge, but the intention is clear and conveyed purposefully in the nine-minute album opener and longest track (immediate points) “Rising Dawn/Awakening/Metamorphosis,” which serves effectively in summarizing much of the shimmering resonance to follow, the active synth line and drums of its first part and bright melody giving over to mellow, subtly fuzzy-funky stretch of verses — note the stop after the mention of death — before linear-building into a more densely weighted wash.

That’s not by any means everything Novum Aurora culls across its eight-song/48-minute expanse, but it’s certainly a start. “At Least We’re Having Fun” is a delight both for its Beatlesian casualness and its seeming acknowledgement of prog’s obscure place intime dwellers novum aurora the pantheon of rock and roll, and the still-melodically-centered “Seasons Change” turns that bounce heavier with a Scorpions-style tonality and groove behind it, catchy but not dumbed down in order to be so, echoing the sentiment in the opener in the line “Sometimes I feel I want to die,” the uptempo nature of the song nonetheless full of life. “What’s About to Happen…” is a shorter sweep, starting quiet and growing full over just two and a half minutes, big-drum rumbling in its second half under wistful guitar, and it finds an answer in the subsequent “Sound of the Apocalypse,” where the low end and later sense of surging vocal layers pays off some of the darker moodiness that’s already unfurled, the flow central, patient, but moving.

Cohesive in execution, it borders on overwhelming, which is only right given the subject matter, and as with “Rising Dawn/Awakening/Metamorphosis” giving over to “At Least We’re Having Fun” and “Seasons Change” being complemented by the shorter “What’s About to Happen…,” so too does “Sound of the Apocalypse” move into “Surfing With Greta” (3:56), inevitably bringing to mind Steve Vai‘s Surfing With the Alien, but establishing its own presence through guitar-whalesong and a steady drum backing. The structure shifts with the arrival of closing pair “You Are the Sun” and the digital-bonus “Tabular Balls” (as opposed to “Tubular Bells?”), which both top seven minutes.

The former, in wrapping the vinyl, brings a suitable sense of landing in its pastoral psychedelia, Stjernquist‘s vocal reminiscent of Death Hawks but more likely drawn from the same foundation of classic heavy prog. The latter, meanwhile, feels kin to “Seasons Change” with its “The Zoo”-esque riff and general ’70s rock fluidity, but the presence of synth and keys in fleshing that out isn’t to be understated, particularly in the beginning and end. As with the start of Novum Aurora, the finish seems aware of its place in the sphere of the entirety and moves to land not only an impression of its own, but one that speaks to the broader reach of the work. It is very much the kind of listen where what you put into it is what you get out, and as their debut, Time Dwellers‘ Novum Aurora sets up a forward progression that one only hopes can and will continue along the path set out here.

Not a minor undertaking front-to-back, but worth digging into in repeat fashion.

As always, I hope you enjoy:

Time Dwellers, Novum Aurora (2022)

Progressive rock trio TIME DWELLERS, the brainchild of former Graviators guitarist Martin Fairbanks and multi-instrumentalist and singer Kristofer Stjernquist, is gearing up for the release of their upcoming debut album, Novum Aurora, due out on May 27, 2022 via Argonauta Records.

Formed in 2017, the TIME DWELLERS blend anything from rock to prog, funk, and jazz to compose a potpourri of songs that are still coherent and cohesive. Novum Aurora showcases a musical landscape filled with mellotron, 12-string guitar, synthesizers, grooving rhythms, thrilling guitar solos and imaginative existential lyrics delivered from a whisper to a lion’s roar. In a world that’s growing more cynical by the minute, where popular music, at the same rate, is getting saturated and bland, the TIME DWELLERS set out to put a blanket around you and soothe your aching soul, while not fearing any musical limits and borders.

“Novum Aurora is an album with a lyrical theme about the apocalypse, the direction we are headed, but also of hope and beauty, that there will be a new dawn, perhaps a spiritual awakening,“ the band explains. “We are all Time Dwellers in the sense that we live here and now in the present. There is no future, there is no past, there is only now. Transform and transcend along with your fellow Time Dwellers! You are the sun, it’s time to rise and shine.”

Album Release: May 27, 2022 – Argonauta Records

Tracklist:
1. Rising: Dawn / Awakening / Metamorphosis
2. At Least we´re Having Fun
3. Seasons Change
4. What’s About to Happen…
5. Sound of the Apocalypse
6. Surfing with Greta
7. You are the Sun
8. Tabular Balls (CD Bonus Track)

TIME DWELLERS are:
Kristofer Stjernquist: Lead vocals, mellotron, synthesizers, pedal bass, electric bass, 12-string guitar, rhythm guitar
Martin Fairbanks: Lead guitar, rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Henrik Bergman: Drums, percussion, backing vocals

Time Dwellers on Instagram

Time Dwellers on Facebook

Time Dwellers on Bandcamp

Argonauta Records on Facebook

Argonauta Records website

Tags: , , , , ,

CB3 Sign to Majestic Mountain Records; Exploration Due This Fall

Posted in Whathaveyou on May 3rd, 2022 by JJ Koczan

One should not doubt the word of Swedish jammers CB3 when it comes to living up to the title of their new album, Exploration. That very sensibility has been at the heart of their methodology since their outset, and even before you get to their adding vocals to their songs for the first time on the impending release, I’d be hard pressed to come up with a more fitting summary of what they do with music. Their last offering was 2021’s companion Aeons Live Session (review here) that featured live reworkings of cuts from their Feb. 2020 Aeons LP (review here), and in either setting, the band readily showcased their forward-thinking composition and burgeoning chemistry, seeming primed for the arrival-in-self that Exploration will hopefully represent.

I’ll admit that’s a lot to put on a record without actually having heard any of it. All I can say is I’ve got a good feeling here and the band hasn’t let me down yet.

The algorithm very kindly gifted me sight of the following on social media:

cb3

Majestic Mountain Records is proud to announce the signing of Sweden’s CB3 to the Majestic roster!

From Malmö, CB3 (Charlotta’s Burning Trio) have supported bands like Monolord, Kikagaku Moyo and Hällas and have enchanted the stages of PLX festival, Stockholm Jazzfestival and Köpenhamns Jazzfestival with their expansively trippy, unapologetically eclectic, and explosive space rock.

The riffs are huge, even relentlessly chugging at times, the exploration is broad yet fully focused and we’re always brought back to the same deeply atmospheric destination, an oasis of highly considered, beautifully layered and infinitely gripping trip-rock.

With stylistic references firmly in the past nodding to bands like Hawkwind, Hendrix, Cream and Pink Floyd among others, we find CB3 cutting their own futuristic path through crushing stoner territory but with shimmering forays into a dreamily explosive, shimmeringly cosmic, and mind-bending soundscape.

“We are happy to announce that we are signing with Majestic Mountain Records for our future release. It feels awesome to have friends of the scene and our band like Marco, Svempa and Vesper to do this release together with. We share the same nerdy interest for music and the same care and support of the underground music scene. When the pandemic cancelled everything, it made changes to us as a band and a new musical era of CB3 was born.

“Stoked to share this new era with Majestic Mountain Records and all of you out there!” – Charlotta of CB3

‘Exploration’ will be released this fall with the full Majestic treatment and ushers in a new era of CB3 where for the first time, vocalised lyrics are introduced into their compositions.

‘Exploration’ is the first part of a space adventure where a daydreaming character physically enters his dreams which then become reality. Heavy psych, even heavier jams, progressive rhythms and form structures promise to take the listener beyond the constructs of space and time.

Stars above, evil below and fire in between. A trinity in peace for aeons. CB3 (Charlottas Burning Trio) is here to bring you on a journey with their explosive rock jams and mind-bending cosmic soundscapes bringing the spirit of psychedelia music to the 21th century.

More Information about the release and pre-sale to come, in the meantime, please give CB3 a warm Majestic welcome.

Photo by Tove Nyberg!
Follow CB3 on Instagram: https://instagram.com/cb3jams

Listen to CB3 on Bandcamp: https://cb3band.bandcamp.com/

CB3 are:
Charlotta Andersson – Electric Guitar
Pelle Lindsjö – Electric Bass
Natanael Salomonsson – Drums

www.charlottasburningtrio.com
https://www.facebook.com/charlottasburningtrio/
https://www.instagram.com/cb3jams/
https://cb3band.bandcamp.com/

http://majesticmountainrecords.bigcartel.com
http://facebook.com/majesticmountainrecords
http://instagram.com/majesticmountainrecords

CB3, Aeons Live Session (2021)

Tags: , , , , ,

Propane Propane Premiere “Purple Sun” from Indigo Sessions

Posted in Bootleg Theater on March 10th, 2022 by JJ Koczan

Propane Propane Purple Sun

Sweden’s Propane Propane released their Indigo (review here) LP in 2012 through Clostridium Records, and they’re marking that 10th anniversary by issuing three lost tracks from the era. The longer of them is “Purple Sun,” premiering below, and there’s an instrumental demo of the same song, as well as a track called “Cult of Börstig.” The vibe in that shorter, lyric-less piece is relatively soothing, where “Purple Sun” works to be anything but. Hypnotic, perhaps, for its overarching nod, the nine-minute roller digs deep into post-Electric Wizard riffing — in my head it sounds “very 2012,” and thinking that makes me smile — but the song’s weight and groove hardly sound dated for that. It will be easy to dig. If you’ve made it this far, you will not regret clicking play.

I imagine that when it came down to it, it was either “Purple Sun” or the 12-minute “Indigo” that would end up on the vinyl version of the album, and well, it’s hard to leave off the song you’ve named the record after (or vice versa), but while the atmosphere of “Indigo” is definitively less straightforward, droning out later into more cosmic fare after its drifty beginning, the relatively blunt (pun completely intended) riffery of “Purple Sun” has its own appeal, and the same goes for the manner in which it grows more aggressive in its vocals as it moves through. Propane Propane were not out to challenge the universe, but listening to it now, it feels all the more like a celebration, certainly of Indigo‘s 10 years, but of that era of the band’s work and the sheer joy of getting together in a room, being loud and fortunate enough to have someone there to press record.

No need to keep you. I think you get the picture, and if not, you will by the time “Purple Sun” locks in its groove. Some words from Benjamin Thörnblom (guitar, vocals, synth, production) follow the player below, giving background on the cultish underpinnings of “Purple Sun” and “Cult of Börstig” alike.

Please enjoy:

Propane Propane, “Purple Sun” premiere

propane propane

Benjamin Thörnblom on Indigo & More:

“In the late 1960s a pyromanic family ravaged the Swedish countryside of Börstig, where I lived 1990-2001. Many of the neighbors had been mentally scarred for life from the terror this family inflicted upon the area. Hundreds of innocent animals lost their lives in the fire and smoke because of the madness of this family. In the end nobody in the family got prison as there was not enough evidence to prove guilt. During the long-winded trials two of the brothers claimed in opposition to each other to have started the fires. This and the lacking evidence left the court helpless and the brothers and their family walked free in the end, for good.

These events changed Börstig, it gave a springboard for paranoia among the villagers and eventually even generational trauma. Safety and trust got ripped out of the core of the area but people did try to go back to a normal life and not live under constant fear but it was very hard. Many waking up in panic during the nights for years to come from small noises or deep embedded fear that another fire could strike again at any given time.

During 2010 under the influence of substances, confusion and paranoia I wrote and recorded a song during roughly one or two days. The result became ‘Cult of Börstig’ which emotionally revolves around these events. I actually recorded the entire bass track first, standalone, and then did drums. Later I tracked the guitars and recorded deranged whispers and a bunch of hidden things.. It got pretty layer in the end.”

Bandcamp: https://propanepropane.bandcamp.com/album/purple-sun

2022 marks the 10 year anniversary of Propane Propane’s album ‘INDIGO’. The roughly 9 minutes long ‘Purple Sun’ was recorded during the Indigo sessions at Boltzmann Brain Studio (2010/2011) but was at the end cut from the final release. It came down to both vinyl run-time constraints and the sense Purple Sun did not fit the context of an album that already had plenty of slow earth shattering titles such as “Food of The Gods”, “Truth” and “Indigo”.

The up until now unreleased track tells of a clan traveling through the country in service of a force and a deity they themselves have chosen to name “the purple sun”. By focusing and sacrificing their mental energy and essence to this hidden force they in return get an unspeakable but very real state of being which expands their capacity, strength and resilience in the journey through life.

The 10 year anniversary release contains the track Purple Sun and the demo originally called “Rising Sun”. The last track, a calm instrumental, called “Cult Of Börstig” revolves around the pyromaniac family ravaging the Swedish countryside of Börstig during the 60’s.

Propane Propane, Indigo (2012)

Propane Propane on Facebook

Propane Propane on Twitter

Propane Propane on Bandcamp

Clostridium Records website

Tags: , , , , , ,