Album Review: Øresund Space Collective, Orgone Unicorn
Posted in Reviews on July 31st, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Why not begin with surf guitar? For Øresund Space Collective‘s first outing to be released through The Laser’s Edge, reportedly their 44th full-length overall — I trust Dr. Space‘s count and you should too — and somewhere right around their 30th studio album, the multinational cosmoglomerate Øresund Space Collective are characteristically all-in and working toward a singular aural ideal. The destination, as ever, is the heart of creativity itself. The spark of inspiration put to tape. A spacewalk into the unknown.
Orgone Unicorn would seem to have been produced in the same 2022 sessions that resulted in 2023’s Everyone is Evil (review here), with a lineup no less expansive than its matter/antimatter space rocking sprawl, including Luis Simões from Lisbon’s Saturnia on guitar, gong and other noises, Martin Weaver of heavy ’70s rockers Wicked Lady handling drum machines and synth, classical sitarist KG Westman (ex-Siena Root), who adds yet more synth, as well as regular features like guitarist/violinist Jonathan Segel, bassist Hasse Horrigmoe, synthesist Scott “Dr. Space” Heller, mentioned above, drummer and percussionist Mattias Olsson and Larry Lush, who contributes Fender Rhoads and, like Heller, Westman and Olsson, takes a turn on mellotron. In its double-CD edition, Orgone Unicorn runs seven songs and an ‘evening with’-style two-plus hours — the 2LP drops “Red Panda in Rhodes” (3:52) and “David Graham’s Wormhole Ride” (17:34) from the procession — but as ever for Øresund Space Collective, the experience is less about the time you spend as measured in earthly minutes than the places the music takes you, and even on their own scale, Orgone Unicorn is out. there. Like, way out there.
To wit, the opening “Skin Walker” (25:35) shifting from its noted surfy vibe into a roiling proggy unfurling, snare tapping away as guitar and various synthesizers engage the antigravs and do somersaults in midair. As one of four pieces over 20 minutes long, I’d say “Skin Walker” sets the tone, but the truth is that works like “Orgone Unicorn” (22:35), “Kraut Toe Trip” (27:36) and the closing “Omnia Magnifico” (20:57) — as well as “Enos Donut” (18:01) and “David Graham’s Wormhole Ride” — are their own exploratory voyages. Listeners experienced in Øresund Space Collective‘s methodology should have little trouble going along for the ride, but the new label probably means that Orgone Unicorn will be a first trip for some, and there’s nothing like a headfirst dive as organic and electronic blend of violin and keys that come together throughout “Enos Donut” or in the mostly-drumless initial stretch of “Kraut Toe Trip” where the bassline becomes the only thing tethering the floating wash of synth to what we probably-incorrectly call reality.
Resoundingly strange and unique in their unflinching commitment to improvisation, Øresund Space Collective are able to go places most ‘regular bands’ wouldn’t dare, and they do, regularly. But they don’t always dwell in the way they do in “Enos Donut,” and Orgone Unicorn is stronger for the fluidity that develops. Instrumental in its entirety — as usual — it’s not one to put on if you’re looking for hits or catchy tunes for top-down summer drives, but as the title-track introduces Fender Rhodes — whether it’s Segel or Lush handling it, I don’t know — alongside Westman‘s sitar, it’s a reminder of how unto-themselves Øresund Space Collective are in terms of sound, how open their process remains, and how special the results of that process can be and regularly are. For them, it’s another day at the office. For you, it’s your brain melted into a mystical acidic goo. So let’s say perspective matters, as is more or less true in all things.
But if you want to expand your mind, broaden horizons, reshape that perspective, even the sub-four-minute throb of “Red Panda in Rhodes” is ready to assist like it’s just waiting for a Carl Sagan voiceover to start describing the nature of the universe — there is some speech at the end, as at the start of “Skin Walker,” but it’s more like in-studio chatter; I won’t call it incidental because it’s probably there on purpose — and it’s backed by the echo-laced solo and proggy underlying rhythm of “David Graham’s Wormhole Ride.” There’s a shift in the recording sound — maybe it was another day — but the apparent vibe is closer to Øresund Space Collective‘s on-stage work than, say, “Enos Donut,” until the drums drop out, maybe just to figure out where everything’s headed, and the wash of synth and guitar meanders into the unknown.
Mellotron rises at around four and a half minutes in and is sweetly wistful amid all the background microwave radiation, and before long, “David’s Graham Wormhole Ride” has smoothed itself out into a fluid movement that holds until weirding out its last couple minutes, resolving in bleeps and bloops on a fade to let the Rhodes introduce “Kraut Toe Trip” as the longest single piece here, distinguished in mood patient, patient, patient as it takes its own time in the initial unfolding to move into punchy jabs of distant-planet boogie that serve as the foundation for the development of the next movement. Of course, there’s more going on at any given moment than one thing, but “Omnia Magnifico” caps with a persistent electronic beat that stands it out from its surroundings while, by its very divergence, remaining consistent in its purpose with the material prior.
The real-world context of Orgone Unicorn being the band’s label-debut on The Laser’s Edge gives the album a landmark feeling, but the truth of the listening experience is richer than that. It feels purposeful in how it centers around longform construction — nothing new for the band, but the after-the-fact editing process gives these songs a kind of thematic shape despite the variety of arrangements and players at work across the span — and that defines a persona to coincide with the immersion of the audio itself. As with much in the sphere (amorphous, self-reshaping polygon?) of jam-based psychedelic music, Orgone Unicorn is less about where it ends up than going with it on the way there, but that trip through undiscovered ground is vibrant, and if it’s to be someone’s first time embracing an Øresund Space Collective release — no minor undertaking, in texture or time — they could hardly ask for a better introduction 44 offerings later.
Øresund Space Collective, Orgone Unicorn (2024)
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Øresund Space Collective on Bandcamp
