To be sure, it was my loss not being able to make the trip to SonicBlast Fest in gorgeous Âncora, Portugal, this past summer, not getting to walk on the beach on my way to and from being pummeled by various incarnations of heavy and hard sounds for hours on end. I had a great time in 2023, though, and seeing Circle Jerks among the first round of lineup confirmations for SonicBlast Fest 2025, can’t help but remember it was OFF! who took part in that edition, as well as Earthless, who’ll return to the festival next August to play Sonic Prayer in its statistically significant entirety.
Those two, along with Fu Manchu, My Sleeping Karma, Slomosa, Gnome, Dopethrone, Emma Ruth Rundle, Daevar, Amenra, Patriarchy, Jjuujjuu and Spoon Benders comprise the full announcement, and to be perfectly honest with you, I’m not sure what more you’d need. More is definitely coming — this is a three-day fest Aug. 7-9 with an annual pre-show on the 6th, and SonicBlast doesn’t screw around; the nights go late and the bill is packed — and you can already see some of the blend of styles that’s characteristic of what they do, reaching into more aggressive punk and hardcore along with various takes centralizing riffs, psych expanse, doom, sludge, and so on, so keep an eye out. I’m just saying though. if it was like two days and this was it, it’d still be worth trying to find a spot at one of the hotels by the beach. I look forward to seeing who gets added over the next few months.
Tickets are available at the links below. The post came through socials thusly:
Welcome to SonicBlast Fest’s 13th edition 🔥🖤
We’re so psyched to share with you the first names to join us in our wild beach party 🌊🔥
Posted in Reviews on November 1st, 2024 by JJ Koczan
The oeuvre of Portugal-based interstellar synthlord Dr. Space expands like the universe itself; it spreads farther at a seemingly increasing rate, propelled by intangible forces. Known best for his work in the multinational Øresund Space Collective, as well as Black Moon Circle and contributions to albums dating back decades at this point, various collaborations like West, Space and Love with current and former members of Siena Root or his work with New Zealand’s Craig Williamson just this year on Lamp of the Universe Meets Dr. Space‘s Enters Your Somas (review here). He even had a column here when that was a thing. Sometimes it’s an ongoing project, sometimes it’s a one-off, but it’s almost always something, and what that ethic has allowed Dr. Space — né Scott Heller — to do is amass a multicontextual, highly varied catalog that nonetheless unites around the theme of exploration.
His latest three offerings — and I say that tentatively because you never really know when the next one is coming — are Dr. Space’s Alien Planet Trip Vol. 8 – Space With Bass IV: Purple Rose Powder, part of two series subset to his solo work, the new Dr. Space-proper LP, Music to Disappear To, with its striking cover art above, and the collaborative Doctors of Space‘s Wisdom of Clowns, which pairs Heller with guitarist/synthesist Martin Weaver (Wicked Lady) for two-plus hours of cosmic outreach, and something you need to understand is that most of what they are is ‘latest.’
I don’t mean that to take away from the music being made — period — or the admirable and raw creativity that Heller‘s output so reliably displays, whether it’s full-band improv psych or the throbbing drones, pulsations and synth sweeps of “Life is Hell” (20:01) setting a somewhat darker tone for the start of Music to Disappear To but finding solace in a second-half organ solo, singing bowls and other gleeful plays with arrangement before the despondent and somewhat vague spoken word returns. But they happen to be three albums that, between them, emphasize divergent influences and aspects of (some of) what Dr. Space does, and they’re roughly concurrent in all being released the same month. So far as I know and as the music indicates, there’s nothing directly tying them together. They’re not a series, they’re just the three records — maybe not even the only three — that Dr. Space put out in October. That and the differentiation of intent behind them are why they’re being grouped together now.
As noted, Music to Disappear To begins with “Life is Hell,” and that song is an encompassing improv manifesto of sound recorded throughout 2023 unfolding over multiple movements. Whatever Heller felt needed to be said — literally spoken — on it, it’s hard to decipher as his voice is buried in the mix and effects are all around, etc., but it’s worth noting that’s the only time anything is said on the album at all. “Life is Hell” is the opener and longest track (immediate points), and a focal point that defines the mood of what follows in “Smile and Rotate” (17:02), “Music to Disappear To” (14:54) and “Frozen Hypothalamus Pie” (15:02), even as each takes off on its own experimental sojourn.
“Smile and Rotate” gradually evolves from minimal drone to stark and lonely synthesizer boops to something that makes that same melancholia dance, while the title-track lives up to its name in its initial low tone and static noise — lest we forget that the force accelerating the expansion of the universe is called ‘dark energy’ — turning sci-fi in the midsection but holding that undertone until the final sweep. The evocation of ice in “Frozen Hypothalamus Pie” is a clever suggestion to suit the keyboardy sound, probably a reference, but doesn’t necessarily account for the tape-loop-sounding experimentation of the middle third or the conversation that seems to be happening perhaps between neurons as much as different vintage synthesizers. It is both Music to Disappear To and the place into which one might, at least for an hour, escape and find comfort.
Dr. Space’s Alien Planet Trip Vol. 8 Space With Bass IV: Purple Rose Powder tells you at least part of what you need to know right off. It’s Space, with bass. Where Music to Disappear To was entirely solo, Space With Bass IV pairs Heller with Hasse Horrigmoe as collaborator on a 2023 recording across four pieces: “Draptomaniac” (13:02), “Slowker” (6:49), “Purple Rose Powder” (32:11) and “Surfing the Sea of Bass” (13:31), the last of which was tracked remotely between the two earlier this year. Horrigmoe is a regular feature in Øresund Space Collective and was a founding member of Tangle Edge in Norway; this is by no means his first Alien Planet Trip, and he’s been involved in Doctors of Space on multiple sessions as well, including Wisdom of Clowns.
The chemistry and fluidity as “Draptomaniac” evolves is palpable. Horrigmoe and Heller are each on their own journey, but they remain complementary in sound between loops and effects and other spacey noisemakings, and “Draptomaniac” fills in space that the subsequent “Slowker,” aberrantly brief but not unprecedentedly so at six minutes, leaves open with a slow-undulating windy swirl behind the quiet bassline. As he does at several points across these records, Dr. Space ends “Slowker” by pushing the synth forward, creating more of a wash, then bringing everything down together, and his doing so reminds of the instrumental role the studio itself plays in making this material, which is inevitably carved out of longer stretches of jamming and improvisation.
“Purple Rose Powder” is inevitably a standout, being practically a full-length EP unto itself, but it is appreciable more for genuinely being a single work, a linear progression happening between movements of synth, loops, effects and I don’t know what. It is proggy and patient in kind, and it earns the choral mellotronic sounds of its finish, the bass once again receding at the end. And the recorded-later “Surfing the Sea of Bass” takes a line from Harrigmoe as its center and follows where the groove wants to go, in this case out over a shimmering ocean. Dr. Space‘s 2023 offering, Suite for Orchestra of Marine Mammals (review here) or Doctors of Space‘s earlier 2024 release, Adventures in the Deep Dark Seas of Sound, feel like relevant touchstones, but if it’s warm vibe you want, it’s there for the taking. If it’s Dr. Space‘s watery period, fair enough.
As they’ve moved away from recording and putting out monthly jams in the raw and more toward building those jams into improv-based studio albums, Doctors of Space have flourished as a project. Heller‘s approach is consistently malleable to those with whom he’s collaborating. Horrigmoe returns on Wisdom of Clowns, as noted, but what began as the duo of Martin Weaver and Dr. Space has let its growth and evolution play out almost in real time through their steady string of releases, and the textures the three players conjure on the opening “Wisdom of Clowns” (21:22), “Needs of the One” (38:44), which would be a highlight even if it wasn’t a Star Trek reference, “Mystic Challenger” (27:27), “Ascari” (20:10), and the concluding, indeed funkified “Dance Floor Hit (For Freaky Creatures)” (21:41) provide worlds to get lost in, whether they’re more active, like “Needs of the One,” which has a beat to remind you krautrock invented New Wave, or “Mystic Challenger,” which has an almost Nintendoan — if more manic — feel in its second half. It’s a ways from chiptune space rock, but pretty darn close to cosmic dub.
Coming in ahead of party time in “Dance Floor Hit (For Freaky Creatures),” the penultimate “Ascari” builds on some of the midi-type stylizations in “Mystic Challenger.” After opening with a proggier wash of synth and guitar/bass, the song brings looped synthesizer chime sounds ahead of the strummed repetitions, the concluding organ and synth not quite a bookend because the guitar started out, but a smooth shift into the organ that begins the closer. The beat kicks in before “Dance Floor Hit (For Freaky Creatures)” is 30 seconds old, and it treats funk with an oldschool-prog reverence. The groove becomes a sacred thing, and Weaver seems a bit to honor Eddie Hazel in the midsection burner of a solo without giving up a mellow sensibility or the flow of the rhythm behind it. Even weirdos gotta boogie. It’s as fitting an ending as one might ask, a reminder that it’s okay to have a good time as you plunge deeper into the outer recesses of the sonic unknown.
On some level, that is what’s happening on each of these releases. Heller under the guise of Dr. Space is well familiar in this terrain and as a veteran player, bandleader and producer, wields the power of suggestion as a part of an expansive and growing aesthetic, while adventures in arrangement continue to push the scope of ‘his thing,’ in terms of sound. A given listener might find themselves transported to other places by this material than what I’ve described here, might hear something else in it. I don’t think that’s wrong. When you make as much room for the audience to dwell in the material as Heller, Horrigmoe and Weaver craft on Wisdom of Clowns, Horrigmoe and Heller bring together for Purple Rose Powder and Heller fosters solo on Music to Disappear To, it should be no surprise that people will have their own interpretations.
Dr. Space, Music to Disappear To (2024)
Dr. Space’s Alien Planet Trip Vol. 8 – Space With Bass IV: Purple Rose Powder (2024)
This Friday, Porto-based heavy dream-proggers and baskers-in-cosmos Astrodome will release their third album, Seascapes, through a consortium that includes Totem Cat Records (EU), Copper Feast Records (UK) and Gig.rocks! (Portugal). As the title hints, the lush four-piece take their thematic from the sea, and the proves to be breadth enough for them to dwell in the record as a single, if varied, meditation-through-sound. It’s not just about hypnosis, the band lulling their listenership away from consciousness through repetition and/or floating wisps of effects and entrancing, humming instrumentalist melodies — though that’s definitely part of it — across 43 minutes and eight songs, from the moving water and sun-drone sprawl and drift of the intro “Sandwaves” through the suitable level of gentle proggy shuffle beneath the ambient lead guitar to suit the reference in “Doldrums End,” which follows, tacking into a fuzzy, krautrocking shimmer in the eight-minute “Maelstrom” before presumed side A finale “Espic Hel Horizon” opens wide from that flow in a beachy warmth — if we’re headed into the underworld, the vibe is a weekend getaway way more than eternal condemnation — gives a payoff to the linear progression heard across the first half of the record.
There is a definite reorientation as the last residual tones of “Espic Hel Horizon” fade out and the three-minute “Erebus” fades in that speaks to intent on Astrodome‘s part to let Seascapes function as two sides regardless of the actual format on which the audience is hearing it. Named for a volcano in Antarctica, “Erebus” is not frigid but perhaps conveys some chill through its tonal flourish, toms joining in after the halfway point as the band shift into near-silence ahead of the start of “Riptide,” which operates true to the urgency of “Doldrums End” while affecting a spacier impression in the keyboard/synth running alongside the guitar’s core melody. Just before the two-minute mark, there’s a rush to signal the change into the next, mellower stretch that brings to light just how smooth Astrodome — the first-names-only contingent of Zé, Kevin, Mike and Bruno — make the shifts between these ebbs and flows and how much Seascapes benefits from that in being able to portray a that-much-clearer picture of what the band are saying about open waters, reaches and freedom in their material.
Side B functions somewhat differently from side A, but the two halves of Seascapes are fitting companions regardless. If one takes the wash of “Erebus” and “Aequorea” as intros to the longer pieces they complement — “Riptide” and 10-minute album-closer “Sirens,” respectively — the last four songs enact two miniature versions of the progression that took place across “Sandwaves,” “Doldrums End,” “Maelstrom” and “Espic Hel Horizon,” so that almost like a pattern of waves on the shore, the very structure of the album itself carries a feeling of moving water. “Aequorea” feels cinematic as it sets stark lower strums against the by-then-familiar backdrop of drone, but the subdued launch of “Sirens” is a comfort, a salve as the band gives one more encompassing glimpse of Seascapes‘ realization. And surely the fluidity with which Seascapes carries its listenership from the start to its finish is another embodiment of the oceanic theme, regardless of when that entered the picture, either during composition as the band assembled parts or during recording when those parts revealed the persona of the LP waiting to be given voice, if not literally.
Most of all, Seascapes reminds that while being near water can be a comfort for humans, and the ocean seen from space can look like a static blue singularity, it is also the broadest single ecosystem on Earth, and Astrodome are accordingly full of life in their craft here. Like spirulina in currents, there are hidden pockets of nuance throughout “Maelstrom,” “Riptide” and so on that beg for inspection at the microscopic level, and the closer one listens, the more likely one might be to wind up in a kind of aural kelp forest, sunlight refracted through water on giant, alien-seeming stalks supporting entire cities of creatures very much unlike ourselves. I do now know if Seascapes was inspired by some particular experience either of the beach, the ocean or the miracle of liquid water more generally, but there’s more than just the power of suggestion behind Astrodome‘s assertion of centering the aquatic in the album’s material, and as the songs play out in various degrees of tumult, shifts in mood and weather, the foursome prove trustworthy as navigators in guiding the listener from one end to the other. It feels definitive on the part of the band.
PR wire info follows the full album stream on the player below.
Please enjoy:
‘For this album, unlike the previous two, which were practically live recorded, we decided we wanted to have total control over the recording, arranging, and mixing process. We embraced the infinite possibilities and freedom that a computer provides, allowing the process of editing to behave more like an instrument rather than just a recording environment. This approach not only gave us the outcome we were looking for but also allowed us to experiment with new techniques and sounds that were previously out of reach, adding a fresh dimension to our music. However, this method was also very demanding and time-consuming. Paradoxically, the lack of restraints that we desired ended up becoming a difficulty we had to overcome, pushing us to grow both creatively and technically. Ultimately, this journey resulted in an album that we feel represents a significant evolution in our sound.
The sea was the “theme” that we wanted to explore this time, we tried to find new textures and harmonies that could somehow transport the listener to that environment without being too obvious. In our opinion, this album is a whole piece and should be listened that way.
A crucial part of the process was, once again, trying to create something without any musical or style restraints but always trying to find a mutual ground between us, inspired by different things, leading us to a unique mix of different styles.’
Astrodome live: Oct 26 Café Avenida Fafe, Portugal Oct 31 Woodstock 69 Rock Bar Porto, Portugal Nov 1 Musicbox Lisbon, Portugal Nov 2 Texas Club Leiria, Portugal Nov 8 Centro Cultural do Cartaxo Cartaxo, Portugal Nov 9 RUM by Mavy Braga, Portugal Nov 15 Centro Para Os Assuntos da Arte e Arquitectura (CAAA) Guimaraes, Portugal Nov 16 XAPAS LOUNGE Paredes de Coura, Portugal
Credits: Produced and recorded by Astrodome Mixed by Mother Jupiter (Kevin Pires) Mastered by Clara Araújo at Arda Recorders Graphic Design by José Luís Dias
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.
Posted in Questionnaire on July 15th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
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: Hasse Horrigmoe of Øresund Space Collective
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
Well, I’m a musician, so I play, practice, compose, mix. It seemed to come by a coincidence when I was 16-17, but I don’t think it was when I, in retrospect, observe the impact it had in my life. I was a manic music fan and by chance ended up in the same class in high school as a guy who was able to show me how to improvise the blues scale over a song I knew.
Describe your first musical memory.
Getting great kicks from children’s songs when I was growing up.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Hard to say… for my own activities; Tangle Edge 1983. Otherwise; concerts with Magma in Oslo 2007 and Genesis in Gothenburg 1976, with Bill Bruford, of course. Numerous listens to records…
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
In music; playing with Tangle Edge in 1983, when we stretched boundaries for what we thought was possible or even existing. In life; through a Kriya-yoga esoteric course.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
To somewhere that already exists, but unfolds as the end place of the journey you started with an idea.
How do you define success?
I haven’t been interested in commercial success, so for me it is artistic development, especially being able to finish ideas through recordings, but also in live situations.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
The 1980s.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
Recording a solo album with material of a certain kind that I have never executed before.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
To lift the human spirit to a finer perception.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 27th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
If you’d asked — and you didn’t, I realize — I probably would have put multinational cosmic conglomerate Øresund Space Collective north of 44 albums at this point, but I guess that’s the official count so I’m not about to argue. The improv-minded space jammers have signed to the reactivated The Laser’s Edge to release their new album, Orgone Unicorn, on July 26. Øresund Space Collective with, like, a release date? And a PR wire press release announcing it? Weird.
Given the personnel assembled for Orgone Unicorn, it’s even easier to look forward to the album. The sitar of KG Westman (formerly Siena Root), Wicked Lady‘s Martin Weaver adding drum machine, Saturnia founder Luis Simões adding guitar (and gong!) to the proceedings, along with Scott “Dr. Space” Heller‘s core synth and a cast of familiar/veteran characters jamming out across two LPs, and it’s backed by an outside label? Good for them, man. I don’t know if The Laser’s Edge is going to put out like five Øresund Space Collective and related-project releases a year, but it’s pretty cool to see a band who’ve been around for 18 years get picked up like newbies, and I hope the record does well for them. I generally consider writing about Øresund Space Collective a favor to myself, a chance to depart into pure vibe, so yeah, I’ll likely have more to come on Orgone Unicorn.
Looking forward to it:
ØRESUND SPACE COLLECTIVE: Prolific Scandinavian Instrumental Prog/Jazz Collective Signs With Laser’s Edge; Band’s 44th Title, Orgone Unicorn, To See July 26th Release + Video Clip And Preorders Posted
The progressive music authorities at Laser’s Edge have signed prolific Scandinavian instrumental improvisational progressive/space-jazz group ØRESUND SPACE COLLECTIVE for the release of the band’s impressive forty-fourth title, Orgone Unicorn. Confirming the mammoth album for release July 26th, the label today issues the cover art, preorders, and a video clip taken from the title track.
Founded in 2006 by Scott Heller, aka Dr. Space, ØRESUND SPACE COLLECTIVE is based primarily out of København, Denmark, with roots across Scandinavia, Portugal, and more. A supergroup of sorts, the members of this expansive entity come from a wide array of Scandinavian rock groups, including The Carpet Knights (SE), Mantric Muse (DK), Bland Bladen (SE), Gas Giant (DK), Hooffoot (SE), First Band From Outer Space (SE), Siena Root (SE), My Brother The Wind (SE), Agusa (SE), Tangle Edge (NO), The Univerzals (DK), Papir (DK), Black Moon Circle (NO), among many others.
In 2012, prominent Danish guitarist Claus Bøhling (Hurdy Gurdy, Secret Oyster) played with ØRESUND SPACE COLLECTIVE both live and on three studio albums. In 2018, the band was joined by guitarist Martin Weaver (Dark, Wicked Lady), and 2022 saw the addition of amazing multi-instrumentalists, Mattias Olsson (Ånglagård, Molesome) and Luis Simões (Saturnia).
An exciting live act that always gets the crowd moving and dancing to the improvised progressive grooves, ØRESUND SPACE COLLECTIVE has played well-over one hundred concerts in ten countries. The band has performed at numerous European festivals including the Copenhagen Jazz Festival three times, Kildemose Festival many times, Roadburn Festival, Space Rock Odyssey, Slotsskogen Goes Progressive, Space Force 1, Psychedelic Network, Occultrance Festival, Freak Valley Festival, Burg Herzberg, Roskilde Festival, and Reverence Festival, and even made it to North America to play Psycho Las Vegas.
In their eighteen years of existence thus far, ØRESUND SPACE COLLECTIVE has amassed thirty-two studio albums and twelve live albums, and more. Initially releasing their music through the Swedish label Transubstans, they’ve subsequently partnered with an array of labels, eventually forming their own Space Rock Productions label through which most of their albums over the past several years were released.
Following their illustrious Everyone Is Evil album, released in May of 2023, ØRESUND SPACE COLLECTIVE arrives with their monolithic forty-fourth title Orgone Unicorn, their first for The Laser’s Edge Group. Orgone Unicorn features many of the musicians who played on Everyone Is Evil, with Mattias Olsson, Jonathan Segel (ex-Camper Van Beethoven), Larry Lush, Martin Weaver, Luis Simões, Hasse Horrigome, and KG Westman, joining Scott Heller. The record courses with surreal space passages, with a dark, proggy mood. Along with the array of guitars, bass, synths, keys, mellotron, and more used throughout the record, the percussion showcases interplay between drums, gong, and drum machines.
Recorded at Éstudio Paraíso Nas Nuvens in Central Portugal, Orgone Unicorn was engineered by Larry Lush and Dr Space, mixed and mastered by Jonathan Segel and Dr Space, and completed with cover art by David Graham of Moonboy Art. The 2xLP version comprises five songs, while the 2xCD and digital versions feature two additional songs not on the vinyl – including extended versions of several of the songs – which culminate into an engulfing two hours and sixteen minutes of music.
Laser’s Edge Group founder Ken Golden states, “I’ve been following Scott Heller and the all-star ØRESUND SPACE COLLECTIVE for years. In my mind, they are the premier space rock ensemble. It’s a thrill for us to reactivate our Laser’s Edge label with Orgone Unicorn. Space is the place!”
Scott Heller adds, “It is an honor for ØRESUND SPACE COLLECTIVE to join the ranks of the many great bands that are or have been on Lasers Edge. Great to work with Ken, whom I have known for many, many years. I hope the fans will enjoy this new adventure in sound, as we continue to push totally improvised music into weird and wonderful places.”
A portion of the title track to ØRESUND SPACE COLLECTIVE’s Orgone Unicorn has been issued through a surreal and captivating video clip created by Batu Bintas (Imaginatrix), now playing.
Orgone Unicorn 2xLP Track Listing: Side A Skin Walker Side B Eno´s Donut Orgone Unicorn Side C Kraut Toe Trip Side D Omnia Magnifico
Orgone Unicorn 2xCD Track Listing: CD1 1. Skin Walker 2. Eno’s Donut 3. Orgone Unicorn 4. Red Panda In Rhodes CD2 1. David Graham´s Wormhole Ride 2. Kraut Toe Trip 3. Omnia Magnifico
ØRESUND SPACE COLLECTIVE on Orgone Unicorn: Mattias Olsson – drums, congas, mellotron, Poly D Jonathan Segel – guitar, slide guitar, violin, Fender Rhodes Martin Weaver – Microfreek and Roland drum machines Luis Simões – gong, guitar, noise box Hasse Horrigmoe – bass Larry Lush – Fender Rhodes, mellotron KG Westman – sitar; mellotron, synths Dr. Space – Hammond, Mellotron, Modular Synth, Octave Cat, ARP Odyssey, Poly D
This is it. This one’s for all the marbles. Well, actually there are no marbles involved, but if you remember way back like two weeks ago when this started out, I told you the tale of a hubristic 40-something dickweed blogger who thought he could review 100 albums in 10 days, and assuming I make it through the below without having an aneurysm — because, hey, you never know — today I get to live that particular fairy tale.
Lamp of the Universe Meets Dr. Space, Enters Your Somas
Who’s ready to get blasted out the airlock? New Zealand solo-outfit Lamp of the Universe, aka multi-instrumentalist Craig Williamson (also Dead Shrine, ex-Datura, etc.), and Portugal-residing synth master Dr. Space, aka Scott Heller of Øresund Space Collective, Black Moon Circle, and so on, come together to remind us all we’re nothing more than semi-sentient cosmic dust. Enters Your Somas is comprised of two extended pieces, “Enters Your Somas” (18:39) and “Infiltrates Your Mind” (19:07), and both resonate space/soul frequencies while each finds its own path. The title-track is more languid on average, where “Infiltrates Your Mind” reroutes auxiliary power to the percussive thrusters in its first half before drifting into drone communion and hearing a voice — vague, but definitely human speech — before surging back to its course via Williamson‘s drums, which play a large role in giving the material its shape. But with synthy sweeps from Heller, Mellotron and guitar coming and going, and a steady groove across both inclusions, Lamp of the Universe Meets Dr. Space offer galactic adventure limited only by where your imagination puts you while you listen.
Richmond, Virginia’s Inter Arma had no small task before them in following 2019’s Sulphur English (review here), but from the tech-death boops and bops and twists of New Heaven‘s leadoff title-track through the gothic textures of “Gardens in the Dark,” self-aware without satire, slow-flowing and dramatic, this fifth full-length finds them continuing to expand their creative reach, and at this point, whatever genre you might want to cast them in, they stand out. To wit, the blackdeath onslaught of “Violet Seizures” that’s also space rock, backed in that by the subsequent “Desolation’s Harp” with its classically grandiose solo, or the post-doom lumber of “Concrete Cliffs” that calls out its expanse after the seven-minute drum-playthrough-fodder extremity of “The Children the Bombs Overlooked,” or the mournful march of “Endless Grey” and the acoustic-led Nick Cavey epilogue “Forest Service Road Blues.” Few bands embrace a full spectrum of metallic sounds without coming across as either disjointed or like they’re just mashing styles together for the hell of it. Inter Arma bleed purpose in every turn, and as they inch closer to their 20th year as a band, they are masters unto themselves of this form they’ve created.
The opening “Chimera” puts Chasing Shadows quickly into a ritualized mindset, all the more as Warsaw meditative doomers Sunnata lace it and a decent portion of their 11-track/62-minute fifth album with an arrangement of vocals from guitarists Szymon Ewertowski and Adrian Gadomski and bassist/synthesist Michal Dobrzanski as drummer/percussionist Robert Ruszczyk punctuates on snare as they head toward a culmination. Individual pieces have their own purposes, whether it’s the momentary float of “Torn” or the post-Alice in Chains harmonies offset by Twin Peaks-y creep in “Saviours Raft,” or the way “Hunger” gradually moves from light to dark with rolling immersion, or the dancier feel with which “Like Cogs in a Wheel” gives an instrumental finish. It’s not a minor undertaking and it’s not meant to be one, but mood and atmosphere do a lot of work in uniting the songs, and the low-in-the-mouth vocal melodies become a part of that as the record unfolds. Their range has never felt broader, but there’s a plot being followed as well, an idea behind each turn in “Wishbone” and the sprawl is justified by the dug-in worldmaking taking place across the whole-LP progression, darkly psychedelic and engrossing as it is.
Among the most vital classic elements of The Sonic Dawn‘s style is their ability to take spacious ideas and encapsulate them with a pop efficiency that doesn’t feel dumbed down. That is to say, they’re not capitulating to fickle attention spans with short songs so much as they’re able to get in, say what they want to say with a given track, and get out. Phantom is their fifth album, and while the title may allude to a certain ghostliness coinciding with the melancholy vibe overarching through the bulk of its component material, the Copenhagen-based trio are mature enough at this stage to know what they’re about. And while Phantom has its urgent stretches in the early going of “Iron Bird” or the rousing “Think it Over,” the handclap-laced “Pan AM,” and the solo-topped apex of “Micro Cosmos in a Drop,” most of what they’re about here harnesses a mellower atmosphere. It doesn’t need to hurry, baby. Isn’t there enough rush in life with all these “21st Century Blues?” With no lack of movement throughout, some of The Sonic Dawn‘s finest stretches here are in low-key interpretations of funk (“Dreams of Change,” “Think it Over,” “Transatlantique,” etc.) or prog-boogie (“Scorpio,” “Nothing Can Live Here” before the noisier crescendo) drawn together by organ, subdued, thoughtful vocal melodies and craft to suit the organic production. This isn’t the first The Sonic Dawn LP to benefit from the band knowing who they are as a group, but golly it sure is stronger for that.
It’s not until the hook of second cut “Ohm Ripper” hits that Rifflord let go of the tension built up through the opening semi-title-track “Serpent Power,” which in its thickened thrashy charge feels like a specific callout to High on Fire but as I understand it is just about doing hard drugs. Fair enough. The South Dakota-based five-piece of bassist/vocalist Wyatt Bronc Bartlett, guitarists Samuel Hayes and Dustin Vano, keyboardist Tory Jean Stoddard and drummer Douglas Jennings Barrett will echo that intensity later in “Church Keys” and “Tumbleweed,” but that’s still only one place the 38-minute eight-track LP goes, and whether it’s the vocals calling out through the largesse and breadth of “Blessed Life” or the ensuing crush that follows in “LM308,” the addled Alice in Chains swagger in the lumber of “Grim Creeper” or the righteously catchy bombast of “Hoof,” they reach further than they ever have in terms of sound and remain coherent despite the inherently chaotic nature of their purported theme, the sheer heft of the tonality wielded and the fact that 39 Serpent Power has apparently been waiting some number of years to see release. Worth the wait? Shit, I’m surprised the album didn’t put itself out, it sounds so ready to go.
At the core of Mothman and the Thunderbirds is multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Alex Parkinson, and on the band’s second album, Portal Hopper, he’s not completely on his own — Egor Lappo programmed the drums, mixed, and plays a guitar solo on “Fractals,” Joe Sobieski guests on vocals for a couple tracks, Sam Parkinson donates a pair of solos to the cause — but it’s still very much his telling of the charmingly meandering sci-fi/fantasy plot taking place across the 12 included progressive metal mini-epics, which he presents with an energy and clarity of purpose that for sure graduated from Devin Townsend‘s school of making a song with 40 layers sound immediate but pulls as well from psychedelia and pop-punk vocals for an all the more emphatic scope. This backdrop lets “Fractals” get funky or “Escape From Flatwoods” hold its metallic chicanery with its soaring melody while “Squonk Kingdom” is duly over-the-top in its second-half chase soon enough fleshed out by “So Long (Portal Hopper)” ahead of the lightly-plucked finale “Attic.” The specificity of influence throughout Portal Hopper can be striking as clean/harsh vocals blend, etc., but given the narrative and the relative brevity of the songs complementing the whims explored within them, there’s no lack of character in the album’s oft-careening 38-minute course.
Given its pro-shop nature in production and performance, the ability of The Lunar Effect to grasp a heavy blues sound as part of what they do while avoiding either the trap of hyper-dudely navelgazing or cultural appropriation — no minor feat — and the fluidity of one piece into the next across the 40-minute LP’s two sides, I’m a little surprised not to have been sick of the band’s second album, Sounds of Green and Blue before I put it on. Maybe since it’s on Svart everyone just assumed it’s Finnish experimentalist drone? Maybe everybody’s burnt out on a seemingly endless stream of bands from London’s underground? I don’t know, but by the time The Lunar Effect make their way to the piano-laden centerpiece “Middle of the End” — expanding on the unhurried mood of “In Grey,” preceding the heavy blues return of “Pulling Daisies” at the start of side B that mirrors album opener “Ocean Queen” and explodes into a roll that feels like it was made to be the best thing you play at your DJ night — that confusion is a defining aspect of the listening experience. “Fear Before the Fall” picks on Beethoven, for crying out loud. High class and low groove. Believe me, I know there’s a lot of good stuff out already in 2024, but what the hell more could you want? Where is everybody?
Even if I were generally inclined to do so — read: I’m not — it would be hard to begrudge Portland heavy rock institution Danava wanting to do a live record after their 2023’s Nothing But Nothing (review here) found them in such raucous form. But the aptly-titled Live is more than just a post-studio-LP check-in to remind you they kick ass on stage, as side A’s space, classic, boogie, heavy rocking “Introduction/Spinning Temple” and “Maudie Shook” were recorded in 2008, while the four cuts on side B — “Shoot Straight with a Crooked Gun,” “Nothing but Nothing,” “Longdance,” “Let the Good Times Kill” and “Last Goodbye” — came from the European tour undertaken in Fall 2023 to support Nothing But Nothing. Is the underlying message that Danava are still rad 15 years later? Maybe. That certainly comes through by the time the solo in “Shoot Straight with a Crooked Gun” hits, but that also feels like reading too much into it. Maybe it’s just about representing different sides of who Danava are, and if so, fine. Then or now, psych or proto-thrashing, they lay waste.
A free three-songer from Varese, Italy’s Moonlit, Be Not Afraid welcomes the listener to “Death to the World” with (presumably sampled) chanting before unfurling a loose, somewhat morose-feeling nighttime-desert psych sway before “Fort Rachiffe” howls tonally across its own four minutes in more heavy post-rock style, still languid in tempo but encompassing in its wash and the amp-hum-and-percussion blend on the shorter “Le Conseguenze Della Libertà” (1:57) gives yet another look, albeit briefly. In about 11 minutes, Moonlit — whose last studio offering was 2021’s So Bless Us Now (review here) — never quite occupy the same space twice, and despite the compact presentation, the range from mid-period-QOTSA-gone-shoegaze (plus chanting! don’t forget the chanting!) to the hypnotic Isis-doing-space-push that follows with the closer as a but-wait-there’s-more/not-just-an-afterthought epilogue is palpable. I don’t know when or how Be Not Afraid was recorded, whether it’s portentous of anything other than itself or what, but there’s a lot happening under its surface, and while you can’t beat the price, don’t be surprised if you end up throwing a couple bucks Moonlit‘s way anyhow.
Much of Northern Lights is instrumental, but whether or not Leo Scheben is barking out the endtimes storyline of “Darkhammer” — stylized all-caps in the tracklisting — or “Night Terrors,” or just digging into a 24-second progression of lo-fi riffing of “Paranoid Isolation” and the Casio-type beats that back his guitar there and across the project’s 16-track latest offering, the reminder Doom Lab give is that the need to create takes many forms. From the winding scales of “Locrian’s Run” to “Twisted Logic” with its plotted solo lines, pieces are often just that — pieces of what might otherwise be a fleshed-out song — and Doom Lab‘s experimentalism feels paramount in terms of aural priorities. Impulse in excelsis. It might be for the best that the back-to-back pair “Nice ‘n’ Curvy” and “Let ’em Bounce” are both instrumental, but as madcap as Scheben is, he’s able to bring Northern Lights to a close with resonant homage in its title-track, and cuts like “Too Much Sauce on New Year’s Eve” and “Dark Matter” are emblematic of his open-minded approach overall, working in different styles sometimes united most by their rawness and uncompromising persona. This is number 100 of 100 records covered in this Quarterly Review, and nothing included up to now sounds like Doom Lab. A total win for radical individualism.
This is the next-to-last day of this Quarterly Review, and while it’s been a lot, it’s been encouraging to dig into so much stuff in such intense fashion. I’ve added a few releases to my notes for year-end lists, but more importantly, I’ve gotten to hear and cover stuff that otherwise I might not, and that’s the value at a QR has for me at its core, so while we’re not through yet, I’ll just say thanks again for reading and that I hope you’ve also found something that speaks to you in these many blocks of text and embedded streaming players. If not, there’s still 20 records to go, so take comfort in that as needed.
Quarterly Review #81-90:
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Harvestman, Triptych: Part One
The weirdo-psych experimental project of Steve Von Till (now ex-Neurosis, which is still sad on a couple levels) begins a released-according-to-lunar-orbit trilogy of albums in Triptych: Part One, which is headlined by opening track “Psilosynth,” boasting a guest appearance from Al Cisneros (Sleep, Om) on bass. If those two want to start an outsider-art dub-drone band together, my middle-aged burnout self is here for it — “Psilosynth (Harvest Dub),” a title that could hardly be more Von Till and Cisneros, appears a little later, which suggests they might also be on board — but that’s only part of the world being created in Triptych: Part One as “Mare and Foal” manipulates bagpipes into ghostly melodies, “Give Your Heart to the Hawk” echoes poetry over ambient strum, “Coma” and “How to Purify Mercury” layer synthesized drone and/or effects-guitar to sci-fi affect and “Nocturnal Field Song” finds YOB‘s Dave French banging away on something metal in the background while the crickets chirp. The abiding spirit is subdued, exploratory as Von Till‘s solo works perpetually are, and even as the story is only a third told, the immersion on Triptych: Part One goes as deep as the listener is willing to let it. I look forward to being a couple moons late reviewing the next installment.
As they make their self-titled full-length debut, Asheville, North Carolina’s Kalgon lay claim to a deceptive wide swath of territory even separate from the thrashier departure “Apocalyptic Meiosis” as they lumber through “The Isolate” and the more melodic “Grade of the Slope,” stoner-doom leaning into psych and more cosmic vibing, with the mournful “Windigo” leading into “Eye of the Needle”‘s slo-mo-stoner-swing and gutted out vocals turning to Beatlesy melody — guitarist Brandon Davis and bassist Berten Lee Tanner share those duties while Marc Russo rounds out the trio on drums — in its still-marching second half and the post-Pallbearer reaches and acoustic finish of “Setting Sun.” An interlude serves as centerpiece between “Apocalyptic Meiosis” and “Windigo,” and that two-plus-minute excursion into wavy drone and amplifier hum works well to keep a sense of flow as the next track crashes in, but more, it speaks to longer term possibilities for how the band might grow, both in terms of what they do sonically and in their already-clear penchant for seeing their first LP as a whole, single work with its own progression and story to tell.
Surely there’s some element in Agriculture‘s self-applied aesthetic frame of “ecstatic black metal” in the power of suggestion, but as they follow-up their 2022 self-titled debut with the four-song Living is Easy EP and move from the major-key lightburst of the title-track into the endearingly, organically, folkishly strained harmonies of “Being Eaten by a Tiger,” renew the overwhelming blasts of tremolo and seared screams on “In the House of Angel Flesh” and round out with a minute of spoken word recitation in “When You Were Born,” guitarists Richard Chowenhill (also credited with co-engineering, mixing and mastering) and Dan Meyer (also vocals), bassist/vocalist Leah B. Levinson and drummer/percussionist Kern Haug present an innovative perspective on the genre that reminds of nothing so much as the manner in which earliest Wolves in the Throne Room showed that black metal could do something more than it had done previously. That’s not a sonic comparison, necessarily — though there are basic stylistic aspects shared between the two — but more about the way Agriculture are using black metal toward purposefully new expressive ends. I’m not Mr. Char by any means, but it’s been probably that long since the last time I heard something that was so definitively black metal and worked as much to refresh what that means.
Apparently self-released by the intercontinental duo last Fall and picked up for issue through Heavy Psych Sounds, Saltpig‘s self-titled debut modernizes classic charge and swing in increasingly doomed fashion across the first four songs of its A-side, laces “Burn the Witch” with samples themed around the titular subject, and dedicates all of side B to the blown out mostly-instrumental roll of “1950,” which is in fact 19 minutes and 50 seconds long. The band, comprised of guitarist/vocalist/noisemaker Mitch Davis (also producer for a swath of more commercially viable fare) and drummer Fabio Alessandrini (ex-Annihilator), are based in New York and Italy, respectively, and whatever on earth might’ve brought them together, in both the heavy-garage strut of “Demon” and the willfully harsh manner in which they represent themselves in the record’s back half, they bask in the rougher edges of their tones and approach more generally. “When You Were Dead” is something of a preface in its thicker distortion to “1950,” but its cavernous shouted vocals retain a psychedelic presence amid the ensuing grit, whereas once the closer gets underway from its feedback-soaked first two minutes, they make it plain there’s no coming back.
Newcomer UK doomers Druidess nod forth on their debut EP, Hermits and Mandrakes, with a buzzing tonality in “Witches’ Sabbath” that’s distinctly more Monolord than Electric Wizard, and while that’s fascinating academically and in terms of the generational shift happening in the heavy underground over the last few years, the fuzz that accompanies the hook of “Mandragora,” which follows, brings a tempo boost that situates the two-piece of vocalist Shonagh Brown and multi-instrumentalist/producer Daniel Downing (guitar, bass, keys, drum programming; he even had a hand in the artwork, apparently) in a more rocking vein. It’s heavy either way you go, and “Knightingales” brings Green Lung-style organ into the mix along with another standout hook before “The Hermit of Druid’s Temple” signs over its soul to faster Sabbath worship and closer “The Forest Witches’ Daughter” underscores the commitment to same in combination with a more occult thematic. It’s familiar-enough terrain, ultimately, but the heft they conjure early on and the movement they bring to it later should be plenty to catch ears among the similarly converted, and in song and performance they display a self-awareness of craft that is no less a source of their potential.
Astral Construct, Traveling a Higher Consciousness
One-man sans-vocals psych outfit Astral Construct — aka Denver-based multi-instrumentalist Drew Patricks — released Traveling a Higher Consciousness last year, and well, I guess I got lost in a temporal wormhole or some such because it’s not last year anymore. The record’s five-track journey is encompassing in its metal-rooted take on heavy psychedelia, however, and that’s fortunate as “Accessing the Mind’s Eye” solidifies from its languid first-half unfolding into more stately progressive riffage. Bookended by the dreamy manifestation of “Heart of the Nebula” (8:12) and “Interstellar” (9:26), which moves between marching declaration and expansive helium-guitar float, the album touches ground in centerpiece “The Traveler,” but even there could hardly be called terrestrial once the drums drop out and the keys sweep in near the quick-fade finish that brings about the more angular “Long View of Astral Consciousness,” that penultimate track daring a bit of double-kick in the drums heading toward its own culmination. Now, then or future, whether it’s looking inward or out, Traveling a Higher Consciousness is a revelry for the cosmos waiting to be engaged. You might just end up in a different year upon hearing it.
Although their moniker comes from an indigenous group who lived on Hokkaido before that island became part of modern Japan, Ainu are based in Genoa, Italy, and their self-titled debut has little to do sound-wise with the people or their culture. Fair enough. Ainu‘s Ainu, which starts out in “Il Faro” with sparse atmospheric guitar and someone yelling at you in Italian presumably about the sea (around which the record is themed), uses speech and samples to hold most positions vocals would otherwise occupy, though the two-minute “D.E.V.S.” is almost entirely voice-based, so the rules aren’t so strictly applied one way or the other. Similarly, as the three-piece course between grounded sludgier progressions and drifting post-heavy, touching on more aggressive moods in the late reaches of “Aiutami A. Ricordare” and the nodding culmination of “Khrono” but letting the breadth of “Call of the Sea” unfold across divergent movements of crunchier riffs and operatic prog grandiosity. You would not call it predictable, however tidal the flow from one piece to the next might be.
Progressive sludge set to a backdrop of science-fiction and extrasolar range, The World Before Us marks a turn from heretofore instrumental New York trio Grid, who not only feature vocals throughout their 38-minute six-tracker third LP, but vary their approach in that regard such that as “Our History Hidden” takes hold following the keyboardy intro “Singularity” (in we go!), the first three of the song’s 12 minutes find them shifting from sub-soaring melodicism to hard-growled metallic crunch with the comfort of an act who’ve been pulling off such things for much longer. The subsequent “Traversing the Interstellar Gateway” (9:31) works toward similar ends, only with guitar instead of singing, and the standout galloping kickdrum of “Architects of Our World” leads to a deeper dig into the back and forth between melody and dissonance, led into by the threatening effects manipulations of the interlude “Contact” and eventually giving over to the capstone outro “Duality” that, if it needs to be said, mirrors “Singularity” at the start. There’s nuance and texture in this interplay between styles — POV: you dig OpethandHawkwind — and my suspicion is that if Grid keep to this methodology going forward, the vocal arrangements will continue to evolve along with the rest of the band’s expanding-in-all-directions stylizations.
The stated intentions of Bordeaux, France’s Dätcha Mandala in bringing elements of ’90s British alternative rock into their heavier context with their Koda LP are audible in opener “She Said” and the title-track that follows it, but it’s the underlying thread of heavy rock that wins the day across the 11-song outing, however danceable “Wild Fire” makes it or however attitude-signaling the belly-belch that starts “Thousand Pieces” is in itself. That’s not to say Koda doesn’t succeed at what it’s doing, just that there’s more to the proceedings than playing toward that particular vision of cool. “It’s Not Only Rock and Roll (And We Don’t Like It)” has fuzzy charm and a hook to boot, while “Om Namah Shivaya” ignites with an energy that is proggy and urgent in kind — the kind of song that makes you a fan at the show even if you’ve never heard the band before — and closer “Homeland” dares some burl amid its harmonized chorus and flowing final guitar solo, answering back to the post-burp chug in “Thousand Pieces” and underscoring the multifaceted nature of the album as a whole. I suppose if you have prior experience with Dätcha Mandala, you know they’re not just about one thing, but for newcomers, expect happy surprises.
Given the principals involved — Scott “Dr. Space” Heller of Øresund Space Collective, Black Moon Circle, et al, and Chris Purdon of Hawklords and Nik Turner’s Space Ritual — it should come as no surprise that The Bubbles Scopes complements its grammatical counterintuitiveness with alien soundscape concoctions of synth-based potency; the adventure into the unknown-until-it’s-recorded palpable across two extended tracks suitably titled “Trip 1” (22:56) and “Trip 2” (15:45). Longform waveforms, both. The collaboration — one of at least two Heller has slated for release this Spring; stay tuned tomorrow — makes it clear from the very beginning that the far-out course The Bubbles Scopes follows is for those who dwell in rooms with melting walls, but in the various pulsations and throbs of “Trip 1,’ the transition from organ to more electronic-feeling keyboard, and so on, human presence is no more absent than they want it to be, and while the loops are dizzying and “Trip 2” seems to reach into different dimensions with its depth of mix, when the scope is so wide, the sounds almost can’t help but feel free. And so they do. They put 30 copies on tape, because even in space all things digitalia are ephemeral. If you want one, engage your FOMO and make it happen because the chance may or may not come again.
