Review & Album Stream: Apollo80 & Dimartis, Reverberations Vol. 1 – Tales of Dust and Winds Split LP
Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on November 14th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Australian jammers Apollo80 and Argentinian desert explorers Dimartis are launching a new split series for Sound Effect Records. Titled simply ‘Reverberations,’ with its first installment titled less simply, Reverberations Vol. 1 – Tales of Dust and Winds, the 38-minute long-player lays out the message of geography’s irrelevance when it comes to the heavy. Everywhere might have its own take — informed by local folk traditions or very actively not, depending on the band and situation — but if you’re on Planet Earth, heavy music is just about everywhere. In celebrating this, Sound Effect Records offer a timely reminder that human beings are the same — well timed with now two wars hot in Europe — and that creative expression and the language of music through which it’s happening here know neither gods nor borders nor walls. Whatever shape is ultimately taken, they are free-flowing. They belong to everyone.
As an art form, the split LP is very much not broken. And of all the ways one might find out about a band, it’s among the most personal of endorsements. I’ve never heard Dimartis, but I’m familiar with Apollo80. With the added 
boost of curation on the part of Sound Effect Records — though Ripple Music and Heavy Psych Sounds also run split series — the two bands are essentially championing each other’s work. Some splits are done for a tour; two bands getting together on a 7″ for the merch table. Some are on a theme. Sides A and B here are so dug into the spirit of the jam that the revelry itself seems to be the driving purpose. Each complements the other, and as Apollo80 set out with the multi-movement single piece “Null Arbor” (19:54) and Dimartis follow with three songs arranged together across 18:47 in “Los Altares,” “Circulos” and “Humo,” the procession is immersive and easy to lose oneself within, “Null Arbor” building to a cosmic apex over its first seven minutes or so before resolving in a big and not completely un-tense chill, gradually swelling in volume again as it moves through its midpoint and into heavier riffing after 10 minutes in.
They’re not shy about the cacophony once they get there, and Apollo80 continue to ride that crescendo for the next minute-plus before starting the comedown process that, with the guitar in the lead spot, unfolds languidly but not lazily or any more meandering than it wants to be. Just past 15 minutes in, they nestle into a swirl of wah that creates a steady current of noise to go with the heavier repetitions that finish in the fadeout, and with a side flip, Dimartis answer patience with patience in the gradual rollout of “Los Altares,” which like “Humo” to come touches on heavy post-rock, but is coming from a place more akin to desert psychedelia, as they show in each of their three inclusions at some point or other, whether it’s the instrumentalist takeoff in “Los Altares,” the heady, kind of downer roll in “Circulos” becoming a march after its midsection and a 
meditative heavy that echoes My Sleeping Karma at their weightiest, with just the barest edge of post-hardcore dramaturge in the riff for good measure.
“Circulos” crashes and moves into a more subdued fluidity, ending after 13:20 with silence for space between it and the closer “Humo,” which caps Reverberations Vol. 1 – Tales of Dust and Winds with shimmer and float at its beginning. Soon enough, the heavier riff enters and Dimartis carry it through to a last-minute tempo kick that’s part desert but especially emerging from the movement it does is weirder and broader than one thinks of the style’s post-Kyuss flourishing, well placed to meet the end of the record, but not necessarily a huge blowout finish so much as where they decided it was time to leave the journey in progress. You know that math theory that says every time you draw a line, that line is infinite and it just keeps going forever, even if you only drew just a teeny-tiny bit? Reverberations Vol. 1 – Tales of Dust and Winds feels like it’s still playing somewhere when it’s over, even if I can’t hear. To me, that speaks to the idea of resonance and evocation in psychedelic music, but that’s only part of the appeal here alongside the bare heft and flashes of cosmic pulse.
How well these two might’ve known each other prior to sharing space on this platter, I don’t know, but around basic commonalities of form, Dimartis and Apollo80 present individual approaches to adventurous heavy psych, each outfit with a chemistry of their own that makes the other stronger. If that’s not the ideal, I don’t know what is, and in a universe with myriad ways in which one might discover music, from social media word-of-mouth to shitheel blogs like this one to algorithmic suggestions on endless playlists, the split retains a singular presence in the spectrum of releases. I’m glad as hell I got to hear this one.
You might be too. It premieres in full on the player below. Please enjoy.
Sound Effect Records presents the release of REVERBERATIONS, a new split series with the intention of delivering bands across the planet sonically united by a musical common ground.
The first instalment, called TALES OF DUST AND WINDS sees the Western Australians APOLLO80 joining forces with the Argentinian-Patagonians DIMARTIS to take us on a trip through desertic landscapes made of winds, cold sunsets and naked rocks.
The Australians, now at the third chapter with Sound Effect Records, offer a 20-min long desert/ kosmische one-riffer cavalcade in pure Can / Neu tradition but with a heavy twist that will please the lovers of long instrumental trips. Turn the LP and you’ll find Dimartis (10 years on the scene and surprisingly at their debut on vinyl) with three tracks beautifully arranged balancing silences and reverbs that evoke the milestones of desert rock.
Really an excellent concept aiming to take us travelling through the Australian bush and the Patagonian flats with two bands that squeezed all their local authenticity in every groove.
The LP release is planned for November 10th, on classic black and limited sea blue vinyl.
Apollo80 is:
Luke – guitar/throat/synth
Brano – bass/voice
Shane – drums
Dimartis es :
Chino Velazquez : Bateria
Luciano Pucheta : Bajo/Recs
Nazareno Ferro : Guitarra/Drones
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