Posted in Whathaveyou on May 6th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
A lot happening in the Fuzz Sagrado camp at just this moment. Last week, the Brazil-based solo-outfit of Samsara Blues Experiment founding guitarist/vocalist Chris Peters, both released a comp of the project’s first two EPs, Strange Daze, and were announced as appearing in the US in early 2026 at Planet Desert Rock Weekend VI in Las Vegas. By my count, that’s Peters‘ first time in the States with a band since SBE came over in 2015 for a Psycho California and Austin Psych Fest. Fuzz Sagrado will likely have other shows around the fest appearance, as some international acts did for PDRW this year, and they’ve newly unveiled the lineup that will be playing any and all of the band’s gigs to be announced.
Members of Blackbox Massacre, Coogans Bluff, a four-piece incarnation — back to Samsara Blues Experiment‘s roots in that regard — and an intended mix of new material from the new band and some classics from the old, all make for an enticing proposition when it comes to ‘Fuzz Sagrado live.’ Of course, Samsara Blues Experiment was put to rest with 2020’s End of Forever (review here), though the years since have seen a few posthumous outings of live sets, demos and such. To wit, the latest collection under the band’s name, Time Wizardry, brings together material from their earliest self-released stuff and some others along the way. It also came out this past Friday, concurrent to Fuzz Sagrado‘s Strange Daze.
So, Samsara Blues Experiment, though not a band anymore, are still a presence here, and Fuzz Sagrado, with Peters steering, plans to acknowledge the legacy by playing those songs. That feels right, to be honest. Clearly there’s been some dispute about the name — Peters says below he can’t use the other one, and I have to think if he could he would if only for the ease of branding — but, frankly, Peters should be playing those songs if that’s what he wants to do. I’m not going to discount any former member of his band’s impact on that band, but nobody here is claiming to be that band, so it shouldn’t be a problem.
But, also being honest, if Peters had gotten to call this band a new version of Samsara Blues Experiment, I’d be looking forward to that too. Turns out the music is good whatever you want to call it. Don’t tell that to genre heads like me though.
From social media:
FUZZ SAGRADO – NEW LIVE BAND 💥
Simply because I can’t contain my own excitement any longer. The new FUZZ SAGRADO live band consists of a number of legends from the German Heavy Psych – scene …
With me are Steffen (formerly of SPACESHIP LANDING on additional guitar duty), Charlie (also drummer of COOGANS BLUFF) and young gun Raphael (bass). All three also play as BLACKBOX MASSACRE (new album coming soon).
On a personal note: We already had this band in 2023 – but the last few years have brought some confusion. A proposed former band name can and will no longer be used. We will continue as FUZZ SAGRADO for now, being very aware of my own musical heritage and the wishes of so many fans.
In short, among new songs we will continue to play a few SBE songs too. In a way, this is the long awaited sequel and we are all very excited about it!
Thank you to ALL former band mates. I am not perfect, will never be – I hope one day everyone can understand it all from a relaxed perspective.
Thank you Lorrayne Castro for the picture, and good vibes!
And this is the point: We all deserve good things!
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 2nd, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Continuing its thread of bringing international acts to a waiting audience, next January’s Planet Desert Rock Weekend VI in Las Vegas will host the first US appearance of Fuzz Sagrado, the recent-years project of Samsara Blues Experiment founding guitarist/vocalist Chris Peters. Based in Brazil for I think a half-decade now (time flies), Peters has been trying to find a way to bridge past and present between psychedelic rock and more progressive, synthier sounds, and while Fuzz Sagrado is less definitively heavy psych than Samsara Blues Experiment, it retains the stamp of Peters‘ songwriting that was the defining feature of his former outfit.
Why not just reunite Samsara Blues Experiment or pull together a new lineup with the name? Sometimes these things are complicated. But Peters has said the live incarnation of Fuzz Sagrado (which imports players from Germany) will perform his old band’s songs, so if you live in the States, or wherever, and ever wanted to hear “Double Freedom” live — and you know you did — this will probably be your best chance. Fuzz Sagrado joins an absolutely stacked bill from The Atomic Bitchwax to Huanastone, and there’s still more to come. Hell yes.
From the PR wire:
We like to bring in cool unique performances, so we are excited to announce Fuzz Sagrado (Brazil/Germany) is joining us for Planet Desert Rock Weekend VI! Fuzz Sagrado features former Samsara Blues Experiment frontman Kris Peters and he has put together a very special lineup that will be playing a great blend of songs. The band joining him is guitarist Steffen (ex-Spaceship Landing), drummer Charlie (Coogans Bluff) and bassist Raphael .
FUZZ SAGRADO in concert will continue the tradition of SBE, playing intense Psychedelic Stonerrock, including old and new titles in an explosive 70s Krautrock-influenced mixture. For the many of us old school fans who remember Samsara Blues Experiment this will be a cool treat to see these songs live. For others this will be a great discovery of a band that has always held a special place in our scene.
Also we sadly must announce that Swan Valley Heights will not be joining us in 2026. We hope in the future they can make it over!
We have 4 bands left to announce and we have some doozies coming at ya! Much love to everyone and their support and can’t wait to rock with you all next year!
From Kris Peters:
“I’m very excited about my return to the live scene. I’ve actually been planning my stage comeback for two years. I was looking for new musicians with the idea of putting together a best-of setlist of my career, including tracks from Samsara but also newer songs (Fuzz Sagrado, Surya) in a well-rounded package. I know what my fans like to hear, and now that I’ve found a great new band, I’m sure there’s no room for disappointment. This is going to be great!”
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 5th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Likewise unexpected and bittersweet comes this two songer from the remote collaborative project Sleeping in Samsara, issued by guitarist/vocalist Christian Peters — Fuzz Sagrado, ex-Samsara Blues Experiment; he’s the ‘Samsara’ — and Steffen Weigand, the drummer of My Sleeping Karma, who passed away in June 2023. To hear Peters tell it, the project was Weigand‘s to start with, as were the foundations of the songs, which were eventually fleshed out with vocals, bass and lead guitar over Weigand‘s drums, synth and rhythm guitar.
“Downtime” is mellower and driftier than “Twilight Again,” and has some classic ’70s soul later on. The lead cut is longer and more active, though, with a janga-janga riff obscured in a not-too-busy mix, really pulling from both sides. They could’ve gotten a record’s worth of material out of this approach, no problem, so it’s something of a “what could’ve been” kind of release, but as a listener it’s fortunate these two songs are out there at all — let alone as a free download, which it is, by the way.
I’ll leave it to Peters to tell the rest. This is a thing that just happened today:
New and special release …
At the beginning of April 2023, Steffen Weigand contacted me via email, quite unexpectedly. We had known each other for about twenty years, but were not very close until then. Our previous bands The Great Escape and Terraplane played a few concerts together, and later we often shared stages with My Sleeping Karma and SBE. The Great Escape left quite an impression on us back then, as we were about ten years younger and much less experienced musicians, and I always respected the great rhythm work of Steffen and Matte Vandeven on bass.
When Steffen contacted me, we talked about everything really, and it was like really getting to know each other after such a long time. His illness was also a topic, and I remember how I tried to give him strength with anecdotes from my life, or experiences from the past. I lost my mother at a very young age and had seen a lot of what cancer can do. At some point Steffen mentioned working on a solo project, but he also wanted to involve other musicians. He offered me two of his songs to participate where he had already worked out quite a lot. Besides his drumming there were already melodies, song-structures, etc. What was missing, however, was perhaps a bit more character (especially lyrics) and that’s where I came in.
He was a bit shy and didn’t seem completely convinced with these tracks yet, but I immediately recognized the potential and delivered lyrics and guitar solos in no time. In about a week I had both ready, written and recorded, much to Steffen’s amazement. We were both euphoric!! In my naivety I thought that this collaboration would be so positive that it could help to heal him. Then it was time to mix, and I asked Steffen if it was okay if I published my own mixes. He allowed me to do that in one of his last emails, and then I waited about three weeks for further news from him. On the morning of June 13, 2023, however, I had to read the terrible news and was paralyzed for weeks. I couldn’t believe it.
What I also have to say is that this short collaboration was the first time I had seriously worked with another musician since the end of SBE in 2020. For this reason alone, these songs are very important to me, as difficult as it was to finish them for a long time. I also have a lot of personal connections to both. It’s a real collaboration between Steffen’s music and my lyrics and guitar solos, which I’m particularly proud of, especially in the first track. Interestingly, these were the very first rough takes, but I never captured that spirit again, so I left it at these relatively raw recordings.
So I will release the songs as they are now… as a gift to the fans of both our bands. Unfortunately, that’s all that will remain from this project.
I would like to dedicate these two tracks to Steffen and also to my mother-in-law (“mama dois”) Imaculada Silva Castro, who also died of cancer last year. She listened to “Downtime” during one of her previous visits to our house and she liked it very much. I will never forget that.
Music by Steffen Weigand. Lyrics by Christian Peters. Steffen’s parts recorded in Aschaffenburg. Chris parts recorded in Brasil, May 2023. Mix and master by Chris Peters, Brasil February 2025.
Sleeping in Samsara: Steffen Weigand – drums, keyboards and synthesizers, rhythm guitar in track 1 Christian Peters – vocals, lead guitar, bass guitar in track 2
Posted in Bootleg Theater on February 28th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
One can’t help but read some element of nostalgia specifically for the early days of the band in Samsara Blues Experiment‘s Peace of Action (Live 2012) release, issued just yesterday, Feb. 27, as a free download with tracks culled from 2013’s Live at Rockpalast (review here). True, the Berlin-based then-four-piece had been around for four years by that point and indeed had already by then embarked on the let’s-just-go-do-a-thing West Coast tour of the US in 2008 supporting just their demo (discussed here, review here).
In 2010, their first album, Long-Distance Trip (review here), had reaffirmed the heavy psychedelic warmth of ’08’s preceding rough cuts and expanded on it with a purposefully jammy take and a willingness to let the songs breathe that was new. In 2011, the second full-length, Revelation and Mystery (review here), introduced a more progressive edge to the band’s style, as lead guitarist/vocalist Christian Peters (now of Fuzz Sagrado), guitarist Hans Eiselt, bassist Richard Behrens (who now helms Big Snuff Studio, also Wedge, I think still FOH for Kadavar, and others) and drummer Thomas Vedder began to discover their identity in the tonal depth, spiritualistic lyrical framework and expansive reach of their jams.
So by 2012, when Peace of Action was recorded in Germany (Behrens mixed), Samsara Blues Experiment weren’t a brand new band, but they were beginning to come into their own, and the sound was fresh. They were enough of a “thing” in 2012 that they got to do a Rockpalast recording, for example. And even now, listening to them wah-blast their way through “Center of the Sun,” it’s exciting . I was lucky enough to see this band twice in this era, at Roadburn 2011 (review here) and at Desertfest London 2012 (review here), and being a fan of what they did during their time generally, I’ll grant that I come into Peace of Action with some amount of sentimental attachment. But I also know I’m not the only person who remembers when Samsara Blues Experiment sounded like this — “simpler times,” they were — and from “Singata Mystic Queen” onward, they’ve got eight songs and 74 minutes of preserved lightning in a bottle. Yeah, it’s been out there before, but it’s here today and it’s free, and there’s a freak-flag-flying element to that that feels very apropos of the band.
But even if you think of it as a reissue — there was an acoustic bonus track on the original Live at Rockpalast that was a redux of “Singata Mystic Queen” that showed up on Demos & Rarities (review here) in 2023, one of several posthumous releases the band has had since their final album, End of Forever (review here), put a cap on their tenure in 2020 — it’s a well timed revisit to this period in the life of Samsara Blues Experiment. While outright flattening in the riff of “Army of Ignorance,” they could still fuzz-shuffle in “Into the Black.” As “Hangin’ on the Wire” careens into its title-line like last piece of a machine sliding into place to make the whole thing run, there’s little question why Samsara Blues Experiment would highlight a time when they were so dug in. Not only that, but when they were part of a generational ascent that typified much of the 2010s and of course continues to flesh out, and it was all just beginning to see bands recognize their own power and what they brought to the pastiche of the whole. ‘Heavy psych’ had begun to separate itself from just-jammming and psychedelic rock and prog a few years earlier, and Samsara Blues Experiment would become one of the acts who best represented what the style had to offer.
It goes without saying that the performances are on point or it wouldn’t have been made in the first place. Peace of Action is bootleg-style organic — a show recording — but clear enough to let the bluesy underpinning in the early lead work of “Double Freedom” come through sounding improvised like it’s feeling its way through as it goes, and maybe it was, I don’t know. That extended mellow groover closes the set in nearly 18 minutes of far-outbound excursion, and is among the Samsara Blues Experiment one might most think of as a signature piece, along the likes of “Singata Mystic Queen” and “Hangin’ on the Wire,” etc., though it’s always a little different on any recording, at least so far as I’ve heard. Plus, “Double Freedom” didn’t feature on 2023’s Rock Hard in Concert (review here), so to have it documented here is a win not the least for how heavy it gets. Of all the emails I got yesterday, the one announcing the existence of Peace of Action (Live 2012) was an easy favorite.
Relocating concurrently from Germany to Brazil, Peters has spent the last five years or so developing the solo-project Fuzz Sagrado, and has kept busy with reissues for Samsara Blues Experiment in addition to new work with the new band, first in more of a synthy-proggy-heavy variety, more recently tinged with more rock. The impression release to release has been of an artist rediscovering their love of rock and roll, making their way along an ethereal path toward heavier ground. No, I don’t think a Samsara Blues Experiment reunion is coming. At least not one even with the three-piece lineup that this four-piece later became, though it’s always possible Peters may get another lineup of the band together and continue forward, whatever challenges would be involved there between the ex-members and running a German band with a European target audience from South America, I don’t know.
Still, weirder things have happened, but I’m not holding my breath for it. Maybe someday but not yet? I don’t know, and the point is a release like Peace of Action (Live 2012) is a reminder to all good bands to record as much as possible because you never know when you’re gonna want it later, and also to Samsara Blues Experiment‘s fans — again, a number in which I count myself — of the force they were onstage even in their relatively early days. A free download is its own excuse for grabbing anyway, and this one is about as close to no-brainer as you can get. I don’t know how long it’s gonna be there or how long it’s gonna be free, so here’s the link: https://samsarabluesexperiment.bandcamp.com/album/peace-of-action-live-2012
Thanks for reading. As always, I hope you enjoy.
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There was one day this week that had two posts? Wednesday I think it might’ve been? Two or three, anyhow. Just not a ton going on that day and I didn’t feel like pretending otherwise or chasing something down for filler. It’s that time of year. Announcements will continue to pick up for albums and tours in the next month, then you’re into Spring and Summer and Fall and year-end time, so whatever. Anyway, I’m doing as much as I can do. This past weekend I couldn’t get a jump on stuff either really since I was coming back from Massachusetts and seeing that Worshipper gig.
Man, that was a good time, and if Widowmaker had been open and a circuit stop when I lived there, I’d have been a regular. Didn’t even have to drive into the city — it was in friggin’ Braintree. Anyway, was a great show and I got to hang out with John Arzgarth and his family for a bit and see some old friends and that was cool. I might think about going up for Hopsmoker Fest next year, if the timing works.
Speaking of Stateside festivals, I’m way bummed about Desertfest New York. In a perfect world, I’d be like, “Oh hello there, Ripplefest Texas,” and simply shift my plans from one weekend to the other, but flying and staying in Austin is much bigger money than maybe sharing an AirBNB with Tim Bugbee in Queens, and Ripplefest needs my coverage like it needs a hole in the head — not that Desertfest ever did, mind you — so I’m not expecting any we’ll-cover-it offers to come anytime soon. Ideally, money just wouldn’t exist and it would all work out.
The world’s falling apart. Or the country, anyway. Anyone want to talk about the impending constitutional crisis of an executive branch ignoring the orders of the judiciary? Fuck, me neither. And of course no legitimate election could ever happen with the court witch-hunting a president, so no election will happen in 2028. The white devils are set loose. And then you find out what country you really live in.
I have no hope for any of it at this point, see no reason to think there’s any stopping the train from where it’s headed, and think my country got too good at taking too much for granted in having a more-or-less functioning democratic government for like three generations, let money into its politics in 2010 and the nation tanked almost immediately thereafter. Sucks that it’s our kids who’ll live in the aftermath — plus climate disaster — but if anyone gave a shit, none of it would’ve happened in the first place. Thanks capitalism, corruption, power, the usual suspects.
Honestly, it hasn’t been that much of a downer week, but when I stop and think about shit, it gets me. Ergo, keep head down, keep working. I hope you have a great and safe weekend, whatever you need to do to blind yourself to the horrors of our day — music helps! — and encourage you to please not forget to hydrate, watch your head, all that stuff. I’ll be back on Monday with I think a Yawning Balch review and then on from there.
New shirts in March? Still the plan so far as I know.
Posted in Reviews on October 3rd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
I broke my wife’s phone yesterday. What a mess. I was cleaning the counter or doing some shit and our spare butter dish — as opposed to the regular one, which was already out — was sitting near the edge of the top of the microwave, from where I bumped it so that the ceramic corner apparently went right through the screen hard enough that in addition to shattering it there’s a big black spot and yes a new phone has been ordered. In the meantime, she can’t type the letter ‘e’ and, well, I have to hand it to Le Creuset on the sturdy construction of their butter dishes. Technology succumbing to the brute force of a harder blunt object and gravity.
Certainly do wish that hadn’t happened. What does it have to do with riffs, or music at all, or really anything? Who cares. I’m about to review 10 records today. I can talk about whatever the hell I want.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
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Samsara Blues Experiment, Rock Hard in Concert
10 years after releasing 2013’s Live at Rockpalast (review here), and nearly three after they put out their 2021 swansong studio LP, End of Forever (review here), German heavy psych rockers Samsara Blues Experiment offer the 80-minute live 2LP Rock Hard in Concert, and while it’s not their first live album, it gives a broader overview of the band from front to (apparent) back during their time together, as songs opening salvo of “Center of the Sun,” “Singata Mystic Queen” and “For the Lost Souls” from 2010’s debut, Long-Distance Trip (review here), melds in the set with “One With the Universe” and “Vipassana” from 2017’s One With the Universe (review here), End of Forever‘s own title-track and “Massive Passive,” and “Hangin’ on a Wire” from 2013’s Waiting for the Flood (review here) to become a fan-piece that nonetheless engages in sound and presentation. If you were there, it’s likely must-own. For the rest of us, who maybe did or didn’t see the band during their time — glad to say I did — it’s a reminder of how immersive they could be, especially in longer-form material, and how much influence they had on the last decade-plus of jam-based heavy psych in Europe. Recorded in 2018 at a special gig for Germany’s Rock Hard magazine, Rock Hard in Concert follows behind 2022’s Demos & Rarities (review here) in the band’s posthumous catalog, and it may or may not be Samsara Blues Experiment‘s final non-reissue release. Whether it is or not, it summarizes their run gorgeously and puts a light on the chemistry of the trio that led them through so many winding aural paths.
Sounding modern and full and in opening cut “Marrow” almost like the fuzz is about to swallow the rest of the song, Restless Spirit step forward with their third long-player, Afterimage, and establish a new level of craft for themselves. In 2021, the Long Island heavy/doom rock trio offered Blood of the Old Gods (review here), and their guitar-led energetic surges continue here in Afterimage riffers like the chug-nod “Shadow Command” and “Of Spirit and Form,” which seems to account for the underlying metallic edge of the band’s execution with its sharper turns. Their first album for Magnetic Eye Records, its eight tracks fit smoothly into the label’s roster, which at its baseline might be said to foster modern heavy styles with a particular ear for songwriting and melody, and Restless Spirit dig into “All Furies” like High on Fire galloping into a wall of Slayer records, only to follow with the 1:45 instrumental reset “Brutalized,” which is somehow weightier. They touch on the ethereal with the guitar in “The Fatalist,” but the vocals are more post-hardcore and have a grounding effect, and after starting with outright crush, “Hell’s Grasp” offers respite in progressive flourish and midtempo meandering before resuming the double-plus-huge roll and pointed riff and noodly offsets, the huge hook coming back in a way that makes me miss doing a radio show. “Hell’s Grasp” is the longest piece on the collection at 6:25, but “From the Dust Returned” closes, mindful of the atmospherics that have been at work all along and no less huge, but clearly saving a last push for, well, last. I’ll be interested in how it holds up over the long term, but Magnetic Eye has become one of the US’ most essential labels in heavy music and releases like this are exactly why.
When did Graham Clise from WitchLecherous Gaze, etc. — dude used to be in Uphill Battle; I remember that band — move to Australia? Doesn’t matter. It happened and Stepmother is the raw, garage-ish fuzz rock outfit the now-Melbourne-residing Clise has established, with Rob Muinos on bass and vocals and Sam Rains on drums. With Clise on guitar/vocals peppering hard-strummed riffs with bouts of shred and various dirtier coatings, the 12-tracker goes north of four minutes one time for “Do You Believe,” already by then having found its proto-Misfits bent in the catchy “Scream for Death.” But whether they’re buzz-overdosing “Waiting for the Axe” or digging into the comedown in “Signed DC” ahead of the surf-informed rager of a finale “Gusano,” Planet Brutalicon is a debut that presents fresh ideas taking on known stylistic elements. And it’s not a showcase for Clise‘s instrumental prowess on a technical level or anything — he’s not trying to put on a clinic — but from the sound of his guitar to the noises he gets from it in “The Game” (that middle part, ultra-fuzz) and at the end of “Stalingrad,” it is very much a guitar-centered offering. No complaints there whatsoever.
Pilot Voyager, The Structure is Still Under Construction
WARNING: Users who take even a small dose of Pilot Voyager‘s The Structure is Still Under Construction may find themselves experiencing euphoria, or adrift, as though on some serene ocean under the warm green sky of impossibly refracted light. The ethereal drones and melodic textures of the 46-minute single-song LP may cause side effects like: momentary flashes of inner peace, the quieting of your brain that you’ve been seeking your whole life without knowing it, calm. Also nausea, but that’s probably just something you ate. Talk to your doctor about whether this extended work from the Hungarian collective Psychedelic Source Records (szia!) is right for you, and if it is, make sure to consume responsibly. Headphones required (not included or covered by insurance). Do not be afraid as “The Structure is Still Under Construction” leaves the water behind to float upward in its midsection, finally resolving in intertwining drones, vague sampled speech echoing far off somewhere — ugh, the real world — and birdsong someplace in the mix. Go with it. This is why you got the prescription in the first place. Decades of aural research and artistic movement and progression have led you and the Budapesti outfit to this moment. Do not operate heavy machinery. Ever. In fact, find an empty field, take off your pants and run around for a while until you get out of breath. Then drink cool water and giggle. This could be you. Your life.
Philadelphia has become the East Coast US’ hotbed for heavy psychedelia, which must be interesting for Northern Liberties, who started out more than two decades ago. The trio’s self-released, 10-song/41-minute Self-Dissolving Abandoned Universe — maybe their eighth album, if my count is right — with venerated producer Steve Albini, so one might count ‘instant-Gen-X-cred’ and ‘recognizably-muddy-toms’ among their goals. I wasn’t completely sold on the offering until “Infusorian Hymnal” started to dig a little further into the genuinely weird after opener “The Plot Thickens” and the subsequent “Drowned Out” laid forth the crunch of the tones and gave hints of the structures beneath the noise. “Crucible” follows up the raw shove of “Star Spangled Corpse” by expanding the palette toward space rock and an unhinged psych-noise shove that the somehow-still-Hawkwindian volatility of “The Awaited” moves away from while the finale “Song of the Sole Survivor” calls back to the folkish vocal melody in “Ghosts of Ghosts,” if in echoing and particularly addled fashion. Momentum serves the three-piece well throughout, though they seem to have no trouble interrupting themselves (can relate), and turning to follow a disparate impulse. Distractable heavy? Yeah, except bands like that usually don’t last two decades. Let’s say maybe their own kind of oddball, semi-spaced band who aren’t afraid to screw around in the studio, find what they like, and keep it. And whatever else you want to say about Albini-tracked drums, “Hold on to the Darkness” has a heavier tone to its snare than most guitars do to whole LPs. Whatever works, and it does.
“Good Night, Ophelia” is the first single from the forthcoming debut full-length from semi-goth Portland, Oregon, heavy rock four-piece Nyxora. There are worse opening shots to fire than a Hamlet reference, I suppose, and if one regards Ophelia’s character as an innocent driven to suicide by gender-based oppression, then her lack of agency is nothing if not continually relevant. Nonetheless, for Nyxora — Vox on, well, vox, guitarist E.Wrath, bassist Luke and drummer Weatherman — she pairs with dark-boogie riff recorded for edge with Witch Mountain‘s Rob Wrong at his Wrong Way Studio. There are some similarities between Nyxora and Wrong‘s own outfit — I double-checked it wasn’t Uta Plotkin singing some of the higher-reaching lines of “Good Night, Ophelia,” which is a definite compliment — but I get the sense that fuller atmosphere of Nyxora‘s first LP isn’t necessarily encapsulated in this one three-and-a-half-minute song. That is, I’m thinking at some point on the album, Nyxora will get more morose than they are here. Or maybe not. Either way, “Good Night, Ophelia” is an enticing teaser from a group who seem ready to dig their niche when the album is released, I’ll assume in 2024 though one never knows.
I hate to do it, but I’m calling bullshit right now on Sydney, Australia’s Old Goat Smoke. Sorry gents. To be sure, your Bongzilla-crusty, ultra-stoned, Church of Misery-esque-in-its-madcap-vocal-wails, goat weed metal is only a pleasure to behold. But that’s the problem. How’re you gonna write a song called “Old Goat Smoke” and not post the lyrics? I shudder to think of the weed puns I’m missing. Fortunately, it’s not too late for the newcomer band to correct the mistake before the entire project is derailed. In that eponymous one of three total tracks included, Old Goat Smoke cast themselves in the mold of the despondent and disaffected. “Return to Dirt” shifts fluidly in and out of screams and harsher fare while radioactive-dirt tonality infects the guitar and bass that have already challenged the drums to cut through their morass. So that there’s no risk of the point not being made, they cap this initial public offering with “The Great Hate,” and eight-and-a-half-minute treatise on feedback and raw scathe that’s likewise a show of future nastiness to manifest. Quit your job, do all the drugs you can find, engage the permanent fuck-off. Old Goat Smoke may not have ‘bong’ in their moniker, but that’s about all they’re missing. And those lyrics, I guess, though by the time the 20 minutes of Demo have expired, they’ve made their caustic point regardless.
German transport-themed heavy rock and rollers Van Groover — as in, one who grooves in or with vans — made a charming debut with 2021’s Honk if Parts Fall Off (review here), and the follow-up five-song EP, Back From the Shop, makes no attempt to fix what isn’t broken. That would seem to put it at odds with the mechanic speaking in the intro “Hill Willy’s Chop Shop,” who runs through a litany of issues fixed, goes on long enough to hypnotize and then swaps in body parts and so on. From there, the motor works, and Van Groover hit the gas through 21 minutes of smells-like-octane riffing and storytelling. In “A-38″ — the reference being to the size of a sheet of paper in Europe; equivalent but not the same as the US’ 8.5″ x 11” — they either get arrested, which would seem to be the ending of “The Bandit” just before,” or are at the DMV, I can’t quite tell, but it doesn’t matter one you meet “The Grizz.” The closer has an urgency to its push that doesn’t quite sound like I’d imagine being torn apart by a bear to feel, but the Lebowski-paraphrased penultimate line, “Some days you get eaten by the bear, some days the bear eats you,” underscores Van Groover‘s for-the-converted approach, speaking to the subculture from within. Possibly while driving. Does look like a nice van, though. The kind you might write a song or two about.
Facts-wise, there’s not much more I can tell you about Hotel Lucifer than you might glean from looking at the New York four-piece’s Bandcamp page. Their self-released and self-titled debut runs 43 minutes and eight tracks, and its somewhat bleak, not-obligated-to-heavy-tonalism course takes several violent thematic turns, including (I think.) in opener “Room 222,” where Katie‘s vocals seem to talk about raping god. This, “Murderer,” “Torquemada,” “The Ultimate Price,” “Picking Your Eyes Out” and 12-minute horror noisefest closer “Beheaded” — only the classic metaller “Training the Beast” and the three-minute acoustic-backed psychedelic voice showcase “Echidna” seem to restrain the brutaller impulses, and I’m not sure about that either. With Jimmy on guitar, Muriel playing bass and Ed on drums, Hotel Lucifer are defined in no small part by the whispers, rasps and croons that mark their verses and choruses, but that becomes an effective means to convey character and mood along with the instrumental ambience behind, and so Hotel Lucifer find this strange, almost willfully off-putting cultish individualism, and it’s not hooks keeping your attention so much as the desire to figure it out, to learn more about just what the hell is going on on this record. I’ll wish you good luck with that as I continue my efforts along similar lines.
Its five songs broken into two sections along lines of “Obscure Fire” pairing with “Of Silence” and “Descending” leading to “Into the Depths” with “Of Eternal Doom” answering the question that didn’t even really need to be asked about which depths the Russian stoner sludge rollers were talking about. The Sleep-worshiping three-piece of guitarist/vocalist SAA, bassist KKV and drummer PAN — whose credits are worth reading in the band’s own words — lumber with purpose as they make that final statement, each side of Obscure Fire working shortest to longest beginning with the howling guitar and drum thud of the title-track at nine minutes as opposed to the 10 of “Of Silence.” At two minutes, “Descending” is barely more than feedback and tortured gurgles, so yes, very much a fit with the concrete-toned plod of the subsequent “Into the Depths” as the band skirt the line between ultra-stoner metal and cavernous atmospheric sludge without necessarily committing to one or the other. That position favors them, but after a certain point of being bludgeoned with huge riffs and slow-nodding, deeply-weighted churn, your skull is going to be goo either way. The route Megalith Levitation take to get you there is where the weed is, aurally speaking.
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 19th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Recorded in 2018 at a gig put together by respected German print magazine Rock Hard — for whom I’d write in a second if they’d have me, and they likely wouldn’t — the forthcoming Rock Hard in Concert live album from Samsara Blues Experiment is set to release this Fall. No, the band aren’t back together, and if they ever do reunite, I think we’ve got years before we get there, but they do remain active. You might recall earlier this year they offered Demos & Rarities (review here) to sate fans and completists, and, well, it’s been a decade since they put out 2013’s Live at Rockpalast (review here), and that could hardly be said to be comprehensive since they put out one full-length concurrent to it and two after. So yeah, fair enough.
At the same time, guitarist/vocalist Chris Peters continues to explore new and familiar ground in Fuzz Sagrado, whose Luz e Sombra (review here), was released in May, also through World in Sound, and not to talk out of turn but I hear there’s more stuff from Peters in the works as we move toward Fall and the release of this live record.
Here’s the announcement, as posted on social media:
New live album coming: SBE “Rock Hard In Concert”
Finally, after the long sold out Rockpalast CD, we have a new live album coming out in OCTOBER 2023 via @world_in_sound with a full set of SBE classics and even a few songs from the final studio album, two years before they’ve been recorded.
This very special event took place in November 2018 in Dortmund after being invited by Germany’s leading Hard and Heavy @rockhardmagazin and it was also their boss Holger Stratmann who recorded and mixed our show. The mastering has been done by legendary Krautrocker @erke_eroc
So, this is probably the last ultimate offering from our collective, about 80 minutes of wicked heavy music on 2LP, CD and digital as usual. LP will also include the gig poster from this event. Fans of the band mark your calendars, more news soon …
[Click play above to stream ‘There’s No Escape’ from Fuzz Sagrado’s Luz e Sombra, out May 19 through World in Sound and available to preorder here from the label and here from the band.]
At very least, a reconciliation. Luz e Sombra is the second full-length from Fuzz Sagrado, the as-yet solo-project of multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Christian Peters. Having moved from Berlin, Germany, to more rural Brazil at the dawn of the decade, Peters‘ former outfit Samsara Blues Experiment made their farewell with End of Forever (review here) in 2021, and that July brought the first, self-titled EP (review here) from the new outfit, taking lessons Peters learned after more than a decade in Samsara Blues Experiment and through his own solo work under the moniker Surya Kris Peters — less directly relevant in sound, he also had a solo-outfit called Soulitude circa 2008, which would’ve made it concurrent to the drawdown of prior band Terraplane — and bringing them together for a new, partially synth-driven exploration of style and melody. Fuzz Sagrado would follow its self-titled with another EP, Vida Pura, in 2021 and in 2022 released A New Dimension (review here) via World in Sound in an ongoing collaboration, and Luz e Sombra‘s nine songs and 43 minutes continue this new exploration of solo work.
But where Surya Kris Peters was more of a vehicle for key and electronic experimentation, a put-down-the-guitar kind of project, Fuzz Sagrado to-date has been a willful step back toward rock music, and Luz e Sombra — ‘light and dark’ in Portuguese, and a title emblematic of the record’s duly chiaroscuro dynamic — is cast in that spirit as well. Those expecting the longform heavy psychedelic jamming for which Samsara Blues Experiment were somewhat reluctantly known will mostly not find them in Fuzz Sagrado. It is very pointedly a different band, but it is a band, even if there’s just one person behind it.
The first sounds one hears on Luz e Sombra opener “There’s No Escape” (premiering above) are keyboard and insects; the natural world meeting purposeful creation, and that tells you a goodly portion of what you need to know about what follows. Peters sweeps in an echoing guitar solo spacious over programmed beats — they’re more drum-sounding soon enough, but at least initially it’s more electronica — and a subdued verse solidifies around a progressive and atmospherically foreboding chorus: the second time through, “We are/Human/Obsessed with useless things/Deluded.”
Critique, philosophy, confession and storytelling are nothing new lyrically for Peters, who in Luz e Sombra offers particular vocal command in his distinctive approach — dropping hints of working out harmonies on side B’s “Love in Progress” after the more familiar layering of “Leaving Samsara” — and while side A songs like “There’s No Escape,” the subsequent “Wake Them Up” and the lush-enough-to-justify-the-Mellotron title-track take a conversational perspective in directly addressing the listener as “you,” much of what features throughout comes through as personal on Peters‘ part.
Leading off the second half of the record and the centerpiece of the tracklisting, “Leaving Samsara” tells the story in lines like about living in “a strange new world,” “Was looking for some peace/Or finally some freedom/Same as you,” and recounts highs and lows of that band, bringing it around to the conclusion, “I’m still here/Alone/Staring at the face of the world/In all its beauty and disgust…” before shifting into a moodier kind of fuzz and unfolding from it a resonant and spacious bridge back to the chorus. Ahead of the instrumental finish “Broken Earth,” “Learning to Live, and Live Again” feels of its time and place, a moment in transition personal and global, looming chaos met with clearheaded psychedelic rock, keyboard, bass and drum-sounds as the foundation for the layers of guitar and vocals, perpetually seeking.
Each of the three longer songs — that’s “There’s No Escape” (6:02), “Luz e Sombra” (7:55) and “Leaving Samsara” (7:08); nothing else is longer than the 4:12 “Wake Them Up” — feeds the reconciliation narrative posited at the outset in some way. There aren’t jams necessarily, as the nature of solo recording, programming drums, etc., inherently makes band-in-room improv impossible since parts have to be layered on each other one at a time, but in instrumental stretches, one can hear Peters working toward acceptance of the more psychedelic aspect of his aural persona. He is not begrudging, and if he was, Luz e Sombra would fall flat in its expression.
“There’s No Escape” and the title cut are both on side A, and side B, which again, starts with “Leaving Samsara,” flows smoothly with its two instrumental pieces, “Memories of a Future Past” and the aforementioned “Broken Earth” that ends the record, momentum built through compositional fluidity more than the intensity of execution throughout. “Memories of a Future Past” would sound nostalgic even if Peters had called it “Eating a Peanut Butter Sandwich,” but some shaker sounds reinforce the burgeoning percussive complexity in the second half of “Wake Them Up” and still to come in “Broken Earth” with its hand-drums, while maintaining a mellow drift to a final gong hit that gives over to the proggrunge of “Love in Progress.”
Kin to side A closer “One Endless Summer” in its brevity, “Love in Progress” is more active until it cuts to a drone at three minutes to transition into the acoustic/electric blend of “Learning to Live, and Live Again,” the breadth of which makes one wonder if Luz e Sombra, for all its various organ, keyboard and synth sounds, for all its accomplished vocals and for the catchy hooks of “Wake Them Up” and “One Endless Summer,” hasn’t been a sneaky love letter to the guitar all along, though it’s the totality of the experience — never staid even when close to still — that defines it. Light or dark, loud or quiet, acoustic or electric or electronic, Fuzz Sagrado makes a point to lay claim to all of these aesthetic elements with mindfulness and purpose, and if some moments are rougher edged and some are lush and smooth, well, that’s life, isn’t it?
And to be sure, some of the frustrations and disillusion that’s been in Peters‘ lyrics all along is certainly present here — see “Leaving Samsara” for sure, as well as “There’s No Escape,” “Learning to Live, and Live Again,” etc. — but part of what’s being reconciled here is the grand-picture ‘everything’ of living. You get the light and the dark, the positive and negative, sometimes side-by-side, sometimes mashed together into a single part or concept, and part of Luz e Sombra‘s depth comes from that as well as from however many layers of guitar and keyboard are on “Memories of a Future Past.”
It is worth reiterating that Fuzz Sagrado is not trying to remake Samsara Blues Experiment as a one-man-band on a new continent, but part of what Peters crucially acknowledges in this material is that for better or worse, what he achieved in that outfit’s decade-plus run is a part of his experience that carries over into at least some aspects of these songs, even when not actually the subject at hand (that is, not just on “Leaving Samsara” or the other longer inclusions). That the stated reconciliation would be no less multifaceted than the resultant music across Luz e Sombra itself underscores Peters‘ maturity of craft and performance, but more over, it highlights the sincerity with which each of these songs is wrought. At this point it’s hard to say where it might all end up, but isn’t that life too?
Posted in Reviews on January 16th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Issued both as a standalone and as a bonus CD with the 2LP special edition reissue of 2010’s Long-Distance Trip (review here), the 10-song 68-minute Demos and Rarities is a collection clearly intended for Samsara Blues Experiment fans, if it needs to be said. However, I’ll also note that I am a fan, have been since I first heard the 2008 demo (discussed here, review here) the two songs of which, “Singata (Mystic Queen)” and “Double Freedom,” would become such staples for the Berlin-based outfit throughout their tenure. And perhaps since that tenure came to a close in 2021 with End of Forever (review here), something like this feels more sentimental; the ‘posthumous’ release, capturing mostly the earlier days of the band, when they were the four-piece of guitarist/vocalist/sitarist/keyboardist Christian Peters (who had previously been in Terraplane), bassist/engineer Richard Behrens (who recorded those two demo tracks and others here), guitarist/percussionist Hans Eiselt and drummer Thomas Vedder, and when they were just setting out on their exploration of heavy psychedelia that would grow increasingly sure and progressive as it went. It was, in so many ways, a simpler time.
As far as I’m concerned, the presence of those demo versions of “Singata (Mystic Queen)” and “Double Freedom” are more than enough to justify the CD’s existence. Samsara Blues Experiment aren’t out here trying to cash-grab — because who’s got cash? — but I think part of who the band was all along was to make an effort to take stock of where they were at, to be cognizant of their own progression, where they were moving forward from across each release, and so looking back after it’s over feels pretty consistent in terms of their general mission. The latest inclusion here is a 2013 acoustic version of “Singata (Mystic Queen),” recorded by Behrens around the time he left the band — his last LP with them was 2013’s Waiting for the Flood (review here), though he also appeared on that year’s Rockpalast (review here) live album, on which the acoustic “Singata (Mystic Queen)” first appeared as a bonus track — and the quick rocker “Back to Life” that showed up on the 2011 compilation Cowbells & Cobwebs (review here) was tracked in 2010, but everything else here is before that, with the possible exception of the 56-second finale “Singata Retro Queen,” undated with its “Strawberry Fields Forever” organ — what might be an interlude but makes a fitting reprise here in complement to the 2008 and 2013 versions of the song.
With that outro/interlude/not-quite-a-song-more-of-a-moment-that-happened-to-be-recorded, the way the tracklisting is laid out, “Singata (Mystic Queen)” opens, is the centerpiece, and closes Demos & Rarities, and fairly enough so. It and “Double Freedom,” which follows twice — the second time is a corresponding-but-recorded-much-earlier acoustic 2007 Peters home demo, layered with sitar, keyboard and hand percussion and a meditative vocal — were and remain signature pieces. But there are other, dug-out-from-deeper inclusions as well, like the 2008 home demo “Wheel of Life,” a later version of which would show up on Long-Distance Trip, the aforementioned “Back to Life,” a nine-minute demo of “For the Lost Souls” from the same record with an especially warm and complete feel, and the 2008 home-recorded “All is One” sitar piece that runs over 12 minutes and, but for “Singata Retro Queen,” caps the offering. As the CD liner note says, it is “not to be confused with real Indian raga,” but its jammy, exploratory feel captures something about the ethic of the band in their early stages, who they were and where they were coming from. They were by no means the first heavy psych band, but they always had a personality of their own and pushed against the confines of genre more as time went on. Demos & Rarities shows the roots of that ethic.
And really, that’s about all I’d ask it to do. If these are the odds and ends from that era of their time, from before and around the 2008 demo release and that of the 2009 USA Tour EP that had the two demo tracks as well as “Red Rooster Jam (Live),” which was recorded in Berlin at their second show, and the acoustic version of “Double Freedom” that’s also here. That’s what this release is. It’s the place where you, as the curious Samsara Blues Experiment fan present or future, can find that material compiled. This seems like a no-brainer, but even in an age of infinite information thrown at you with infinite intensity, so much is regularly lost, and Demos & Rarities works against that, toward its own purpose of preservation. I don’t know if it will be the absolute last Samsara Blues Experiment release or not — no doubt there are other live recordings, demos, alternate versions, remixes, etc., that Peters and company could mine as they see fit — but it’s a particularly nostalgic look back. Even the cover. Just look at that picture. They were kids. And it would, inherently could, never be like this again.
The depth of fuzz in the “Double Freedom” and “Singata (Mystic Queen)” demos was an announcement to the converted, and those tones, those jams, still resonate, even raw as they sound now looking back. Not everybody is going to get that, and so I’ll go back to noting Demos & Rarities as a fan-piece, whether it’s encountered digitally, as an added incentive for the Long-Distance Trip reissue or with the digipak on its own, but the sweetness of melody in the acoustic “Double Freedom,” the rolling, heavy-hitting shuffle of “Back to Life” — they never had another song like that — and the nascent vibes in “Wheel of Life” and “All is One” as they’re presented here are engrossing. On an academic level, this is a band who had a significant impact early in a generational wave of European heavy psychedelic rock, and worth appreciating as such, but I’ll readily admit that as I listen through, my primary experience isn’t academic so much as enjoying the glance at the beginnings of the band and the work they did at the time as they felt their way toward what would develop over time as their sound. From an act who spent so much of their time ardently thinking and moving forward, and who may well be done ‘for good’ as they were, the unreluctant look back is a thing to be valued. It feels rare, and indeed, Samsara Blues Experiment were a rare band.
