As the old saying goes: There’s weird and then there’s Pharaoh Overlord. I’m not even going to pretend to know what’s going on with the space/psych/anything rockers’ new album, Zero, or how, say, the likes of Hydra Head got involved, which last I heard wasn’t even a label anymore. But hey, if anyone was going to travel to a mirror universe in which Hydra Head still put out records and make that deal happen, wouldn’t it be Pharaoh Overlord? Isn’t it just too perfect, somehow?

Whatever else you do today — and hey, I know you’re busy; we all are — take the time to stream “Maailmanlopun Ateriana” on the player at the bottom of this post. It’s six minutes long, but even broader in terms of mind expansion, and frankly, I think we could all use a little bit of that every now and again.

Zero hits April 27. The PR wire has this:

PHARAOH OVERLORD set release date for new EKTRO / HYDRA HEAD album, reveal first track – features Demilich and Faust members

Today, Ektro Records – in cooperation with Hydra Head Records – sets April 27th as the international release date for Pharaoh Overlord’s highly anticipated new album, Zero.

Pharaoh Overlord steer an exceedingly singular course on Zero. Augmented by Antti Boman (Demilich) and Hans Joachim Irmler (Faust), the psychedelic supergroup (consisting of members from Circle) have taken their ouvre to a whole new psychiatric plateau on their ninth studio album.

Libido-driven arithmetics do not apply on these aberrant tracks. Zero provides an offbeat rock ‘n’ roll implosion, with its sonic realm contorting inwards like a sapient voice muffled by the gentle void of cyberspace. What the album has to offer is exposure to genuine ingenuity.

Tracklisting for Pharaoh Overlord’s Zero
Side A:
1. Revolution (8:43)
2. Maailmanlopun ateriana (6:14)
3. Meanwhile (6:02)

Side B:
1. Lalibela Cannot Spell Zero (9:00)
2. Satavuotiaiden Salaisuus (4:12)
3. I Drove All Night by My Solar Stomp (7:40)

www.facebook.com/Pharaoh-Overlord-297881594895
www.ektrorecords.com
www.facebook.com/ektrorecords
www.soundcloud.com/ektrorecords

The word “epic” gets tossed around these days for everything from Homeric poetry to late-night burritos, so one hesitates to use it for fear it might be taken with a watered-down meaning. I’m at a loss, however, for how else to describe the monumental, otherworldly reality presented in the third installment in a trio of albums from Finnish five-piece Mr. Peter Hayden, Archdimension Now. Comprised of two hyper-extended cosmic drone-doom masterpieces and released as its predecessors were through Kauriala Society, Archdimension Now is simply in a class of its own in terms of its scope. A 2CD, limited-numbers release housed in a sort of gatefold digi-box, its bright orange cover glaring, it is a staggering work and one that lives up to its theme. The Satakunta outfit’s debut, 2010’s Faster than Speed (review here), dealt with the idea of time travel as a transcendent moment, casting off the constraints of the dimension. Their 2012 follow-up, Born a Trip (review here), was a portrayal of leaving form behind, a sort of transitional stretch laid out as a single 68-minute track. With Archdimension Now, we arrive. The title seems to be as much a notation of where as when, and yet, when one makes their way through the 67-minute first disc or the 57-minute second disc of the album, the experience is bound to be one of lost time entirely, so hypnotic and engrossing is the material the band concocts. On the most basic level, Archdimension Now makes Faster than Speed sound like the product of a simpler age, and where Born a Trip still held to some of the structure the first album worked with — wide open as it was — these two parts go beyond it altogether. They’re what’s left after the dimensions are stripped away.

It is a very, very cool concept.

Sound-wise, what Mr. Peter Hayden do is take the claustrophobic elements of post-metal and cosmic doom and turn them on their head. Archdimension Now has stretches of lumbering, noisy weight, to be sure — by about 10 minutes in, the first disc has risen to its first crest — but with the context of the drones and ambience surrounding and within these parts, they’re not oppressive nearly as much as they are life-affirming. And more than these movements of tectonic heft and psychedelic wash, what stands out in listening to Archdimension Now is the sheer impossibility of the audio. That is to say, if Mr. Peter Hayden were to attempt to recreate these pieces — either of them — in a live setting, the sheer nature of the effects barrage, the waves of drone, the crashing drums and the wah-drenched guitars makes it inevitable that they would come across differently. As much as Archdimension Now is intended to be the space outside of time, then, it is also invariably a moment captured within it. I do not know how much if any of it was improvised or built on layers in the studio, but the broad-ranging, volcanic nature of the audio feels like a painting one could never recreate. A long stretch of 40-plus minutes’ atmospherics follows that first push proves to be the heart of the work. They’re not building tension — at least not yet — but exploring an aural space even as they make it. By 35 minutes in, they’ve broken it down to guitar-minimalism backed by progressive keys, and it’s from there that the second-half build of the track begins, so patient and fluid as to be almost undetectable on a minute-by-minute scale, but definitely there when you pull back to look at the larger picture. If the record was less than two hours long, one might almost call it subtle. The final thrust of the first disc has a foundation in a slow drum progression, so there’s something binding it to the earth, but atop that is space rock liquefied into its molten prog elements. Noise, feedback, guitar effects, keys — all come together to provide a fullness of sound, and when the song begins to fade after its 65th minute, and elements start to dissipate, one gets the impression that Mr. Peter Hayden could just as easily have kept going.

Read more »

Finnish cosmic doom five-piece Mr. Peter Hayden are nothing if they’re not ambitious. Their debut and sophomore outings, 2010’s Faster than Speed (review here) and 2012’s Born a Trip (review here), comprise the first two installments of a thematic trilogy. Somewhere along the lines of time, matter and… what? Moving beyond them? I’m not quite sure yet, but when their third album, Archdimension Now, arrives in April — a double CD, no less — we’ll have an answer.

Until then, Mr. Peter Hayden have put together a new 7″ titled We Fly High that continues the consuming space-lurch of Born a Trip‘s massive interstellar scope, but unlike that album, which ran a continuous 68 minutes of immersive linearity, there’s a necessary break in the song “We Fly High” to allow for the side A/B swap. The result is that both halves of “We Fly High” offer a convenient sample by which to get a taste of Mr. Peter Hayden‘s style.

And I’ve said it for a while now that these dudes are worth checking out, so if you haven’t, I’m fortunate enough to be able to host side B of “We Fly High” for streaming ahead of the official Jan. 15 release. It has its own flow and progression from the first part of “We Fly High,” so you won’t feel like you’re listening to half a song, and the wash of progressive psychedelia that rises amid the stomp here bodes well for transcendence to come on Archdimension Now.

Mr. Peter Hayden will tour Europe around the release of the new album this spring and have a couple shows lined up for February in Finland. That info and more about the new album follow the track below.

Dig it:

[mp3player width=480 height=150 config=fmp_jw_widget_config.xml playlist=mr-peter-hayden-we-fly-high.xml]

A-side streaming through Soundi magazine (Finland) here.

What is left when time and form have stepped aside? Shadows of final ideas, light and stream of eternal substance, the tension of final entity? Mr. Peter Hayden have gone through phases and planes of inevitable and come across their final chapter of trilogy. Diving another level deeper and superpositioning their minds the chapter will reach its end in form of a double album, to be released in April 2014.

Although the groups lineup and instrumentation has always been evolving, it has always consisted of very close and connected friends. At the moment the personnel and instruments of choice are: V. Ajomo on synthesizers, L. Kivelä on bass, JP. Koivisto on guitar, T. Santamaa on drums and V. Vatanen on guitar and effects.

During the years of their existence Mr. Peter Hayden has performed live at most of the Finnish clubs and festivals devoted for the psychedelic music. They have also toured Europe and been invited and played at Roadburn Festival. During spring 2014 they will tour in Scandinavia and come back to Central Europe.

Mr. Peter Hayden live:
15-02-14 Hyberporea, Lepakkomies, Helsinki
14-02-14 Bar15, Seinäjoki

Mr. Peter Hayden on Thee Facebooks

Mr. Peter Hayden on Bandcamp

I guess when you do an album that’s a 68-minute single track, it can be kind of tough to put together a video. All the same, Finnish purveyors of cosmic crush Mr. Peter Hayden
have a new clip for a seven-minute segment of 2012’s excellent and chaotic Born a Trip (review here), and have been kind enough to share it with those of us still relegated to the category of “terrestrial beings.” The video was filmed by the Finnish collective Kinskin Ruuvi, and it comes complete with just as much deconstructed nature and forest creepiness one would expect from Mr. Peter Hayden, who are heavy the way we think of (un)controlled demolitions as being heavy.

If you haven’t yet caught onto these guys, now would be a good time:

Mr. Peter Hayden, “Born a Trip” official video

Their last album, Born a Trip, was something of a sleeper I guess, but Finnish outfit Mr. Peter Hayden nonetheless slung some righteously heavy psychedelia throughout its 68-minute duration. Enough to catch the attention of Roadburn, which added them to the 2013 lineup. Leading to that appearance, Mr. Peter Hayden are hitting the road for a tour starting April 12 in Helsinki that will take them all the way to Tilburg in time for their April 20 slot.

In addition, the cascading awesomeness of Born a Trip (review here) will be split up into a double-vinyl release issued in gatefold form on the first night of the tour. Right on. If you missed the record the first time out, I’m glad to have the excuse to post it again below:

Mr. Peter Hayden: A Haze Odyssey 2013: European tour 12.-20.4.2013

Hypnotic repetition, revelating melodies and aura-ripping riffage. That is exactly what the psychedelic warlords of Mr. Peter Hayden have bagged for you on their way to Roadburn Festival 2013. Ominously entitled “A Haze Odyssey 2013” -tour will bring the band to Baltics, Poland, Germany and Holland to perform their unique, patiently brewed mixture of psychedelic metal and spacey rock.

In 2012 Kauriala Society released their second full-length album “Born A Trip” which gained broad recognition throughout marginal music scenes. Vinyl version will be released on two 180 gram records in a gatefold sleeve by Mikrofoni and Rämekuukkeli on April 12th.

Able and free Mr. Peter Hayden was founded in the beginning of this century. Since then with the genuine power of will they have travelled through time and space and are now here to bring you their best. Acquiring instruction from plain ambience of surrounding nature, their instrumentations and knowledge reach out for the infinite.

Mr. Peter Hayden is marching through Baltics, Poland, Germany and Holland in April on their ominously entitled “A Haze Odyssey 2013” -tour.

A Haze Odyssey 2013:
12.4.2013 Helsinki, Lepakkomies
13.4.2013 Riga, TBA
14.4.2013 Vilna, Bix Bar
16.4.2013 Berlin, White Trash
17.4.2013 TBA, TBA
18.4.2013 Leipzig, Zoro
19.4.2013 TBA, TBA
20.4.2013 Tilburg, Roadburn Festival