Friday Full-Length: Somali Yacht Club, The Sun
Posted in Bootleg Theater on November 22nd, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Ukrainian heavy psych trio Somali Yacht Club brought a somewhat counterintuitive fluidity to the proceedings for an album that they decided to call The Sun, a name it shares with the last of its five-total tracks, but I guess when one thinks of a roiling ball of plasma 833,000 miles wide churning as it burns through billions of years’ worth of molecular fuel, making life possible in arguably the most giving of ways, it might make more sense. It was originally released in 2014, through respected countryman purveyor Robustfellow Productions, The Sun would be subsequently picked up by Bilocation Records — which is what we called Kozmik Artifactz way back yonder — in 2016 and re-pressed steadily leading to the band’s signing to Season of Mist early in 2021.
Sure enough, Season of Mist did their own pressing, including a gatefold vinyl that includes the bonus track “Sun’s Eyes” (which also showed up on earlier reissues billed as The Sun + 1), and all that’s a lot of facts and dates you can very easily find on Discogs/Bandcamp like I did, but what it actually tells you is that these songs have continued to find an audience since they were first released, even as the band have continued to push forward; their latest album, The Space (review here), came out in 2022 following on from 2018’s excellent The Sea (review here). The lineup of guitarist/vocalist Ihor Pryshlyak, bassist Arthur Savluk and drummer Oleksa Mahula has stayed consistent and in their intention, but evolved in their processes. With 10 years of hindsight, The Sun seems prescient of a fair bit of what would happen in progressive heavy psychedelia in the second half of the 2010s.
Of course, Somali Yacht Club have had a hand in shaping that — see also bands like Elephant Tree, King Buffalo, Weedpecker and others alongside more obvious names like Elder, All Them Witches, etc. — but the textures and shimmering feel of The Sun in the still-very-heavy roll of “Loom” or the wash that seems to crash ashore seven minutes into centerpiece “Up in the Sky.” With elements of post-rock tonal float in Pryshlyak‘s lead lines and a corresponding density of low end, the material breathes soothingly while remaining able to hit you up and down. Individual songs make an impression — perhaps most standout-ish is second cut “Sightwaster,” which shifts from a resonant proggy linearity into fuzzier riffing before a stop and the bassline carry it into a dub reggae jam, but that’s on purpose too — and I won’t discount the effectiveness of “Sun” in capping with what feels like a thrust into the atmosphere the band have been harnessing all along, belting out a killer vocal lift, and rolling on to the finish in classic style, but really the story is the flow.
It seems unlikely Somali Yacht Club would have written The Sun all as one song, and sure enough the album isn’t based around 
any single musical theme or progression, but it does tie together with particular gorgeousness and flow. This is set up in part by style. Fluidity is a big part of what these songs do, and that bears out in tempo, tone, melody and structure. The songs are delivered with patience but no lack of outwardly perceptible energy, and the immersive nature of their breadth lets the listener be subsumed and carried smoothly from front to back across the 42 minutes (48 if you do The Sun + 1). Grunge is a factor stylistically, in some of the riffing, and Somali Yacht Club do well with the despondent edge that affords, but the overarching feel of The Sun is accordingly warm and embracing. If it’s a roiling plasma ball — and yes, it is — then it’s nice to be at a comfortable distance in space, sonically speaking, while the gravity holds it all together in a single system, or, to drop the metaphor, a succession of welcoming, sometimes hypnotic, expansive tracks.
It’s also the beneficiary of being on the right side of the argument in terms of what came after. That is to say, not only have Somali Yacht Club launched their own creative growth here, but others have come along working in a similar sphere as heavy psychedelia, heavy progressive rock, and various other iterations of ‘heavy’ and ‘space’ have made their way to listener consciousness in the underground. A decade ago, I might have said it reminded me of Sungrazer, and fair enough as that still-missed Dutch band looked to be figureheads of the generation of heavy psych of which Somali Yacht Club are a part, and I guess there’s still some of that in the thickness of fuzz and some of the jammier foundations, but I can’t help but hear “Signals” here — the 11-minute-long penultimate cut that works across multiple movements to arrive at a payoff that’s more about outreach than largesse — and think about how much Somali Yacht Club were declaring themselves in the airy guitar and terrestrial bass, the steady motion of the drums making sure everybody’s headed in the right direction. The dynamic they’ve been building ever since, I guess.
This was a record that introduced them to Europe. It wouldn’t be until two years after its initial release that I actually engaged with it — I’d been put off by the moniker — but even though The Space finds Somali Yacht Club grown by leaps and bounds in terms of melody, there’s something about looking back to The Sun that not only shows you where they’ve come from, but reinforces the scope of their pursuit. They’ve made the rounds touring in Europe for the last 10 years — did all the festivals for the last album and such — and they’ve built a fanbase all the while. As their home country continues to grapple with a Russian invasion that’s been going on actively pretty much since this record came out, it’s hard to know what such an unstable future will bring for/from them, but I know that my day is better because I put The Sun on and decided to sit and write about it and that, I assure you, is not nothing when it comes to salves in heady times.
I hope you enjoy, is what I’m saying. And thanks for reading.
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It’s like 1PM, which is kind of unheard of for me in terms of closing out the week. I got about three sentences written this morning before The Pecan came down. It was like 7AM, to be fair, so I knew what I was getting into. I didn’t sleep especially late, but was slow getting up and taking the dog out. Some mornings you don’t have it. I don’t, anyhow.
First snowfall today, which has been a novelty, though really it’s just fortunate we’re getting any kind of precipitation at all. Northern New Jersey, where I live, has been experiencing its worst season of wildfires ever — because of course it has — and we haven’t had any real rain in like two months until today. Yes, it’s unnerving. So is everything. If you need me I’ll be getting stoned, listening to records from the ’90s and playing Zelda. This is apparently what I need right now.
If I had time, or money, or energy, or basically if I was like me except not like me at all and a completely different person, I’d be fine. As it stands, an increasing number of things have become “a lot.”
But hey, let’s be positive. I took The Pecan to her ice skating lesson this week and she knocked it out of the park, which isn’t even a thing you’re supposed to do in ice skating and still somehow was awesome. Really though, it’s nice to see her get through. She breaks balls like no one I’ve ever met. You need to be ready — because it’s never everything that’s an argument, but it’s almost always something and it can be anything — but I’d rather have her fighting with me about taking another fucking bite of food when she still wants it than losing her shit at ice skating. I still have visions of how tae kwon do ended in the back of my head. Csúnya, as they say in Hungarian.
But not only is it a thing to appreciate that she’s doing well, I appreciate being able to appreciate it. I said “let’s be positive” above and she was the first thing that popped into my head. That has not always been the case throughout the last seven years.
So yes, absolutely, it’s a world of horrors. I live every day in fear for her and our family for what’s to come in the next few years. I hate everyone and anyone who would vote to strip the rights of others. You want to say “hey that’s 80 million people or some shit” and I’ll tell you actually the number of humans at which my vitriol might be directed is likely to be much higher, but yes, it’s a blanket disdain mostly for my fellow white people at this point. And once more, just in case it needs to be said by someone who’d read that and get white-guy triggered, get fucked.
Unfriend me. Do whatever you gotta do. I don’t care. I was here when nobody read this page and I’ll be the last one left when it’s done. I don’t want to accidentally make some nazi’s day better by sharing cool riffs.
Next week is Thanksgiving here in the US. I’m grateful you read. Thanks for that. We’re hosting family dinner — like 20 people, I think — and The Patient Mrs.’ mom just had her knee replaced (you may recall my mother had hers done while I was on my way to Freak Valley; that was a weird experience). Tuesday I’m driving to Rhode Island to pick up the turkey because, well, yeah. But anyway, I’ll write as much as I can, as always, and I hope if you’re celebrating, it’s a good thing. I know it’s a false history, the US is founded on like seven different genocides, on and on. I know all that. I know I’m complicit in the Palestinian genocide right now just for being here. I just want to have dinner with my mom and my wife’s mom and my sister and her husband and my wife’s sister and everybody. I know the narrative is flawed. The only answer I have is cauliflower gratin.
Whatever you’re up to, I wish you a great and safe weekend. Have fun, hydrate, don’t get too stoned, and watch your head. I’ll be back on Monday with more of whatever it is we’re calling this these days. Obelisking? Obeliskation? Obeliskiat? I don’t know.
FRM.
