And then sometimes, apparently, you might make a record with your cousin. I like to imagine a cartoon version of Dr. Space‘s mom — the venerable Ma Space — somehow in a New Jersey accent scolding her synth-wizard offspring: “You know, all your collaborations and you’ve never once jammed with your cousin!” Obviously, I don’t know that that happened and I’m pretty sure Scott “Dr. Space” Heller‘s mother wasn’t from my beloved Garden State — though you never know and the Jersey diaspora is remarkable — so I’m not trying to portray a realistic scenario so much as goof on the idea of family behind Quasars of Destiny. Uniting the aforementioned Dr. Space with guitarist, drummer (and other percussion), bassist, and Rhodes pianist Craig Wall and percussionist James Malley (credited with cowbell and shakers), Quasars in Space recorded the three-song/43-minute Music to Listen to While Eating Planets in July 2023 at Heller‘s Estúdio Paraíso Nas Nuvens in Portugal, and by the time they’re a few minutes into “Colossus Approacheth” (6:18), they’ve just about got it all figured out.
Of course, layering is a factor, and I’ve already added extraneous narrative to Music to Listen to While Eating Planets once and I don’t need to do so again, but that first of three inclusions, which is backed by meat-of-the-album “Colossus Consumes” (30:45) and “Colossus Seeks a New Planet” (6:14) to close out, has enough movement to show a breadth of influence — that is, that Wall as a guitarist isn’t necessarily coming from the same place genre-wise as Heller, even if he’s not far off. Wall has played with tribute-type cover outfits like Sweet Magic and Eclipse: A Pink Floyd Experience and done a fair amount of his own recording, but while adjacent under a ‘rock’ umbrella, Dr. Space‘s oeuvre is specialized to say the least. To wit, he’s Dr. Space. He’s been to grad school for cosmic jamming. But as “Colossus Approacheth” — think of it as a somewhat tentative approach as Wall, Heller and Malley get their feet under them — demonstrates and the dug-in half-hour of “Colossus Consumes” proves, there’s plenty trippery for everyone.
The extended middle-cut — an inevitable focal point as it takes up more than two thirds of the total runtime — is unsurprisingly an album unto itself. It takes place over three main movements, each of which has its own flow and patient execution, the procession starting quietly as the guitar and cymbals wake up. After a few minutes, they’re in a solid, bluesy roll with the synth flowing out around the meandering guitar and the underlying drums that would seem to have been the root for the entire first movement, which recedes into a synth-led midsection with the drums further back in the mix setting up the room a guitar solo is soon to occupy. And from about minute 20 onward, there’s a pickup in the drums that marks the transition to the psych-bluesy final section of “Colossus Consumes,” which nails the balance between its two sides.
Because it’s not like classic, blues, and psych and space rock are without their commonalities — again, it’s all rock music — but for one of these players, making a half-hour-long song is its own kind of norm, where for Wall, as with most other humans, his playing style at least as I hear it in Music to Listen to While Eating Planets drives more toward structure. By the end of “Colossus Consumes,” though, the flow has gotten more open, more linear, and fair enough. If, as a listener or player, you’re not feeling it 29 minutes into the 30-minute take, it’s probably safe for you to turn off the record player, put down your instruments, go catch a nap to get yourself right, etc.
When you can get to it — and I do very much mean that in the Funkadelic sense — Music to Listen to While Eating Planets sets itself up as a tale of discovery, with the ‘band’ or maybe even the music itself in the Colossus role, making the journey almost as much as the listener. The underlying message is everybody’s finding their way. “Colossus Approacheth” brings the first forward steps, seeing where the music wants to end up. Of course, “Colossus Consumes” is the bulk of that question’s answer; an expansive and engrossing undertaking that’s purposefully been put together as-is to entrance the audience and convey a sense of depth in the layering, harnessing the appeal of live performance in a recording context that, personnel-wise, calls for overdubbing for the songs to be complete. That is to say, Wall‘s a pretty talented player, but he’s not ripping into the shimmery Hendrixing in the later reaches of “Colossus Consumes” at the same time he’s banging away on drums, playing bass, shaking shakers and mixing the track (with Gordon Davies; Heller mixed the opening and closing cuts). You can only be in so many places at once and “Colossus Consumes” already resides in a few.
And what does that journey lead to? More exploration, naturally. “Colossus Seeks a New Planet” comes dangerously close to being a song, at least in a linear sense. It feels grounded in a way that certainly the preceding track inherently can’t, and it completes a circle that begins with “Colossus Approacheth” while setting Quasars of Destiny on a forward path. Mind you, I have no idea if they’ll pick up from the ethereally boogieing improvisational stretch that caps “Colossus Seeks a New Planet,” but there is narrative audible in the music and it sounds like if Heller and Wall and Malley wanted to get together every few years and see where they end up, they’ll indeed end up somewhere.
It sounds like more than a one-off, to put it plainly, whether or not it is. For those who arrived at the doorstep of Music to Listen to While Eating Planets via Dr. Space‘s work, either on his own, or with Øresund Space Collective, Black Moon Circle, Aural Hallucinations, and so on, Quasars of Destiny has a (nascent) persona of its own, distinct from the rest. That alone makes it worth pursuing in my mind; an unknown destination and a hypnotic trip. I guess sometimes imaginary cartoon mom is right.
Quasars of Destiny, Music to Listen to While Eating Planets (2025)
Posted in Reviews on December 26th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
A new album from the collaborative trio of drummer Billy “Love” Forsberg, modular and keyboard synthesist Scott “Dr. Space” Heller and sitarist, bassist, guitarist, Mellotronist, synthesist (he’s also got some Fender Rhodes in there somewhere, reportedly) KG Westman doesn’t come along every year. The three-piece who, suitably enough, dub themselves West, Space & Love made their self-titled debut (review here, discussed here) in 2012 and followed up with a second installment, 2016’s Vol. II (review here), reaffirming their instrumentalist modus and exploratory mindset. An unexpected project in the first place, III (also stylized as Vol. 3; I think they’re pretty open about it) represents their second unexpected return and clearest manifestation to-date. With Heller‘s Øresund Space Collective bandmate Hasse Horrigmoe as the fourth in the trio contributing to the five-track/38-minute outing on bass and percussion, Westman (ex-Siena Root and a classical solo sitarist) and Forsberg (Siena Root; he also did the artwork) traveled to Heller‘s studio in Central Portugal to record, and the three have never come across as so solidified in terms of their collective approach. I suppose that’ll happen the more you get together to do a thing. At least ideally.
Either way, a mix by Westman that plays up a Western strut in the nonetheless-sitar-driven “One Step Ahead” (6:08) at III‘s outset, with a flow that turns out not to be nearly the most languid on the record but that still feels metered and purposeful in the room it leaves for lead lines of sitar and, ultimately, electric guitar, over the steady flowing groove and wash of synth. West, Space & Love have never been entirely adherent to longform structures, and they’ve never shied away from them either. III feels intentional in its single-LP presentation, with “One Step Ahead” leading the way into the sitar dreamscape “Mouth of Sand” (6:17), the there’s-that-Rhodes centerpiece “Time Expansion” (7:12) comprising side A and side B dedicated to the penultimate “Lost Hippie in Africa” (3:21) and the extended finale “Explaining Relativity” (15:40), and as one might expect with various Hammonds and Mellotrons coming and going, percussive shakers, congas, a cuica, and so on, there’s plenty of variety in terms of mood and arrangement throughout, but the central vibe is welcoming and encompassing.
That atmosphere is prioritized over structure should probably go without saying. This is the third West, Space & Love LP and all the three of them are known quantities due to their various ongoing projects, apparently including this one, so if you’re coming into III with expectations, fair enough. The album will meet them head-on with the casual swagger of “One Step Ahead” and the sitar-in-synth-wind spaciousness of “Mouth of Sand,” and by the time those two are over, if those expectations haven’t already evaporated in a hot summer’s sun, they’re surely on their way there. The sweetness and fluidity of the melodies, the absolute command of Westman on the sitar and the depth of Forsberg‘s percussion work tying it to Heller‘s synth assure the impression is complete, and it’s less of a world — that is, where another outfit might dive into some kind of conceptual theme to unite disparate musical ideas, either before, during or after the writing process — than a point of view.
It’s a specific kind of chill, a specific kind of flow, taking the (admittedly) appropriated influence from Indian classical music has had on psychedelic rock since the 1960s and melding it with flowing, not-unheavy-but-never-overblown jams. The material is executed with class and grit alike. It’s not afraid to dig into a groove and get dirty kicking up dust in “Lost Hippie in Africa,” but that only comes after the more subdued and contemplative “Time Expansion,” which feels emotional with a slower tempo and Mellotron and Rhodes wistfully backing Westman‘s lead sitar, playing a transposed-blues as it heads toward and into its fadeout. They dig into sci-fi-ier sounds on “Explaining Relativity,” and if they were the kind of band who put out a record every year, one might be curious to hear them bring krautrock to the junction where it became New Wave, all while remaining based on sitar, though I admit that isn’t necessarily the likeliest trajectory.
Listening to III, though, there is purpose behind these songs. The production smooths out some of the sharper waveforms of Vol. II and highlights the kick drum anchoring “One Step Ahead” than the standalone cosmic synthesizer in the first few minutes of “Explaining Relativity,” which comes to underscore the flow that’s been there the whole time while finding its own path in terms of textures and the careful weaving of its elements. By ending in such a way, West, Space & Love finish their third and most vivid declaration of their project with a reminder of what’s still out there — the unknown — waiting to be explored, conveyed, manifested in the hypnotic reach of their craft. I can’t sit here and say III will hit for everyone who takes it on, but that’s not the nature of the work.
This isn’t music for immediacy. The record might be short, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t going to take its time. It doesn’t try to land a chorus — though I’d argue the sitar has hooks to offer, mostly in “One Step Ahead,” which is probably why it’s opening, but elsewhere too — and it’s not trying to beat you over the head with heaviness or anything else. It is molten and patient and, three albums deep, and West, Space & Love understand that the pattern of a flow doesn’t necessarily have to be interrupted by changes brought to it in terms of pace, instrumentation or mood. It’s by no means the only idea being conveyed, but III presents a vision of West, Space & Love as an outfit who realize they’ve become a band — even a sometimes-band studio project — almost without meaning to, but are able to revel in the chemistry and the approach they’ve built up to this point.
They may not have the element of surprise on their side anymore — though III might certainly be a given listener’s first exposure to them, and if so, that’s well-timed — but what’s come in trade from West, Space and Love is a richer awareness of themselves and their place in their own music. I won’t speculate on their future, because everyone here is plenty busy otherwise and it’s even harder when it’s upwards of eight years between records, but III sounds like a progression underway. They’ve never left off a release without instilling a sense of hope. That streak continues here.
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 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.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on October 13th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Sometimes, at the end of a perfectly wretched week, there’s nothing like putting on some Øresund Space Collective and letting your head go for a little while. The long-running psych improvisationalists will celebrate their 20th anniversary in 2024, and Helsingør — the live album above named for the city in Denmark where it was recorded — sees them characteristically, fully, awesomely dug into their craft. With opener “The Key of Secrets” and the charmingly-named “Technical Problems” both topping 20 minutes, immersion is quick and comprehensive, and if there are actually issues in the latter, I’m not sure where. Certainly you wouldn’t say anything is holding them back over the course of that 22 minutes.
Helsingør was recorded by Patrik Barrsäter in Oct. 2021 as one of three gigs in Scandinavia undertaken by Øresund Space Collective, who despite being named after a city in Denmark have ranged geographically far enough — synthesist and bandleader Scott “Dr. Space” Heller has his Estúdio paraíso nas Nuvens where this stuff is mixed, and others in the consistently rotating lineup come from Belgium, Germany, Sweden, etc. — that one wouldn’t necessarily think of Helsingør as a homecoming, especially since, as Dr. Space notes between songs in “Just Fucking Go,” they’d never played there before. In any case, as one of three shows in that run, the nearly-two-and-a-half-hour set isn’t the first live album Øresund Space Collective have put out from the same time. Their Høstsabbat 2021 live release showed up in March ahead of their latest studio work, Everyone is Evil (review here), both of which along with Helsingør and just about everything else the band does most of the time comes out through Heller‘s Space Rock Productions imprint.
And if two live albums out of three shows — the first date was in Malmö, Sweden; I don’t know if it will be released or not, but if it was, you know what that means: 10LP box set! — tells you anything, it’s that the band was locked in and they knew it. Sure enough, Jiri Jon Hjorth‘s bass turns the 13-minute “Wiggle Waggle Shake That Funky Thing” into much more of an embodiment of its title than was “Technical Problems,” and with regular features in the band like Hjorth, synthesist Mogens Pedersen, guitarist/violinist Jonathan Segel and Heller himself, along with Nicola on guitar and Marten on drums, the chemistry in the explorations — which I’ll just note for emphasis are made up on the frickin’ spot — shouldn’t be understated or taken for granted. Apparently filmed and available as a multi-cam DVD, Helsingør follows its course through two full sets and only grows more lysergic as “Wiggle Waggle Shake That Funky Thing” gives over to the half-hour of cosmic adventuring they decided at some point to call “Sailing Eastward,” Heller noting at the outset that the first set was funky — true — and they were going to get trippier.
Fair enough since they do. In most contexts, “Sailing Eastward” would be a full-length on its own, and it follows a complete front-to-back progression from its unfolding through the proggy noodling of the midsection, the drum pickup circa 17 minutes in and the build into space-jamming that rolls out from there. Like the universe itself, Øresund Space Collective work on a different scale of patience, and sometimes just a flourish of guitar, bass, keys, synth, violin, a cymbal crash or whatever it might be, can spark an entire shift in where they’re headed. For being “more acidic,” there’s plenty of funk in “Sailing Eastward” — sometimes the groove can’t be denied — and they balance that late in the track with the guitar solo running overhead with warm and psychedelic tonality. When they arrive at the end with the drums bashing away, everyone seems to know it. “I think he almost knocked me off the stage,” says Heller of Marten‘s drums.
A second round of band intros — it’s a second set — shifts into the final two songs of Helsingør, which also happen to comprise just about the last hour of the “evening with” runtime. Keys open “Moody Mother” (25:00) and remain prominent in the opening section, but over the steady playfulness of the mellow-swinging drums, guitars and bass are not at all forgotten. Mellotron sounds after 10:30 or so might be the source of the title, but it’s a languid nod until about 20 minutes when the swirling solo mixed probably lower than it was in real life (but is nonetheless well placed) provides the drums a chance to take off at a speedier clip, which they do, rallying everyone on stage to the linear purpose of an apex. All of this communication happens without words, organically in the music. It’s what Øresund Space Collective do. It is no small part of what makes them such a comforting listen.
They’re also not perfect and they’ve never been, which in my head just makes them a better band for the lack of pretense. “Moody Mother” courses smoothly, though, and caps in a dream-drone of synth and keys and guitar before Heller implores the crowd to tell their friends and asks if they want one more. “We’ve only played two hours? Okay, we can play some more.” Laughs and applause, thanks in Danish.
That “some more” turns into the 35-minute “The Never Ending Trip,” which is just going to take its time, alright? Yes? Good. Take a breath. There’s some keys, some guitar, some effects on the violin, the drums not trying to bother anybody but they gotta move a bit with the bass. Segel‘s violin takes on an almost Yawning Man winding sensibility atop the rhythmic jabs, but they’re having fun and you can tell. They let the piece take shape as it will and then set out with it, not quite sure where they’ll land and maybe even actually okay with that — which I feel like is as admirable as an ethic as any of the actual sounds they make are — but finding serenity, scorch, bop and drift along the way, the latter of those holding sway for a long stretch after about 25 minutes in until in just the last stretch, the guitar returns with a definitive strum and the synth and bass move toward it. Long gone are the drums. Long gone is earth. Synth and keys bring down “The Never Ending Trip” as everyone seems to wonder for a second if the jam is really done, and then yes, it is, with one more ‘tusen takk’ (‘thank you very much’) for good measure.
I’ve written a fair amount about Øresund Space Collective and/or related projects over the years and I don’t regret any of it. They are among the bands on earth I most feel a void at having never seen live, but we live in a universe of infinite possibilities and face an unknowable future, so I may yet get there. And I’ve no doubt I’ll be writing about them again at some point as they celebrate their 20th anniversary — even if they don’t put out one, two, three, maybe four releases in the next 12 months, there’s always plenty of back catalog to dive into — but to my ears, Helsingør puts emphasis on the personality and character of what they do and the multi-hued dynamic that makes their work so resonant. I wanna live on this wavelength.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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Just in case it didn’t come through in the first sentence of the post, the week sucked. I spent Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday home with a sick kid out of school who was extra miserable even before throwing up all over the couch yesterday morning. It has been a deeply unpleasant time. Also we need a new couch.
I had intended to review the Mondo Drag album — which I’m pretty sure came out in fucking August — for this Wednesday. I got about a third into it early Tuesday morning and it’s been there ever since. When I’ve had the energy, I haven’t had the time. Yesterday there was a premiere scheduled and today I had two, one of which I nearly forgot about since I hadn’t even had the chance to put it in the notes doc by which I manage the whats and whens of this site.
Throw this on top the garbage pile that is my mental state, and yes, I did spend a decent portion of yesterday evening imagining ways to off myself in the garage. I could go on about that. Yes, I’m in the market for a therapist. See “time,” above. Anybody know an LCSW who likes riffs? Would be amazing to speak to somebody who could know what I mean when I talk about feeling more doomed than Conan on tour with Sunn O))). Speak the language, etc.
I did an interview earlier this week with Scott Spiers who runs Cleanandsoberstoner. He’s an addiction counselor, which I guess makes the name of his site make sense. We met at Desertfest New York and it was great to talk shop for a while, chat about favorite bands, new albums, all that stuff past and present. I went on. He was saying he wanted to run it as a two-parter, which I’d imagine will change once he edits it and sees how many times I lose my train of thought. There’s also a definite chance I called him Chris as I had brainfarted and was thinking of a childhood friend he reminded me of. I’m kind of a wreck right now and probably shouldn’t have done the interview in the first place, but, well, one doesn’t always make the best decisions for oneself when ‘in it’ as I seem to be. Anyway. He called me “mercurial,” which I think just meant “busy,” and “very private,” which was interesting since I had talked about being bulimic a little bit before and got to shout that out for comic effect. If and when it gets posted, I’ll share.
The Pecan is back in school today. We sent her in coughing and complaining about having to carry her backpack, so I expect it will be a banner morning on her end too. Next weekend we’re having a big birthday party for her turning six. You should come. Seriously. If you’re reading this and want to hang, you’re invited. It’d be nice to have someone there to talk music. If you don’t have my email or we’re not connected on social media or whatever, the contact form is right there. “DM for address,” in the parlance of our times. Bring the kids. We’ll have a bounce house and they can meet the puppy. I’ll probably spend most of the day doing dishes, which is fine.
But that’s on the other end of next week. Between now and then will I ever finish that fucking Mondo Drag review? Hard maybe. Every day next week is booked as well, with full album streams for The Spacelords and Bismut, a video premiere for Vitskär Süden (it’s fun in a Halloweeny kind of way) and a review on Friday for the Howling Giant record that I’ve slated as a favor to myself writing the day before. Thursday might be when Mondo Drag happens, if it does, and that pushes Zone Six to Oct. 30, which is my next open day. I hate fighting with my own schedule, by which I mean I apparently love it since I do it all the time.
Okay. I wish you a great and safe weekend. Have fun, hydrate, stay well, and if you could please keep your eyes open for a small couch somewhere in the neighborhood of 62″ wide (about 1.5 meters), that’d be great, thanks. And one more time, thanks as always for reading. That you might do so is decisive in my mind as to the worthiness of this project.
Welcome back to the Summer 2023 Quarterly Review. I hope you enjoyed the weekend. Today we dig in on the penultimate — somehow my using the word “penultimate” became a running gag for me in Quarterly Reviews; I don’t know how or why, but I think it’s funny — round of 10 albums and tomorrow we’ll close out as we hit the total of 70. Could easily have kept it going through the week, but so it goes. I’ll have more QR in September or October, I’m not sure yet which. It’s a pretty busy Fall.
Today’s a wild mix and that’s what I was hoping for. Let’s go.
Quarterly Review #51-60:
Weite, Assemblage
Founded by bassist Ingwer Boysen (also High Fighter) as an offshoot of the live incarnation of Delving, of which he’s part, Weite release the instrumental Assemblage as a semi-improv-sounding collection of marked progressive fluidity. With Delving and Elder‘s Nick DiSalvo and Mike Risberg in the lineup along with Ben Lubin (Lawns), the story goes that the four-piece got to the studio with nothing/very little, spent a few days writing and recording with the venerable Richard Behrens helming, and Assemblage‘s four component pieces are what came out of it. The album begins with the nine-minutes-each pair of the zazzy-jazzy mover “Neuland,” while “Entzündet” grows somewhat more open, a lead guitar refrain like built around drum-backed drone and keys, swelling in piano-inclusive volume like Crippled Black Phoenix, darker prog shifting into a wash and more freaked-out psych rock. I’m not sure those are real drums on “Rope,” or if they are I’d love to know how the snare was treated, but the song’s a groover just the same, and the 14-minute “Murmuration” is where the styles unite under an umbrella of warm tonality and low key but somehow cordial atmosphere. If these guys want to get together every couple years into perpetuity and bang out a record like this, that’d be fine.
The fourth album from Portland, Oregon’s Mizmor — the solo-project of multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer, vocalist, etc.-ist A.L.N. — arrives riding a tsunami of hype and delivers on the band’s long-stated promise of ‘wholly doomed black metal.’ With consuming distortion at its heart from opener/longest track (immediate points) “Only an Expanse” onward, the record recalls the promise of American black metal as looser in its to-tenet conformity than the bulk of Europe’s adherents — of course these are generalizations and I’m no expert — by contrasting it rhythmically with doom, which instead of fully releasing the tension amassed by the scream-topped tremolo riffing just makes it sound more miserable. Doom! “No Place to Arrive” is admirably thick, like noisy YOB on charred ambience, and “Anything But” draws those two sides together in more concise and driving style, vicious and brutal until it cuts in the last minute to quiet minimalism that makes the slam-in crush of 13-minute closer “Acceptance” all the more punishing, with plenty of time left for trades between all-out thrust and grueling plod. Hard to call which side wins the day — and that’s to Mizmor‘s credit, ultimately — but by the end of “Acceptance,” the raging gnash has collapsed into a caldera of harsh sludge, and it no longer matters. In context, that’s a success.
With a couple quick drum taps and a clearheaded strum that invokes the impossible nostalgia of Bruce Springsteen via ’90s alt rock, Netherlands-based The Whims of the Great Magnet strolls casually into “Same New,” the project’s first outing since 2021’s Share My Sun EP. Working in a post-grunge style seems to suit Sander Haagmans, formerly the bassist of Sungrazer and, for a bit, The Machine, as he single-track/double-tracks through the song’s initial verse and blossoms melodically in the chorus, dwelling in an atmosphere sun-coated enough that Haagmans‘ calls it “your new summer soundtrack.” Not arguing, if a one-track soundtrack is a little short. After a second verse/chorus trade, some acoustic weaves in at the end to underscore the laid back feel, and as it moves into the last minute, “Same New” brings back the hook not to drive it into your head — it’s catchy enough that such things aren’t necessary — but to speak to a traditional structure born out of classic rock. It does this organically, with moderate tempo and a warm, engaging spirit that, indeed, evokes the ideal images of the stated season and will no doubt prove comforting even removed from such long, hot and sunny days.
German instrumentalists Sarkh follow their 2020 full-length, Kaskade, with the four-song/31-minute Helios EP, issued through Worst Bassist Records. As with that album, the short-ish offering has a current of progressive metal to coincide with its heavier post-rock affect; “Zyklon” leading off with due charge before the title-track finds stretches of Yawning Man-esque drift, particularly as it builds toward a hard-hitting crescendo in its second half. Chiaroscuro, then. Working shortest to longest in runtime, the procession continues with “Kanagawa” making stark volume trades, growing ferocious but not uncontrolled in its louder moments, the late low end particularly satisfying as it plays off the guitar in the final push, a sudden stop giving 11-minute closer “Cape Wrath” due space to flesh out its middle-ground hypothesis after some initial intensity, the trio of guitarist Ralph Brachtendorf, bassist Falko Schneider and drummer Johannes Dose rearing back to let the EP end with a wash but dropping the payoff with about a minute left to let the guitar finish on its own. Germany, the world, and the universe: none of it is short on instrumental heavy bands, but the purposeful aesthetic mash of Sarkh‘s sound is distinguishing and Helios showcases it well to make the argument.
A 2LP second long-player from mostly-traditionalist doom metallers Spiritual Void, Wayfare seems immediately geared toward surpassing their 2017 debut, White Mountain, in opening with “Beyond the White Mountain.” With a stretch of harsher vocals to go along with the cleaner-sung verses through its 8:48 and the metal-of-eld wail that meets the crescendo before the nodding final verse, they might’ve done it. The subsequent “Die Alone” (11:48) recalls Candlemass and Death without losing the nod of its rhythm, and “Old” (12:33) reaffirms the position, taking Hellhound Records-style methodologies of European trad doom and pulling them across longer-form structures. Following “Dungeon of Nerthus” (10:24) the shorter “Wandering Doom” (5:31) chugs with a swing that feels schooled by Reverend Bizarre, while “Wandersmann” (13:11) tolls a mournful bell at its outset as though to let you know that the warm-up is over and now it’s time to really doom out. So be it. At a little over an hour long, Wayfare is no minor undertaking, but for what they’re doing stylistically, it shouldn’t be. Morose without melodrama, Wayfare sees Spiritual Void continuing to find their niche in doom, and rest assured, it’s on the doomier end. Of doom.
Even when The River make the trade of tossing out the aural weight of doom — the heavy guitar and bass, the expansive largesse, and so on — they keep the underlying structure. The nod. At least mostly. To explain: the long-running UK four-piece — vocalist Jenny Newton, guitarist Christian Leitch (formerly of 40 Watt Sun), bassist Stephen Morrissey and drummer Jason Ludwig — offer a folkish interpretation of doom and a doomed folk on their fourth long-player, the five-song/40-minute A Hollow Full of Hope taking the acoustic prioritizing of a song like “Open” from 2019’s Vessels into White Tides (review here) and bringing it to the stylistic fore on songs like the graceful opener “Fading,” the lightly electric “Tiny Ticking Clocks” rife with strings and gorgeous self-harmonizing from Newton set to an utterly doomed march, or the four-minute instrumental closer “Hollowful,” which is more than an outro if not a completely built song in relation to the preceding pieces. Melodic, flowing, intentional in arrangement, meter, melody. Sad. Beautiful. “Exits” (9:56) and “A Vignette” (10:26) — also the two longest cuts, though not by a ton — are where one finds that heft and the other side of the doom-folk/folk-doom divide, though it is admirable how thin they make that line. Marked progression. This album will take them past their 25th anniversary, and they greet it hitting a stride. That’s an occasion worth celebrating.
Sons of Froglord is the fourth full-length in three years from UK amphibian conceptualist storytellers Froglord, and there’s just about no way they’re not making fun of space rock on “Road Raisin.” “Collapse” grows burly in its hook in the vein of a more rumbling Clutch — and oh, the shenanigans abound! — and there’s a kind of ever-present undercurrent sludgy threat in the more forward push of the glorious anthem to the inanity of career life in “Wednesday” (it doesn’t materialize, but there is a tambourine on “A Swamp of My Own,” so that’s something), but the bulk of the latest chapter in the Froglord tale delivers ’70s-by-way-of-’10s classic heavy blues rock, distinct in its willingness to go elsewhere from and around the boogie swing of “Wizard Gonk” and the fuzzy shuffling foundation of “Garden” at the outset and pull from different eras and subsets of heavy to serve their purposes. “Froglady” is on that beat. On it. And the way “A Swamp of My Own” opens to its chorus is a stirring reminder of the difference drumming can make in elevating a band. After a quick “Closing Ceremony,” they tack on a presumably-not-narrative-related-but-fitting-anyway cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival‘s “Born on the Bayou,” which complements a crash-laced highlight like “The Sage” well and seems to say a bit about where Froglord are coming from as well, i.e., the swamp.
Released digitally with the backing of Abraxas and on CD through Smolder Brains Records, the Cult of Devil Sounds split EP offers two new tracks each from São Paulo, Brazil’s Weedevil and Veraruz, Mexico’s Electric Cult. The former take the A side and fade in on the guitar line “Darkness Inside” with due drama, gradually unfurling the seven-minute doom roller that’s ostensibly working around Electric Wizard-style riffing, but has its own persona in tone, atmosphere and the vocals of Maureen McGee, who makes her first appearance here with the band. The swagger of “Burn It” follows, somewhat speedier and sharper in delivery, with a scorcher solo in its back half, witchy proclamations and satisfying slowdown at the end. Weedevil. All boxes ticked, no question. Check. Electric Cult are rawer in production and revel in that, bringing “Rising From Hell” and “Esoteric Madness” with a more uptempo, rock-ish swing, but moving through sludge and doom by the time the seven minutes of the first of those is done. “Rising From Hell” finishes with ambient guitar, then feedback, which “Esoteric Madness” cuts off to begin with bass; a clever turn. Quickly “Esoteric Madness” grows dark from its outset, pushing into harsh vocals over a slogging march that turns harder-driving with ’70s-via-Church–of–Misery hard-boogie rounding out. That faster finish is a contrast to Weedevil‘s ending slow, and complements it accordingly. An enticing sampler from both.
When I read some article about how the James Webb Space Telescope has looked billions of years into the past chasing down ancient light and seen further toward the creation of the universe than humankind ever before has, I look at some video or other, I should be hearing Dr. Space. I don’t know if the Portugal-based solo artist, synthesist, bandleader, Renaissance man Scott “Dr. Space” Heller (also Øresund Space Collective, Black Moon Circle, etc.) has been in touch with the European Space Agency (ESA) or what their response has been, but even with its organ solo and stated watery purpose, amid sundry pulsations it’s safe to assume the 20-minute title-track “Suite for Orchestra of Marine Mammals” is happening with an orchestra of semi-robot aliens on, indeed, some impossibly distant exoplanet. Heller has long dwelt at the heart of psychedelic improv and the three pieces across the 39 minutes of Suite for Orchestra of Marine Mammals recall classic krautrock ambience while remaining purposefully exploratory. “Going for the Nun” pairs church organ with keyboard before shimmering into proto-techno blips and bloops recalling the Space Age that should’ve had humans on Mars by now, while the relatively brief capper “No Space for Time” — perhaps titled to note the limitations of the vinyl format — still finds room in its six minutes to work in two stages, with introductory chimes shifting toward more kosmiche synth travels yet farther out.
The debut from Santa Fe-based solo drone project Ruiner — aka Zac Hogan, also of Dysphotic, ex-Drought — is admirable in its commitment to itself. Hogan unveils the outfit with The Book of Patience (on Desert Records), an 80-minute, mostly-single-note piece called “Liber Patientiae,” which if you’re up on your Latin, you know is the title of the album as well. With a willfully glacial pace that could just as easily be a parody of the style — there is definitely an element of ‘is this for real?’ in the listening process, but yeah, it seems to be — “Liber Patientiae” evolves over its time, growing noisier as it approaches 55 or so minutes, the distortion growing more fervent over the better part of the final 25, the linear trajectory underscoring the idea that there’s a plan at work all along coinciding with the experimental nature of the work. What that plan might manifest from here is secondary to the “Liber Patientiae” as a meditative experience. On headphones, alone, it becomes an inward journey. In a crowded room, at least at the outset it’s almost a melodic white noise, maybe a little tense, but stretched out and changing but somehow still solid and singular, making the adage that ‘what you put into it is what you get out’ especially true in this case. And as it’s a giant wall of noise, it goes without saying that not everybody will be up for getting on board, but it’s difficult to imagine the opaque nature of the work is news to Hogan, who clearly is searching for resonance on his own wavelength.
[Click play above to stream the premiere of Everyone is Evil by Øresund Space Collective. Album is out tomorrow on Space Rock Productions.]
Fresh jams from Øresund Space Collective, or, depending on the adventure you choose to have with Everyone Is Evil, at least a fresh jam, because even the 2CD version that stretches over two hours long finds its heart in the 64-minute sprawl of the title-track. Divided into three parts and accompanied by the 23-minute “Everyone is Good (Maybe)” as a 2LP D-side, “Everyone is Evil” is as vast a single procession as the multinational improv heavy space jam conglomerate has ever undertaken in my experience, perhaps taking its horror-ific title from the pulses of synth that bring a vaguely cinematic flourish to “Everyone is Evil Pt. 1” (22:15), but they count it as their 28th studio album — David Graham did the striking cover art — and more to the point, it’s as current a showcase as they have, having been recorded live (as always) at the Portuguese studio Estúdio Paraíso Nas Nuvens by modular synthesist Scott “Dr. Space” Heller in Sept. 2022.
There are nine players involved — personnel has always been somewhat fluid around a central core — and I’ll list them here for record-keeping purposes. As accounted by the band, Everyone is Evil features:
Many of these figures will be familiar to those who’ve spent time in Øresund Space Collective‘s e’er spontaneous orbit, as I’m fairly certain all have contributed to the band before. One would fairly call a unit with members of Agusa, Saturnia, Ånglagård, Black Moon Circle and so on a supergroup, but Øresund Space Collective have never been about fanfare; their mission consistent in their efforts to capture creative exploration as it happens and offer it to their audience as organically and as often as possible. As noted, it’s their 28th studio release, and their 40th overall — they say this in the Bandcamp info; but it’s relevant so I’m repeating it here — and that’s not counting the currently-174 show recordings posted as self-bootlegs on Archive.org, dating back to the outfit’s beginnings in 2005. One of the many ways they consult with the traditions of space rock, then, has been productivity.
Fair enough, and I won’t sit here and argue that Everyone is Evil is their greatest accomplishment in 18 years; one might as well use a ruler to measure the solar system in inches. After a few years of archival jams, older pieces edited and finished and brought forth on collections like 2022’s Oily Echoes of the Soul (review here), which was recorded in 2010, or 2021’s Universal Travels (review here), part of what “Everyone is Evil” does is to reposition Øresund Space Collective in the present. I don’t know how much more they might have recorded over the course of the three days they were together, but to their credit, “Everyone is Evil Pt. 1” (22:16), “Everyone is Evil Pt. 2” (23:43) and “Everyone is Evil Pt. 3” (18:40) do function as a single, linear work.
And if it isn’t the jam as it happened, it’s close enough, one movement unfolding into the next and parts coming and going as somebody mimics record scratches on synth about five minutes into “Everyone is Evil Pt. 2,” a long drone rises to prominence after 10 minutes into “Everyone is Evil Pt. 3” signaling the shift into the song’s final stretch, or “Everyone is Good (Maybe)” (23:44) answering the sitar-ish guitar and forward drums of “Everyone is Evil Pt. 1” with a serenity of woven guitar and synth lines, gorgeous and dreamy and allowed to flow as it seems to want. From the subdued beginnings — possibly Simões on that guitar-as-sitar, but he’s by no means alone if it’s him, keys, more guitar, Segel‘s violin soon joining — to its subdued ending, Everyone is Evil is an immersive journey to undertake. Øresund Space Collective are pushing themselves as far out as they’ve gone, and not so much daring the listener to keep up as inviting them into the space being crafted with sound.
I’ve said as much on multiple prior occasions as regards their work, but I am a fan in concept and practice of Øresund Space Collective. In their objective as a group and in the outcome of their efforts, their work is their own with a style and a chemistry that’s vital despite (because of?) the songs’ being made up on the spot, and that they would end up with a piece like “Everyone is Evil Pt. 1,” which drops to gorgeous standalone guitar and synth after eight minutes in, jazzy and fluid as the drums rejoin, or “Everyone is Good (Maybe)” with its follow-the-undulating-waveforms meditative patterns of synth, melodic wash and drone and guitar, is emblematic of the heart and passion that drives all their work, and in more than just the glut of it. While operating in a dimension of time that they seem to have all to themselves, they cast an otherworldly pastoralism — a sunny open field on a planet you just discovered — by which one would be fortunate to be carried along. And is that Rhodes along with the Hammond and guitar at the end of “Everyone is Good (Maybe)?” Could be.
But it’s telling either way how that piece ends on a fade like it could’ve kept going. Because it probably could and maybe did. The CD version includes the two bonus tracks “End of the World as You Thought You Knew It” (9:09), which feels like a snippet in comparison to what comes before it but is joyful in its beat and unfolds gracefully to end up not at all incomplete, and “Floating From Here to There” (29:04), which is an album unto itself with Mellotron sentimentality and plucked violin strings for a touch of class before the swirling synth brings its fadeout and the ultimate conclusion of Everyone is Evil.
The only remaining question is whether or not there’s more from this session [Edit: yes. A fair amount]. It could be that Everyone is Evil with the bonus tracks is everything ‘usable’ that was produced when the group assembled in Portugal early last Fall, or there could be hours of tapes still to be exhumed and properly mixed for release. Not knowing is part of the fun [Edit again: it’s also fun to know], but as a document of the reach of the current incarnation of the project, Everyone is Evil finds Øresund Space Collective at their most expansive, comfortable in musical conversation with each other, and inviting the listener into the room with them as they find the hidden spaces within their collaboration.
Posted in Reviews on April 17th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Kind of an odd Quarterly Review, huh? I know. The two extra days. Well, here’s the thing. I’ve already got the better part of a 50-record QR booked for next month. I’ve slid a few of those albums in here to replace things I already covered blah blah whatever, but there’s just a ton of stuff out right now, and a lot of it I want to talk about, so yeah. I tacked on the two extra days here to get to 70 records, and in May we’ll do another 50, and if you want to count that as Spring (I can’t decide yet if I do or not; if you’ve got an opinion, I’d love to hear it in the comments), that’s 120 records covered even if I start over and go from 1-50 instead of 71-120. Any way you go, it’s nearly enough that you could listen to two records per week for the next full year based just on two weeks and two days of posts.
That’s insane. And yet here we are. Two weeks in a row wouldn’t have been enough, and any more than that and I get so backed up on other stuff that whatever stress I undercut by covering a huge swath in the QR is replaced by being so behind on everything that isn’t said QR. Does that make sense at all? No? Well fine then. Shit.
Quarterly Review #51-60:
Ecstatic Vision, Live at Duna Jam
This is a good thing for everyone. Here’s why: For the band? Easy. They get a new thing to sell at the merch table on their upcoming European tour. Win. For the label? Obviously the cash from whatever they sell, plus the chance to showcase one of their acts tearing it up on European soil. “Check out how awesome this shit is plus we’re behind it.” Always good for branding. For fans of the band, well, you already know you need it. I don’t have to tell you that. But Ecstatic Vision‘s Live at Duna Jam — as a greater benefit to the universe around it — runs deeper than that. It’s an example to follow. You wanna see, wanna hear how it’s done? This is how it’s done, kids. You get up on that stage, step out on that beach, and you throw everything you have into your art, every fucking time. This is who Ecstatic Vision are. They’re the band who blow minds like the trees in the old videos of A-bomb tests. They’ve got six songs here, a clean 38-minute live LP, and for the betterment of existence in general, you can absolutely hear in it the ferocity with which Ecstatic Vision deliver live. The fact that it’s from Duna Jam — the ultimate Eurofest daydream — is neat, but so help me gawd they could’ve recorded it in a Philly basement and they’d still be this visceral. That’s who they are. And if we, as listeners, are lucky, others will hear this and follow their example.
Oppressive in atmosphere regardless of volume but with plenty of volume to go around, Portland all-doomers Usnea return after six years with their third full-length, Bathed in Light, a grueling and ultimately triumph-of-death-ant work spanning six songs and 43 minutes of unremitting drear positioned in the newer-school vein of emotionally resonant extreme death-doom. Plodding until it isn’t, wrenching in its screams until it isn’t, the album blossoms cruelties blackened and crushing and makes the chanting in “Premeditatio Malorum” not at all out of place just the same, the slow-churning metal unrelentingly brutal as it shifts into caustic noise in that penultimate track — just one example among the many scattered throughout of the four-piece turning wretched sounds into consuming landscapes. The earlier guitar squeals on “The Compleated Sage” would be out of place if not for the throatripping and blastbeating happening immediately prior, and whether it’s the synth at the outset and the soaring guitar at the end of “To the Deathless” or the Bell Witchian ambient start to closer “Uncanny Valley” — the riff, almost stoner — before it bursts to violence at three minutes into its 8:27 on the way to a duly massive, guttural finish for the record, Usnea mine cohesion from contradictions and are apparently unscathed by the ringer through which they put their audience. Sometimes nothing but the most miserable will do.
The more one listens to Kingdom Cold, the impressive Magnetic Eye Records debut LP from Melbourne, Australia’s Oceanlord, the more there is to hear. The subtle Patrick Walker-style edge in the vocals of “Kingdom” and the penultimate roller “So Cold,” the Elephant Tree-style nod riff in “2340,” the way the bass underscores the ambient guitar and layered melodies in “Siren,” the someone-in-this-band-listens-to-extreme-metal flashes in the guitar as “Isle of the Dead” heads into its midsection, and the way the shift into and through psychedelia seems so organic on closer “Come Home,” the three-piece seeming just to reach out further from where they’ve been standing all the while for the sake of adding even more breadth to the proceedings. If the Magnetic Eye endorsement didn’t already put you over the edge, I hope this will, because what Oceanlord seem to be doing — and what they did on their 2020 demo (review here), where “Isle of the Dead” and “Come Home” appeared — is to work from a foundation in doom and slow-heavy microgenres and pick the elements that most resonate with them as the basis for their songs. They bring them into their own context, which is not something everyone does on their fifth record, let alone their first. So if it’s hearing the potential that gets you on board, fine, but the important thing is you should just get on board. They’re onto something, and part of what I like about Kingdom Cold is I’m not sure what.
Thoroughly fuzzed and ready to rock, Reading, UK, three-piece Morass of Molasses follow 2019’s The Ties That Bind (review here) with their third album and Ripple Music label debut, End All We Know, breaking eight songs into two fascinatingly-close-to-even sides running a total of 37 minutes of brash swing and stomp as baritone guitarist/vocalist Bones Huse, bassist Phil Williams and drummer Raj Puni embrace more progressive constructions for their familiar and welcome tonal richness. With Huse‘s vocals settling into a Nick Oliveri-style bark on opener “The Origin of North” and the likes of “Hellfayre” and “Naysayer” on side A, the pattern seems to be set, but the key is third track “Sinkhole,” which prefaces some of the changes the four cuts on side B bring about, trading burl and brash for more dug in arrangements, psychedelic flourish on “Slingshot Around the Sun” and “Terra Nova” — they’re still grounded structurally, but the melodic reach expands significantly and the guitar twists in “Terra Nova” feel specifically heavy psych-derived — before “Prima Materia” combines those hazy colours with prog-rock insistences and “Wings of Reverie” meets metallic soloing with Elder-style expanse. Not a record they could’ve made five years ago, End All We Know comes through as a moment of realization for Morass of Molasses, and their delivery does justice to the ambition behind it.
Real headfucker, this one. And I’ll admit, the temptation to leave the review at that is significant, since so much of the intent behind Fuzzy Grapes‘ Volume 1 seems to be a headfirst dive into the deepweird, but the samples, effects, of course fuzz and gong-and-chant-laced brazenness with which the Flagstaff, Arizona, unit set out on “Sludge Fang,” the Mikael Åkerfeldtian growls in “Snake Dagger” and the art-surf poetry reading in “Dust of Three Strings” that becomes a future cavern of synth and noise before the “Interlude” of birdsong and meditative noodling mark a procession too individual to be ignored. Three songs, break, three songs, break goes the structure of the 25-minute debut offering from the five-piece outfit, and by the time “The Cosmic Throne” begins its pastoral progadelic “ahh”s and dreamy ride cymbal jazz, one should be well content to have no idea what’s coming next. Once upon a time elsewhere in the Southwest, there was a collective of kitchen-sink heavy punkers named Leeches of Lore, and Fuzzy Grapes tap some similar adventurousness of spirit, but rarely is a band so much their own thing their first time out. “Made of Solstice” harsh-barks to offset its indie-grunge verse, fleshing out the bassy roll with effects or keys from the chorus onward, jamming like Blind Melon just ran into Amon Amarth getting gas at the Circle K. “Goatcult” ties together some of it with the harsh/chant vocal blend and a cymbal-led push, finishing with the line “Every day the world is ending” before the epilogue “Outro” plays like a vintage 78RPM record singing something about when you’re dead. Don’t expect to understand it the first time though, or maybe the first eight, but know that it’s worth pursuing and meeting the band on their level. I want to hear what they do next and how/if their approach might solidify.
Conveying genuine emotionality and reach in the vocals of Michelle Malley, the four-track Solace EP from L.A.’s Iress turns its humble 16 minutes into an expressive soundscape of what the kids these days seem to call doomgaze, with post-rock float in the guitar of Graham Walker (who makes his first appearance here) atop the solemn and heavy-bottomed grooves of bassist Michael Maldonado and drummer Glenn Chu for a completeness of experience that’s all the more immersive on headphones in a close-your-eyes kind of listen — that low contemplation of bass after 2:20 into “Soft,” for example, is one of a multitude of details worth appreciating — and though leadoff piece “Blush” begins with a quick rise of feedback and rolls forth with a distinct Jesu-style melancholy, Iress are no less effective or resonant in the sans-drums first two minutes of “Vanish” in accentuating atmosphere before the big crash-in finishes and “Ricochet” offers further dynamic display in its loud/quiet trades, graceful and unhurried in their transitions, the surge of the not-cloying hook densely weighted but not out of place either behind “Vanish” or ahead of “Soft,” even as it’s patience over impact being emphasized as Malley intones “I’m not ready” as a thread through the song. Permit me to disagree with that assessment. The whole band sounds ready, be it for a follow-up album to 2020’s Flaw (which was their second LP) or whatever else may come.
Long-running Finnish troupe Frogskin ooze forth with extremity of purpose even before the harsh-throated declarations of 10-minute opener “Mistress Divine” kick in, and III – Into Disgust maintains the high (or purposefully low, depending on how you want to look at it) standard that initial millstone-slowness sets as “Of Vermin and Man” (8:30) continues the scathe and tension in its unfolding and the somehow-thicker, sample-inclusive centerpiece “Serpent Path” (7:21) highlights violent intention on the way to the shift that brings the atmosphere forward on the two-minute still-a-song “B.B.N.T.B.N.” — the acronym: ‘Bound by nature to be nothing’ — which feels likewise pathological and methodical ahead of closer “The Pyre” (11:46). One might expect in listening that at some point Frogskin will break out at a sprint and start either playing death or black metal, grindcore, etc., but no. They don’t. They don’t give you that. And that’s the point. You don’t get relief or release. There’s no safe energetic payoff waiting. III – Into Disgust is aural quicksand, exclusively. Do not expect mercy because there’s none coming.
No strangers to working in longform contexts or casting spacier fare amid their doom-rooted riffery, Helsinki’s Albinö Rhino downplay the latter somewhat on their single-song Return to the Core full-length. Their first 12″ since 2016’s Upholder (review here), the trio of guitarist/vocalist/Moogist Kimmo Tyni, bassist/vocalist VH and drummer Viljami Väre welcome back Scott “Dr. Space” Heller (also of Space Rock Productions, Øresund Space Collective, etc.) for a synthy guest appearance and Mikko Heikinpoika on vocals and Olli Laamanen on keys, and the resultant scope of “Return to the Core” is duly broad, spreading outward from its acoustic-guitar beginning into cosmic doom rock with a thicker riff breaking doors down at 9:30 or so and a jammed-feeling journey into the greater ‘out there’ that ensues. That back and forth plays out a couple times as they manifest the title in the piece itself — the core being perhaps the done-live basic tracks then expanded through overdubs to the final form — but even when the song devolves starting after the solo somewhere around 22 minutes in, they’re mindful as well as hypnotic en route to the utter doom that transpires circa 24:30, and that they finish in a manner that ties together both aspects tells you there’s been a plan at work all along. They execute it with particular refinement and fluidity.
Self-released posthumous to the defunctification of the Quebecois band itself, Mystic Vulture ends up as a rousing swansong for what could’ve been from Cleõphüzz, hitting a nerve with “Desert Rider”‘s blend of atmosphere and grit, cello adding to the space between bass and guitar before the engrossing gang chants round out. With its 46 minutes broken into the two sides of the vinyl issue it will no doubt eventually receive, the eight-song offering — their debut, by the way — makes vocal points of the extended “Desperado” with its organ (I think?) mixed in amid the classic-style fuzz and “Shutdown in the Afterlife” bringing the strings further to the center in an especially spacious close. But whether it’s there or in the respective intros “The End” and “Sarcophage” or the proggy float of “Sortilège” or the Canadiana instrumental and vocal exploration of the title-track itself, Mystic Vulture flows easily across its material, varied but not so far out as to lose its human underpinning, and is more journey than destination. It’s gotten some hype — I think in part because the band aren’t together anymore; heavy music always wants what it can’t have — but in arrangement as well as songwriting, Cleõphüzz crafted the material here with a clear sense of perspective, and the apparent loss of potential becomes part of hearing the album. Some you win, some you lose. At least they got this out.
Expansive metal. Azimuth is the fourth long-player and first in seven years from Chicago progressive/post-metallers Arriver, who answer melody with destruction and crunch with sprawl. From opener “Reenactor” onward, they follow structural paths that are as likely to meld meditative psych with death metal (looking at you, “Only On”) as they are to combust in charred punker aggro rage on “Constellate” or second track “Knot.” The 10-minute penultimate title-track would seem to represent the crossroads at which these ideas meet — a summary as much as anything could hope to be — but even that isn’t the end of it as “None More Unknown” makes dramatic folkish proclamations before concluding with a purposeful nod. “In the Only” winds lead guitar through what might otherwise be post-hardcore, while “Carrion Sun” duly reeks of death in the desert, the complexity of the drum work alone lending gotta-hear status. Plenty of bands claim to be led by their songs. I won’t say I know how Arriver assembled these pieces to make the entirety of Azimuth, but if the band were to say they sat back and let the record write itself and follow its own impulses, I’d believe them more than most. Bound to alienate as well as engage, it is its own thing in its own place, and commanding in its moments of epiphany.
