Two bands, two sides, three jams. Kombynat Robotron and DUNDDW, from Germany and the Netherlands, respectively, offer their 37-minute/three-song split LP through Spinda Records (SP), Sunhair Music (DE), Echodelick Records (US) and Weird Beard Records (UK), and not to dwell so much on numbers, but yes, that is more record labels involved than there are songs on the release. As regards a title, I don’t know if it’s official, but the cover says Split LP, and that’s good enough as far as I’m concerned, and it’s fitting enough since, yes, that’s what it is, and being instrumental, both bands seem content enough to leave words at a minimum.
Kiel-based four-piece Kombynat Robotron — also stylized with Cyrillic letters: КОМВУИАТ ЯОВОТЯОИ — have been on a heavy psychedelic spree since their first outings (note the plural) in 2018, and they take side A with “Gamma” (7:34) and “Delta” (7:31), while side B goes to Nijmegen trio DUNDDW, with members of Bismut and Mt. Echo. The latter are closer to their origin point, having issued their first full-length in late-2022’s Flux (review here), but in addition to a shared aversion toward singers at least in the context of their own projects, the two acts share the improvisational ethic, and as DUNDDW unfold “VIII” (21:59) across side B, the unifying goal of Split LP is palpable as one of exploration.
There’s a bit of freakout here and there in “Gamma” and in the earlier going of “VIII,” DUNDDW‘s Peter Dragt just kind of starts to go nuts on drums and that energy becomes a build by itself until after the halfway point when they bring it back down, but serenity abounds otherwise; both bands foster an active forward reach amid miraculously unpretentious cosmic drift, harnessing the creativity of a fleeting moment and capturing it as it happened.
The tagline for the split is ‘100% improvised psych-kraut music from Germany and The Netherlands,’ and that may or may not be true — not sure why anyone would lie about that, but it’s happened before — the sounds fostered speak to the intention anyhow. I’m not arguing, in other words. Kombynat Robotron fade in on a cymbal wash for “Gamma,” but soon the guitar establishes the sunshiny central figure of the piece and they’re underway in a somewhat surprisingly song-ish manner. Mellow grunge in space? Post-whatever whatever?
Such interstellar krautrock pastoralia is set to a steady roller of a groove, and fluidity holds as they turn about a minute in — there must have been a head signal there or some such — to a more upbeat section. Guitarists James Ihnen and Richard Schröder, bassist Claas Ogorek and drummer Thomas Handschick are locked in from the outset, and whether they had some idea of what they wanted to do, or “Gamma” is cut out of a longer jam or what, the conversation happening between the members of the band, instrumentally speaking, is sharp. If they’re keeping it loose in any way, it’s conceptually, but there’s a linear build happening in “Gamma” that peaks just after six minutes in, and from there they noodle out on a long fade, and that hints at the very least toward a sense of direction rather than just showing up, plugging in and hitting it.
Not a complaint. Their “Delta” begins more subdued but has the same shimmer in the lower-mixed guitar and shifts after laying down that initial fuzzy breadth to a not-quite-motorik bit of push, fostering classic space rock vibes in its build en route to bringing that same lead guitar forward in the still-shimmying crescendo. They sound like they could keep going into perpetuity, but balance and the limitations of physical media require otherwise, so Kombynat Robotron fade to let DUNDDW start “VIII” with bass and drums.
Is it the eighth recording the band has done? Possible. On Flux, the three-piece featured the 22-minute “VI” and had two parts of the at-least-four-part “VII,” so “VIII” would be next in that succession, and it’s not unreasonable to think that guitarist Gerben Elburg, bassist Huibert der Weduwen and drummer Peter Dragt either recorded “VIII” then or are simply following the Karma to Burn example of numerical (if Roman numerals) ordering their songs. Ups and downs to that approach, as with anything, but most importantly, the chemistry that DUNDDW so readily displayed on Flux is to be found on the Split LP as well, whether it’s the proggy bassline and jazz-style business of the drumming or the way the guitar seems to inhabit a space of its own, weaving along with the rhythm as it grows more intense early on but keeping an overarching calmness via its tonality.
Dragt is on the toms by the time they’re four minutes in, and part of the journey becomes the bumps and jabs of the bass and the steady punctuation of the snare and the guitar moves closer to a wash as they approach the six-minute mark. It’s like you can hear them digging in. Elburg doesn’t miss the opportunity to freak out, and soon enough, Dragt is following suit on cymbals, resolving in a gallop that der Weduwen seems only too happy to complement. They draw it back down somewhat after seven minutes, but they’re nowhere near finished as they push farther and farther into improvised space ambience.
The hi-hat is still tense keeping time for a while after everything else calms and the guitar goes to sparse melodic hum — by then it’s the snare shuffling underneath — but the movement is never completely gone, so as they grow subtly more energetic, it’s easy to follow along. At 14:45, they begin in earnest the build back to full-volume, and the swirl, the push and the wash all come together in righteous cacophony for a crescendo before the inevitable denouement.
DUNDDW end on a fade, but “VIII” is basically done anyhow, with some studio noise underscoring the in-the-room-as-it-happened feel of the Split LP as a whole. I don’t know whose idea it was to put these two acts together, but cheers. That Kombynat Robotron and DUNDDW could have so much in common on paper and still be so distinct in their respective takes results in a split that emphasizes how identifiable each of their styles is. Their unity of purpose is enhanced, not contrasted, by their similarities as well as the differences between them.
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 9th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Spinda Records made three signing announcements today. That’s not a minor day in the life of a record label. In addition to picking up Loma Baja in conjunction with Lay Bare, Echodelick and Clostridium, the Spanish imprint sent word individually of having picked up Germany’s Kombynat Robotron and the Netherlands’ DUNDDW — both specialists in exploratory and improvisational psych, the latter a newer act — who’ll release a split LP through Spinda and Sunhair Music.
I could go on about Spinda‘s expanding reach, the flexibility that collaboration provides on all levels, and how that and the vitality in the respective approaches of Kombynat Robotron of DUNDDW are metaphors for each other — oh what we can accomplish when we open our minds, etc. — but you know all that and the bottom line is the same as ever in that it’s more cool tunes incoming. I’ll note as well that there was a press quote in the info below, from me, but I edited it out. If you’re reading this sentence right now you’ve already seen enough of my blabbing for one day.
Again, this was too separate announcements that I’ve mashed together since they’re sharing the release, but here it is off the PR wire:
SPINDA RECORDS – NEW BAND ANNOUNCEMENTS – DUNDDW & KOMBYNAT ROBOTRON
We’re so happy to share with y’all some exciting news: German psych-kraut-rockers Kombynat Robotron are joining our roster to put out their new album at some point before the Summer. So far we only can tell you that this album will be shared with another band that we’ll be announcing a bit later today; and it will be released through Spinda Records (Spain) and Sunhair Music (Germany).
Currently formed by Jannes (guitars, synths, vocals), Claas (bass) and Tommy (drums, percussion), the band started jamming in 2018 and since then they stuck to it as their way of creating music, so it feels as unique as their live shows. The robotronic music is based on repetitive patterns, but featuring a wide range of influences, such as krautrock, space rock and psychedelia.
Our catalogue reference SDR18101 had to be some special and therefore we embraced this project with two completely different ways of understanding improvised psychedelia. We hope you enjoy it!
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Today’s a non-stop when it comes to announcements… If a bit less than one hour ago we told you about one of the two bands sharing our catalogue reference SDR10101, here’s the second one: DUNDDW, from The Netherlands.
Featuring Peter Dragt and Huibert der Weduwen from Bismut on drum and bass and Gerben Elburg from MT Echo on guitars, this power trio is a 100% improvising and instrumental band moving somewhere in between space rock and kraut-rock.
Remember that this split album will be out at some point before the Summer through a collaboration (another one) between Sunhair Music (Germany) and Spinda Records (Spain).
Please join us welcoming DUNDDW to the Spinda Records family.
Posted in Reviews on September 20th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Day two of the Fall 2022 Quarterly Review brings a fresh batch of 10 releases en route to the total 100 by next Friday. Some of this is brand new, some of it is older, some of it is doom, some is rock, some is BongBongBeerWizards, and so on. Sometimes these things get weird, and I guess that’s where it’s at for me these days, but you’re going to find plenty of ground to latch onto despite that. Wherever you end up, I hope you’re digging this so far half as much as I am. Much love as always as we dive back in.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
Fu Manchu, Fu30 Pt. 2
Like everyone’s everything in the era, Fu Manchu‘s 30th anniversary celebration didn’t go as planned, but with their Fu30 Pt. 2 three-songer, they give 2020’s Fu30 Pt. 1 EP (posted here) the sequel its title implied and present two originals and one cover in keeping with that prior release’s format. Tracked in 2021, “Strange Plan” and the start-stop-riffed “Low Road” are quintessential works of Fu fuzz, so SoCal they’re practically in Baja, and bolstered by the kinds of grooves that have held the band in good stead with listeners throughout these three-plus decades. “Strange Plan” is more aggressive in its shove, but perhaps not so confrontational as the cover of Surf Punks‘ 1980 B-side “My Wave,” a quaint bit of surferly gatekeeping with the lines, “Go back to the Valley/And don’t come back,” in its chorus. As they will with their covers, the four-piece from San Clemente bring the song into their own sound rather than chase down trying to sound like Reagan-era punk, and that too is a method well proven on the part of the band. If you ever believed heavy rock and roll could be classic, Fu Manchu are that, and for experienced heads who’ve heard them through the years as they’ve tried different production styles, Fu30 Pt. 2 finds an effective middle ground between impact and mellow groove.
Not so much a pendulum as a giant slaughterhouse blade swinging from one side to the other like some kind of horrific grandfather clock, Valborg pull out all the industrial/keyboard elements from their sound and strip down their songwriting about as far as it will go on Der Alte, the 13-track follow-up to 2019’s Zentrum (review here) and their eighth album overall since 2009. Accordingly, the bone-cruncher pummel in cuts like “Kommando aus der Zukunft” and the shout-punky centerpiece “Hektor” is furious and raw. I’m not going to say I hope they never bring back the other aspects of their sound, but it’s hard not to appreciate the directness of the approach on Der Alte, on which only the title-track crosses the four-minute mark in runtime (it has a 30 second intro; such self-indulgence!), and their sound is still resoundingly their own in tone and the throaty harsh vocals on “Saturn Eros Xenomorph” and “Hoehle Hoelle” and the rest across the album’s intense, largely-furious-but-still-not-lacking-atmosphere span. If it was another band, you might call it death metal. As it stands, Der Alte is just Valborg, distilled to their purest and meanest form.
2022 is probably a good year to put out a record based around Frank Herbert’s Dune universe (the Duniverse?), what with the gargantuan feature film last year and another one coming at some point as blah blah franchise everything, but Montreal four-piece Sons of Arrakis have had at least some of the songs on Volume I in the works for the better part of four years, guitarists Frédéric Couture (also vocals) and Francis Duchesne (also keys) handling recording for the eight-song/30-minute outing with Vick Trigger on bass and Eliot Landry on drums locking in tight grooves pushing all that sci-fi and fuzz along at a pace that one only wishes the movie had shared. I’ve never read Dune, which is only relevant information here because Volume I doesn’t leave me feeling out of the loop as “Temple of the Desert” locks in quintessential stoner rock janga-janga shuffle and “Lonesome Preacher” culminates in twisty fuzz that should well please fans of Valley of the Sun before bleeding directly and smoothly into the melodic highlight “Abomination” in a way that, to me at least, bodes better for their longer term potential than whatever happenstance novelty of subject matter surrounds. There’s plenty of Dune out there if they want to stick to the theme, but songwriting like this could be about brushing your teeth and it’d still work.
Voidward‘s self-titled full-length debut lands some nine years after the Durham, North Carolina, trio’s 2013 Knives EP, and accordingly features nearly a decade’s worth of difference in sound, casting off longer-form post-black metal duggery in favor of more riff-based explorations. Still at least partially metallic in its roots, as opener “Apologize” makes plain and the immediate nodder roll of “Wolves” backs up, the eight-song/47-minute outing is distinguished by the clean, floating vocal approach of guitarist Greg Sheriff, who almost reminds of Dave Heumann from Arbouretum, though no doubt other listeners will hear other influences, and yes that’s a compliment. Joined by bassist/backing vocalist Alec Ferrell — harmonies persist on “Wolves” and elsewhere — and drummer Noah Kessler, Sheriff brings just a hint of char to the tone of “Oblivion,” but the blend of classic heavy rock and metal throughout points Voidward to someplace semi-psychedelic but nonetheless richly ambient, and even the most straightforward inclusion, arguably “Chemicals” though closer “Cobalt” has plenty of punch as well, is rich in its execution. They even thrash a bit on “Horses,” so as long as it’s not another nine years before they do anything else, they sound like they can go wherever they want. Rare for a debut.
The second long-player from Long Island, New York’s Indus Valley Kings, Origin brings together nine songs across an expansive 55 minutes, and sees the trio working from a relatively straightforward heavy rock foundation toward more complex purposes, whether that’s the spacious guitar stretch-out of “A Cold Wind” or the tell-tale chug in the second half of centerpiece “Dark Side of the Sun.” They effectively shift back and forth between lengthier guitar-led jams and more straight-up verses and choruses, but structure is never left too far behind to pick up again as need be, and the confidence behind their play comes through amid a relatively barebones production style, the rush of the penultimate “Drowned” providing a later surge in answer to the more breadth-minded unfurling of “Demon Beast” and the bluesy “Mohenjo Daro.” So maybe they’re not actually from the Indus Valley. Fine. I’ll take the Ripple-esque have-riffs-have-shred-ready-to-roll “Hell to Pay” wherever it’s coming from, and the swing of the earlier “…And the Dead Shall Rise” doesn’t so much dogwhistle its penchant for classic heavy as serve it to the listener on a platter. If we’re picking favorites, I might take “A Cold Wind,” but there’s plenty to dig on one way or the other, and Origin issues invitations early and often for listeners to get on board.
Clearly whoever said there were no second chances in rock and roll just hadn’t lived long enough. After reissuing one-upon-a-time Blue Cheer guitarist Randy Holden‘s largely-lost classic Population II (discussed here) for its 50th anniversary in 2020, RidingEasy Records offers Holden‘s sequel in Population III. And is it the work for which Holden will be remembered? No. But it is six songs and 57 minutes of Holden‘s craft, guitar playing, vocals and groove, and, well, that feels like something worth treasuring. Holden was in his 60s when he and Randy Pratt (also of Cactus) began to put together Population III, and for the 21-minute “Land of the Sun” alone, the album’s release a decade later is more than welcome both from an archival standpoint and in the actual listening experience, and as “Swamp Stomp” reminds how much of the ‘Comedown Era’s birth of heavy rock was born of blues influence, “Money’s Talkin'” tears into its solo with a genuine sense of catharsis. Holden may never get his due among the various ‘guitar gods’ of lore, but if Population III exposes more ears to his work and legacy, so much the better.
Gleefully oddball Montana three-piece The Gray Goo remind my East Coast ears a bit of one-time Brooklynites Eggnogg for their ability to bring together funk and heavy/sometimes-psychedelic rock, but that’s not by any means the extent of what they offer with their debut album, 1943, which given the level of shenanigans in 10-minute opener and longest track (immediate points) “Bicycle Day” alone, I’m going to guess is named after the NES game. In any case, from “Bicycle Day” on down through the closing “Cop Punk,” the pandemic-born outfit find escape in right-right-right-on nods and bass tone, partially stonerized but casting off expectation with an aplomb that manifests in the maybe-throwing-an-elbow noise of “Problem Child,” and the somehow-sleek rehearsal-space funk of “Launch” and “The Comedown,” which arrives ahead of “Shakes and Spins” — a love song, of sorts, with fluid tempo changes and a Primus influence buried in there somewhere — and pulls itself out of the ultra-’90s jam just in time for a last plodding hook. Wrapping with the 1:31 noise interlude “Goo” and the aforementioned “Cop Punk,” which gets the prize lyrically even with the competition surrounding, 1943 is going right on my list of 2022’s best debut albums with a hope for more mischief to come.
Oh, sweet serenity. Maybe if we all had been in that German garden on the day in summer 2020 when Acid Rooster reportedly performed the two extended jams that comprise Ad Astra — “Zu den Sternen” (22:28) and “Phasenschieber” (23:12) — at least some of us might’ve gotten the message and the assurance so desperately needed at the time that things were going to be okay. And that would’ve been nice even if not necessarily the truth. But as it stands, Ad Astra documents that secret outdoor showcase on the part of the band, unfolding with improvised grace across its longform pieces, hopeful in spirit and plenty loud by the time they get there but never fully departing from a hopeful sensibility, some vague notion of a better day to come. Even in the wholesale drone immersion of “Phasenschieber,” with the drums of “Zu den Sternen” seemingly disappeared into that lush ether, I want to close my eyes and be in that place and time, to have lived this moment. Impossible, right? Couldn’t have happened. And yet some were there, or so I’m told. The rest of us have the LP, and that’s not nothing considering how evocative this music is, but the sheer aural therapy of that moment must have been a powerful experience indeed. Hard not to feel lucky even getting a glimpse.
A sophomore full-length from the Dortmund trio of guitarist/synthesist Bong Travolta, bassist/vocalist Reib Asnah and (introducing) drummer/vocalist Chill Collins — collectively operating as BongBongBeerWizards — Ampire is a call to worship for Weed and Loud alike, made up of three tracks arranged longest to shortest (immediate points) and lit by sacred rumble of spacious stoner doom. Plod as god. Tonal tectonics. This is not about innovation, but celebrating noise and lumber for the catharsis they can be when so summoned. Willfully repetitive, primitive and uncooperative, there’s some debt of mindset to the likes of Poland’s Belzebong or the largesse of half-speed Slomatics/Conan/Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard, but again, if you come into the 23-minute leadoff “Choirs and Masses” expecting genre-shaping originality, you’ve already fucked up. Get crushed instead. Put it on loud and be consumed. It won’t work for everybody, but it’s not supposed to. But if you’re the sort of head crusty enough to appreciate the synth-laced hypnotic finish of “Unison” or the destructive mastery of “Slumber,” you’re gonna shit a brick when the riffs come around. They’re not the only church in town, but it’s just the right kind of fun for melting your brains with volume.
Any way you want to cut it with Mosara‘s second album, Only the Dead Know Our Secrets, the root word you’re looking for is “heavy.” You’d say, “Oh, well ‘Magissa’ has elements of early-to-mid-aughts sludge and doom at work with a raw presentation in its cymbal splash and shouted vocals.” Or you’d say, “‘The Permanence of Isolation’ arrives at a chugging resolution after a deceptively intricate intro,” or “the acoustic beginning of ‘Zion’s Eyes’ leads to a massive, engaging nod that shows thoughtfulness of construction in its later intertwining of lead guitar lines.” Or that the closing title-track flips the structure to end quiet after an especially tortured stretch of nonetheless-ambient sludge. All that’s true, but you know what it rounds out to when you take away the blah blah blah? It’s fucking heavy. Whatever angle you’re approaching from — mood, tone, songwriting, performance — it’s fucking heavy. Sometimes there’s just no other way, no better way, to say it. Mosara‘s 2021 self-titled debut (review here) was too. It’s just how it is. I bet their next one will be as well, or at very least I hope so. If you’re old enough to recall Twingiant, there’s members of that band here, but even if not, what you need to know is that Only the Dead Know Our Secrets is fucking heavy. So there.
