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Samsara Blues Experiment Fifth Anniversary Tour Underway Now

Posted in Whathaveyou on November 11th, 2013 by JJ Koczan

Last Friday, Samsara Blues Experiment began their fifth anniversary tour. It’s also the four-piece’s first stint in support of their new album, Waiting for the Flood (review here). That’s particularly  noteworthy first because the record is awesome — there, I just saved you reading that whole review — and second, because they’ve also made the whole thing available for stream, download, etc., through Bandcamp. I grabbed the player for that and tacked it down under the tour dates below in case you haven’t yet had a chance to listen, because it’s a winner and I dig it and hope you will as well.

Way back in 2009 (maybe it was late 2008), these guys came to the West Coast of the US for a tour. I keep hoping they get to come back, and when they do they hit the East, but until then at least they’re getting out in Europe on the regular. Sound of Liberation sent this update down the PR wire:

Berlin-based psychedelic stoner rock band SAMSARA BLUES EXPERIMENT celebrates this year its 5th anniversary !!

According to that, they are going to release in a very few days their 3rd album “Waiting For The Flood”. Available from November 14th on via Electric Magic / World In Sound, this album is already considered as their best and most accomplished work yet !! This release goes with a 3-weeks European tour !!

11.11 (DK) Copenhagen – Stengade 30
12.11 (GER) Hamburg – Hafenklang
13.11 (GER) Dortmund – Kaktus Farm
14.11 (BEL) Brussels – Magasin 4
15.11 (UK) London – Borderline
17.11 (FR) Paris – Glazart
18.11 (FR) Bordeaux – Bootleg
19.11 (SP) San Sebastian – Bukowski
20.11 (POR) Oporto – Hard Club
21.11 (SP) Léon – El Gran Café
22.11 (SP) Madrid – Barracudas
23.11 (SP) Barcelona – Plataforma
24.11 (FR) Chambery – Brin de Zinc
25.11 (GER) Freiburg – White Rabbit
26.11 (CH) Zurich – Mascotte
27.11 (GER) Munich – Feierwerk
28.11 (AT) Vienna – Arena
29.11 (AT) Steyr – Kulturhaus Roeda
30.11 (GER) Berlin – Cassiopeia

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Samsara-Blues-Experiment/118507736187
http://samsarabluesexperiment.bandcamp.com/

Samsara Blues Experiment, Waiting for the Flood (2013)

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Samsara Blues Experiment, Waiting for the Flood: All the Brahmins Sing

Posted in Reviews on October 22nd, 2013 by JJ Koczan

The sonic adventure of Samsara Blues Experiment continues on their third full-length, Waiting for the Flood. Released by the German heavy psych foursome through guitarist/vocalist Christian Peters‘ own Electric Magic Records in cooperation with World in Sound, the new album makes yet another surprising turn for a band that seems increasingly unwilling to be pinned down by expectation. Their last outing was 2011’s righteously moving Revelation and Mystery (review here), which broke from the path that their 2008 demo (review here) and subsequent 2009 debut, Long Distance Trip (review here), appeared to have set, moving away from some — not all — of the exploratory, jam-it-out feel and toward a more traditional, classically heavy rocking approach, toying with motoring riffs and straightforward grooves more than they had to that point while holding onto the basic psychedelic roots that on Waiting for the Flood seem to have returned to the fore. Certainly middle cuts “Waiting for the Flood” and “Don’t Belong” particularly have their driving moments, but the feel of the LP overall and even the manner of its presentation feed into a psych ideal. Waiting for the Flood is comprised of four extended tracks:

1. “Shringara” (13:32)
2. “Waiting for the Flood” (10:38)
3. “Don’t Belong” (11:58)
4. “Brahmin’s Lament” (12:25)

And each track showcases some measure of personality separate from the others while also keeping an exceedingly well-honed full-length flow for the total 49-minute duration. Because one can put Waiting for the Flood into a narrative of re-emerging psychedelic vibe,  it would be easy to look at it as a return to the band’s beginnings, but as they showed on earlier-2013’s Rockpalast live album (review here), those elements were never completely out of their sound. Things in the real world are never as cut and dry as “they were doing one thing now they’re doing another,” and though Waiting for the Flood, which was recorded by Samsara Blues Experiment bassist Richard Behrens at Big Snuff Studio in Berlin, doesn’t lack for otherworldly sensibilities, it’s more of a shift in how varying elements are blended than a radical turn in overall approach.

Those who’ve encountered Samsara Blues Experiment before will likely rejoice at the Eastern-style sonics that Waiting for the Flood is quick to bask in and the immediate meditative feel of “Shringara,” which gracefully unfolds its beginnings as though waking up and having a stretch. Not tentative, but not rushing. Behind Peters‘ vocals, a light wash of sitar drone, layers of his and Hans Eiselt‘s guitar interweave with a steady bassline from Behrens and the consistently fluid drumming of Thomas Vedder, who’s proven adaptable to whatever changes Peters and company might call forth, both moment to moment and over the course of their overarching creative progression. “Shringara,” which is the longest song on the record (immediate points), is sweetly toned and lyrically rich, the opening line, “Hey come my lady won’t you move a little closer to me,” does little to give a full notion of the sonic breadth or even that of the lyrical concepts at work, the song’s title being derived from the Hindu demonstration of romantic love in the arts. A fitting title for what arises in the varied and increasingly intense verses, and the music mirrors as well, an early jam rising to a thickened peak by the halfway point only to gradually step down and hit into a kind of stoner semi-shuffle as prelude to the last verse and capstone solo. The opener is less based around verse/chorus tradeoffs than “Don’t Belong” or the finale of “Brahmin’s Lament,” but it sets the tone well so that the jazzy, key-laden intro to the title-track comes in smooth and serene amid the warm rhythm and engages the listener rather than repels as self-indulgent or noodling for its own sake. Almost three minutes have passed in that jam before Peters enters for the first verse of “Waiting for the Flood,” but the groove is its own excuse for being, and one would hardly ask anything else of Samsara Blues Experiment, whose strengths are just as likely to come forward in the chemistry of those explorations as in the crispness of a memorable hook.

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