Aural Innovations — January 2014

Yuri Gagarin — Yuri Gagarin

(Levande Begravd Records 2013, LP/Download)

Jerry Kranitz

Yuri Gagarin are a Swedish band and I believe this self-titled LP is their debut. The music is all instrumental, ultra-heavy space rock that draws on stoner, metal and hard rock influences to create a non-stop, full frontal deep space cosmic blitzkrieg.

First Orbit is a blistering stoner-metal space rocker with Blanga-like repetitive riffage and basic but catchy melodies. The sonic assault guitars blaze away while the space synths soar, rising and falling, bubbling and splashing as they weave their cosmic arc. An instrumental version of Litmus without the prog elements would be a good analogy.

Sonic Invasion 2910 continues down a similar path, in this case bringing to mind a more metallic version of Farflung. Za Kosmosom lays down a steadily stoned space-metal foundation over which the guitar leads the way in hypnotic om chant fashion, which sounds great along with the wah'd liquid psychedelic leads. As hard and heavy as this tune is, the music has a mesmerizing quality, being simultaneously punishing and trance-inducing.

Finally, The Big Rip is the most rock 'n' rolling track of the set, being a Hawkwind in a heavy metal wrapper, intergalactic battle for a free universe space rock anthem.

The album may be under 40 minutes long, but Yuri Gagarin have pulled out the big guns, with a set that will leave you stunned, shaken, and begging for more. For fans of Litmus, Farflung, First Band From Outer Space, and Stone Oak Cosmonaut. Vinyl junkies - check out that cover art.

For digital streaming and download visit the Yuri Gagarin Bandcamp site. The Levande Begravd Records website still exists but has not been updated in a long time.

Dog Hallucination — Serving Two Masters

(Intangible Cat 2013, CAT-19, 3" CDR/Download)

Carlton Crutcher

This 3" EP by the duo of D. Petri and Doggy P. Lips from Spring Valley, Illinois is intended as a progressive advance toward an actualization of some sort of 'new experimental-psychedelia', or at least a uniquely new flavor.

UNTITLED 1:14: Begins with far away 1930's styled recordings along with a man talking and crumbling things. UNTITLED 2:22: Goes into melodic dreamy guitar and swelling keyboard (almost said organ), a mixture of shoegaze and middle ages monastery

UNTITLED 2:53: No listing for who plays what but very out there and pleasant, burbling water sounds underneath two dualing guitars. A bit of synth fritz hovering about. I bet these guys are the strangest two people in Spring Valley. UNTITLED 6:50: Guitar loop with second guitar on top, simple and nice... yes, like most sincere musicians. Some keyboard swooshes and now the hypno drum, sounds live but a repetitive pattern. Who to compare this with? Maybe some later period Ash Ra Tempel?! Yes, high praise indeed! Gets more intense, then the second drum and you start to hear the Swans influence. Hey, this is pretty badass, modern sorta stuff. They better watch out or people will start throwing money at them.

UNTITLED 2:40: Quiet, far away transition from previous track. Now the Betty Scott dialogue from 1979 at 1513 16th Street in North West Washington, DC at the Embassy Building. Betty's never seen a stranger yet, if you want to be treated like a friend and neighbor you treat the other person that way, you go Betty!!! I assume this is one of the guys grandmother? Or maybe just a found recording!?!? UNTITLED 7:54: More stylized etherealness, yes, the coolest cats in Spring Valley, Illinois! Isn't that where the Simpsons live?!? More loveliness for the outro track, some distortion mixed in? Or is that just my CD player? Oh, it's intentional, yes, art! Suddenly goes into Middle Eastern/Mid-Western hypno guitar/drum raga... closes with some more Betty Grandma in DC... how do they get so much music on a 3" CD?? Yes, it's quite fabulous.

For more information visit the Intangible Cat website.

Howling Larsons — Fool Of Sound And Furry

(Reverb Worship 2013, RW213, CD)

Jerry Kranitz

Howling Larsons is a new project from Stillwater, Oklahoma based R (Rebecca) Loftiss, from The Gray Field Recordings and the AntiClock Records label, and UK based Alan Trench of Temple Music. Having heard both Gray Field Recordings and Temple Music, I was delighted and not at all surprised to read the promo sheet description of Howling Larsons as, "noveau occult psychedelia full of twists and whispers, a many layered mycelium of psilocybic delights". Now that's a tasty characterization that brings a disc to the front of the promo pile. And sure enough, Fool Of Sound And Furry is a mucho cool and varied album, and one that can only be absorbed and digested over multiple spins. I'll give you the nickel tour of the 12 tracks...

Air opens like some old horror movie, with eerie soundtrack styled music and a creepy narrative about the multiplication and housing patterns of demons. A flute melody keeps cropping up that adds a somewhat Oriental feel, which is an interesting contrast combined with the spectral atmospherics. And the whole thing gets hauntingly psychedelic when the ghostly voices and freaky looped effects kick in. Duane Allman's Hand starts off with freaky avant Delta Blues performed on a dead windswept planet, soon transitioning to a psychedelically macabre and droningly drugged blend of singing, soundscapes and woodland sound samples. Sunblind consists of strange but hauntingly pleasant drifting ambience, which takes on a more pastoral tone when the acoustic guitar joins in. The acoustic guitar seems to mark a transition because at this point we find ourselves in more song oriented territory.

A Measure is a pleasant wyrd/pagan folk-psych song with spacey electronic embellishments. Cold Winter Sun starts off similar, but then veers into a tribal, acid-psych rock jam. And Then You Are features poetic narration and an odd 60s vibe, conjuring up images of dosed flower children dancing in a field (slow motion of course). Something On Your Mind and Mother Moon are both delicately trippy, lysergic, and sweetly melodic folk-psych songs. Empires and Dominions is a bouncy hippie party song. I like the combination of strumming acoustic guitar, orchestral strings, oddball electronic effects, and well placed dissonance. Fell of Dark is an acid damaged, spaced out, avant-experimental folk-psych stew. And the last two tracks place spoken word narrative amidst interesting and very different musical themes. For Nihil its dark, deep space soundscapes and effects, and for Accidental Being it's a chaotically controlled mélange of rhythmic machine shop percussion, choral background harmonies and avant-garde chamber jazz.

If you're still with me and intrigued by what I've described then I highly recommend Howling Larsons. Rebecca and Alan take familiar sounds and styles and bring them together in creatively unfamiliar ways, making for a challenging and off the beaten path psychedelic experience. But don't hesitate because this disc is pressed in a miniscule run of only 50 copies.

For more information you can visit the Howling Larsons website at: http://www.howlinglarsons.com The CD is available in the UK from Reverb Worship at: http://www.reverbworship.com and in the US from AntiClock Records at: http://www.anticlock.net

The album is not on Bandcamp, not on Spotify, and the shop websites are all gone. There are some tracks on the Howling Larsons Soundcloud page.

Black Space Riders — D:REI

(BSR/Cargo 2014, CD/LP)

Jerry Kranitz

Black Space Riders are a German quintet of dual guitars, bass, drums and vocals, who play a mixture of Metal and Stoner rock, played in a carefully developed narrative style. D:REI is their third album and like last year's Light Is The New Black, the "Space" is mostly thematic, though there is ambience and effects to be heard throughout the album that inject a cosmic edge into the music. D:REI is a concept album and I think it's worth sharing the summary from the band's website:

A lonesome way out of a somehow doomed world: Retreat! A voyage into the deepest inside, into a galaxy of inwardness, called the 'Inner Space': Peace, freedom, depressioin and deepest isolation. Almost lost in the caverns of subconsciousness… then finally: A way back to the outside. A staggering return: A world battered down - ashes and ruins, grey in black! Destroyed by mankind, finished by the "Memitim". Old prophecies and meaningful predictions… just in case mankind failed to extinguish itself. A couple survivors leaving a devastated world. Drifting on their way to find a new beginning. A voyage, primarily an escape, later a search, meaning and an end in itself. The journey as a transformation. Total destruction as the root of a new beginning. The destination had become meaningless...

The album consists of 13 songs, grouped into four sections - Defiance, Ruins, Escape, and Beyond. Stare At The Water opens with waves crashing on the shore, ambient bass and guitar melodies, an oscillating swirl of effects, and then BAM!!... a full blown metallic rock 'n' roll assault. It's got a cool 70s dual guitar hard rock feel, plus the metal and stoner-ish vibe, but also receding into quieter yet intense atmospheric segments.

Bang! Boom! War! (Outside My Head) takes us from rock 'n' roll to something far more brutal, with a thudding stoned metal march and warlord-like vocals. One of Black Space Riders' strengths is their attention to thematic development, so nothing sits still for long and the music veers through tension laden quieter moments between the onslaughts.

Rising From The Ashes Of Our World features blasts of stoned guitar, with chords sustained in drones that are momentarily hypnotic until interrupted by the next burst. The song alternates between intense ambient metal, a contemporary brand of metal, Black Sabbath styled stoner sludge, and blazing metallic rock 'n' roll. These guys are continually shifting gears as they tell their story of war and destruction.

And on we go throughout the set. There's lots of variety and it all flows seamlessly. There's the spaced out punk-metal of Give Gravitation To The People. Way To Me consists of dense rock 'n' rolling theatrical metal with brief bits of classic 70s twin guitar solo. The GOD-Survivor reaches orchestral levels of metallic intensity. I like the meditative, ambient tribal march of I See. Leave is alternately steamroller heavy and ambient, punctuated by trippy Middle Eastern bits.

The 10-minute Space Angel opens with spacey drifting soundscapes, before settling into a stoned groove that is simultaneously lulling and crushing. I dig the psychedelic doom of Major Tom Waits, as well as the space-doom and punishing rock 'n' metal roll of The Everlasting Circle Of Infinity. And going off into a slightly different direction is the quirkily New Wave-ish Letter To A Young One.

I really liked last year's Light Is The New Black album, and while D:REI is very much in the same mold, it's a far more ambitious effort, showcasing a band who is clearly learning and improving all the time. Very impressive.

For more information you can visit the Black Space Riders website. US readers should find them at the Heavy Ripples web shop at Big Cartel.

Papir — IIII

(El Paraiso Records 2014, LP/Download, EPR015)

Jerry Kranitz

Papir are the Danish instrumental trio of Nicklas Sorensen on guitar, Christian Becher Clausen on bass, and Christoffer Brochmann Christensen on drums. IIII is their (surprise!) fourth album and the follow up to last year's III, with an excellent collaboration album with Germany's Electric Moon titled The Papermoon Sessions falling in between. The album consists of four tracks, all numbered rather than named, and is around 47 minutes in length.

Three of the tracks feature a gorgeously, psychedelically melodic Papir, with both the guitar and bass laying down uplifting parallel melodies. In fact, the bass focus on melody often leaves drummer Brochmann as the principle rhythmic driver, a task he handles like a skilled navigator. I love the way the band sweep the listener along like cosmic pied pipers, falling somewhere on the dreamy psychedelic/Shoegaze axis, and oh so gradually building up to periodic acid-stoned blasts of heavy rock.

My "holy shit"!! favorite track of the set is the 22 minute epic third cut. Much of it brings to mind a convergence of Ash Ra Tempel and the Grateful Dead, injected with a magical jazz and dance groove serum. Sorensen's guitar trips along in killer jamming space while Brochmann pounds away relentlessly, and Clausen's bass leads at times are so low end and penetrating that I wonder if he's preparing for a spot in a new lineup of Magma. There's lots happening here and what starts off with an improvisational feel slowly builds up to a monstrously shattering, tightly arranged psych-prog rocking tour de force. All in all we're treated to high energy rock, mystical lysergic enchantment, and cool grooving improvisational wonder, all wrapped up in one spellbinding magic carpet ride.

I can easily see Papir appealing to a variety of psychedelically inclined audiences. On the one hand they are tailor made for fans of extended improvisational excursions, the likes of which made them such an appropriate pairing for Electric Moon. The Shoegaze crowd would surely dig them, though there's far more activity and elusive sophistication in Papir's constructions than the typical Shoegaze band. I also see the Godspeed/Sigur Ros crowd enjoying Papir. Papir rocks harder than either of those bands, but what they share in common is the slowly developing, majestic soaring reach of their music, and a cinematic sense of heartfelt passion. This will be the first entry in my Best of 2014 list.

The papirband.com domain is no longer active, but check out the Papir Bandcamp site and visit the El Paraiso Records website.

Lunarmare — Lunarmare

(self-released 2013, CD/Download)

Jerry Kranitz

Lunarmare are a Greek band that play space rock with a contemporary power rock edge. Their self-titled debut consists of ten tracks, four of which are "Trans Lunar Injection" transitional bits that typically include Nasa-astronaut and other such voice samples.

Bullet is a power rocker with an accessible contemporary rock feel, but also a prominent spacey keyboard presence. The killer space rocking Rings of Saturn is my favorite track of the set. It's totally cosmic, it's hypnotic, it's atmospheric, it jams, it's stoned, it's intense, it grooves... I dig it. Forget & Forgive is a dynamic metal-melodic-atmospheric tune.

Pale Blue Dot is another hot track, consisting of dark and ominous space symphonic rocking drift that builds up to Lunarmare's brand of deep space power rock. Less on the spacey side but as powerful as anything on the album is the metallic rocking Answer. And Overthought is a tasty slab of space metal with monstrously potent jamming that closes the set.

In summary, this is a pretty hot album. Using the "contemporary power rock" description means I'm clutching at straws a bit so it's hard to make analogies. I suspect fans of the past decade of Porcupine Tree would dig these guys, though Lunarmare are more overtly space rock than the Tree. Check 'em out and hear for yourself.

For more information visit the Lunarmare Bandcamp website.

Grey Mouse — Trip

(BRP Records 2013, CD)

Jerry Kranitz

Grey Mouse are a Russian sextet who utilize vocals, guitar, bass, drums, percussion, sitar, didjeridoo, and jaw harp to play music rooted in 70s hard psych rock, but also includes trippy Indian/Middle Eastern influences. I had heard one track from the band a couple years ago on the Trail Records Psychedelic World Music compilation. Trip is their third album, and though it lists 10 tracks on the back of the CD, when I popped it in I noticed there is only one long track, which I'm guessing is to emphasize the "trip" aspect of the album. And sure enough, while each of the ten tracks is discernable from one another, the CD does indeed flow like one large piece.

This is a very cool album. On the one hand, we've got 70s hard psych rock and Middle Eastern infused psychedelia, but there's also a theatrical aspect to Grey Mouse, and I wasn't surprised to read in the promo sheet that in collaboration with the Moscow Film Club they have performed live soundtracks to early 20th century silent films. Didge, harmonica and percussion are put to good use in the intense introductory minutes with dark, droning, harsh, cavernous noise and howls.

Then a solo harmonica plays away like some cowboy on the prairie, which quickly shifts as bass, drums and vocals join in to create an avant-theatrical setting. After a couple of angry vocal outbursts the band launch into a heavy psych rocker that only lasts a moment before receding back into the avant-theatrical noodling, and back and forth we go. The band rocks hard with a bit of a stoned edge, and I really dig the bass, which has an almost Zheul-like feel, and the harmonica injects a cool dirty Blues.

White Noise Radio kicks off with trippy vocal chanting and jaw harp, before firing off a deeply intense stoned Sabbath inspired rocker. But after a few minutes the music take a turn and we're in ominous and ever-changing theatrical prog-psych territory, with Victoria Barsukova alternating between singing and spoken word narrative. Chunikhin Kirill is a damn good drummer and I credit him for much of the dramatic impact on this piece.

Other highlights include Ultima Thule, which features trippy sitar and electric guitar, with Victoria's previously hard rocking Blues inflected vocals taking on a sultry siren of the harem quality. I like how the music alternates between psychedelically mind-bending and stoned intense rocking, and even when Grey Mouse are rocking hard the sitar is still tripping along in the background. I love the finale, which is melodic and grooving, but then slings into a heavy majestic psych rocker with killer guitar and sitar solos.

Lullaby begins with spacey Blues guitar and droning didge and Victoria doing a brief narrative. Then we switch to whimsically paced rhythms, before settling into a stoned grooving and highly intense rocker with more cool psych guitar solos, and finally coming in for a Bluesy ambient atmospheric landing. Threat is a potent stoned rock 'n' roller with a theatrical edge.

And it's a shock when all of a sudden we do a 180 degree turn to the track Snow (Spiral Walk), which is another excellent combination of electric guitar and sitar, as the band alternate between, and combine seductive, trippy psychedelia and hard edged 70s influenced monster psych rock. And I love how even when the band are in their most potent hard rocking mode the sitar is still jamming along. Man, that guitar and sitar sound so cool together! The remainder of the album consists of more cool grooving stoned and trippy rock and stoned hard psych rock, some with a theatrical progressive edge, and finally the trip ends peacefully with a didge and chanting vocal finale.

In summary, I really enjoyed this album. Grey Mouse do a fine job of taking varied psychedelic and hard rock influences from the 70s and bringing it all together into a thoughtfully thematic and often highly dramatic whole.

The Grey Mouse website at greymouse.ru is no longer active, but the Grey Mouse Soundcloud page is still there, and Grey Mouse are on Facebook.

Claudio Cataldi — Homing Season

(Som Non-Label 2013, Download)

Jerry Kranitz

Claudio Cataldi is a Palermo, Sicily based singer-songwriter who plays music based in what I'll call "modern rock", but with pop-psych and acid-folk influences. I almost dismissed this album as not for Aural Innovations, but upon a second closer spin started to tune in to the psychedelic aspects of Cataldi's music and deft use of multiple instrumental elements and effects.

Song of Hate opens the set and is a melodic accessible rock song with haunting spacey soundscapes in the background, and I like how the soundscapes slowly develop into a ghostly, seductive string melody. September Air, Let's Go To The Secret Place, Self Esteem, and Unconfined are the songs that struck me as having an interesting blend of pop-psych and modern rock. Usually when I use the term pop-psych it's in reference to a strong, and even blatantly retro 60s influence, which is not the case with Cataldi's music. September Air consists of uplifting pop-psych. Let's Go to The Secret Place is a bouncy, rhythmic pop-psych tune with a grungy edge. Self Esteem is similar but more like a droning psychedelic take on an early 60s crooning love song. Unconfined is a bit more 60s infused and includes sweetly colorful surf guitar embellishments.

A Magic For You is one of the more heavy rocking songs of the set, with much more prominent bass and drums, but also freaky effects that keep things interesting. Take Care and Cal venture into folk-psych/wyrd-folk territory, the former being a peacefully lilting song with beautifully droning yet melodic strings. And Cal is a gorgeously bucolic folk-psych song. But my favorites of the set are Final and Nowadays. Final is a drugged, droney, spaced out psych song with potent atmospherics and trippy slide guitar garnishment. And Nowadays starts off as pastoral, upbeat wryd-folk, but later develops into a majestic, spaced out rocker with Shoegaze guitar and multiple string elements.

Very interesting album. I had to listen to this several times before I could write anything about it so it's a pleasure to hear something that challenges me a bit. Homing Season is currently available digitally, though Cataldi is looking for a label to release it in physical form. It's his third album though I see even more at his Bandcamp site.

Visit the Claudio Cataldi Bandcamp site where for some reason this album is not available but some others are.

Bag: Theory — Tap Dancing in a Mine Field

(Homeless 2013, CD/Download)

Jerry Kranitz

Wow, it's been a long time since I've heard new music from Bag: Theory. Some background information is crucial, so bear with me. The roots of the band are to be found in Paper Bag, formed in 1983 by brothers Greg and Mark Segal, who held strict methodological views toward improvisation. The Paper Bag quartet of Greg (guitar), Mark (drums), George Radai (bass), and Kenny Ryman (keyboards/tape loops/percussion/vocals) recorded four albums for the SST label between 1987-89. Now don't run away because I said SST! This was NOT a hardcore band. Paper Bag were an adventurous, highly eclectic unit who defied easy categorization, though they occupied multiple diverse points on the Prog and Jazz axis. The music and approach to improvisation is fascinating, and my sub-title to the article - "I Can't Believe This Shit is Improvised!!" - is an understatement.

In early 2000, Mark Segal was asked if Paper Bag would reform for a benefit concert, and when this didn't pan out Mark formed a new band that would be different from Paper Bag, though still based on the same rules of improvisation. This resulted in the 2001 released CD, A Good Ass-Kicking Wears Many Faces, plus a handful of live performance CDRs.

The present: After several fits and starts, scattered performances and an aborted tour, Bag: Theory now consists of Mark Segal (drums), Anthony Cossa (guitar), and Marc Mylar (saxophone) from the earlier Bag: Theory, plus Tony Fate (guitar) and Tom Stillwagon (bass). The band kick started rehearsals in late 2012, played their first gig in nearly three years on December 22nd, and will enter the studio in March to record a new album. The current album, Tap Dancing in a Mine Field, documents a live performance and is intended to let the world know that Bag: Theory is back and generate a buzz in advance of the upcoming studio album.

Despite the emphasis on improvisation, Bag: Theory is NOT about lengthy jams. It IS about control and direction. The seven tracks on Tap Dancing in a Mine Field, all recorded live, are between 3-6 minutes in length, each being a tightly knit and intricately wound unit of its own. I Pity The Fool alternates between spaced out punk-metallic free-jazz and cool grooving acid-surf rock. Gibberish Spoken in Tongues uses high energy Latin tinged percussion to anchor an acid-punk-jazz steamrolling rocker that conjures up twisted images of the old MX-80 Sound with a Santana rhythm section. Heights Of Excellence / No Big Loss consists of dreamy psychedelic rock with a nice combination of ambient and acidic guitars.

The appropriately titled Link Floyd sounds like the Pink at their most Bluesy, with shades of psychedelia and jazzy sax swing. And speaking of sax swing, Mantis starts off as the Beatnik party you've been longing for, later devolving into a down 'n dirty acid-punk-metal-jazz dirge. Gone Fission is a playful bit of tension-laced noodling. And Fast, Cheap, And Outta Booze is a balls-to-the-walls high action close to the set, being a brief acid-metal brain crushing rocker.

Yes, Bag: Theory are mighty lively these days and still cranking out music that forces me to continually remind myself that it's all improvised. This set was performed front of a live audience so I'll be waiting in anticipation for the results of their new studio album in the spring.

The Paper Bag and Bag: Theory website is information-packed. On the Greg Segal Bandcamp site you can find several Paper Bag albums but no Bag: Theory albums (yet?).

Outer Temple — Outer Temple

(self-released 2013, Download)

Jerry Kranitz

Outer Temple are a Toronto, Canada based ensemble who cover a lot of stylistic ground. Utilizing electric and acoustic guitars, bass, keyboards, synths, saxophone, drums, and a variety of percussion, including tablas, djembe, and berimbau, this all instrumental band can rock hard, crank out the grooves, go into space, psychedelia, and ambience.

Among my favorite tracks is The Hollow Earth, which starts off as an accessible and nicely melodic bit of atmospheric space-prog, but gets increasingly heavier and takes some interesting compositional twists and turns near the end, and gets downright crushing in its last moments. Lots happening in less than 5 minutes. Fantastic Voyage is precisely that... an ambient space-jazz and chill-out grooves excursion, colored by a variety of soundscapes and effects that all flow beautifully for 11 luscious minutes. The first half of the 10 minute Into The Blackness is a completely mind-bending psychedelic space exploration, transitioning to a heavy grooving and still psychedelic space-prog rocker for the second half, parts of which reminded me of Porcupine Tree.

And then there's the nearly 18-minute epic The Dreamquest Of Unknown Kadeth. This is the third album I've reviewed in the past year that's had a track inspired by this H.P. Lovecraft novella. It opens with a wildly rhythmic mixture of acoustic guitars and space electronics. As the full band joins in the music develops some major melodic hooks, and then blasts into a high energy space-prog rocker. Around the 6 minute mark things ease into a quieter transitional segment with tablas, sparse, intermittent acoustic guitar, soundscapes, synths and other fun effects. Then approaching 11 minutes the percussive pace picks up and it feels like Hawkwind with an ethnic vibe, before returning to the opening theme.

The remaining tracks are very good too and explore some interesting territory. Magma Baby rocks hard with a jazzy element at times to the drums and keyboards, a King Crimson-ish edge to the guitars, and some of the rhythms have an off-kilter repetitive groove that remind me of early Circle. Arise is an accessible and nicely melodic hip shakin' ambient groove rocker. Something Witchy kicks the grooves up a few notches, supported by awesome percussion and killer freaked out effects. Unhinged is a short, punchy heavy rocker with freaky effects. Psychomanteum has a 60s psychedelic feel. And Shrunken Heads borders on Metal at first, but then becomes a tightly wound 70s styled slab of blistering hard rock with spaced out effects, in the end adding some swingin' percussion.

I quite enjoy this album, though it might be a wee bit too varied to get a sense of what Outer Temple are really about. I'll be keen to hear what they do next.

The album can be streamed or downloaded at the Outer Temple Bandcamp website.

Alan Davey — Al Chemical's Lysergic Orchestra Vol. 2

(Earthquake Records 2013, EQRCD010)

Jerry Kranitz

Alan Davey's first Al Chemical's Lysergic Orchestra album came out in 2001 (later reissued as Vol. 1, with 5 additional tracks), and now we've got the just released Vol. 2. In 2011 while touring the US with Gunslinger, Alan and Kevin Sommers, who has done album art that I'm sure many of you have seen, visited Death Valley. The experience left such an impression on him that it inspired the music on this album. As Alan says, "Never has a place affected me like Death Valley. The silence there opens the mind to another level and musical ideas flood in." Each of the ten tracks is named for a Death Valley location, and the 12 page booklet that accompanies the CD features photos of each of these locations.

Musically, Alan considers the Al Chemical albums an opportunity to indulge his more "experimental" interests. The opening song, Goodbye Death Valley, is a trademark Alan Davey "bass assassin" rocker. If you played this for me blind I would have identified it as Alan in the first 30 seconds. But it's not really what this album is about. Bad Water rocks too, but has a dreamier spaced out quality, plus vocals by Kevin.

The rest of the album demonstrates Alan's flair for thematic development, and music that would be ideal for film or television soundtracks, though it's by no means short on Rock. Hell's Gate is a moody, tense, atmospheric piece with orchestral elements. It has a powerful narrative drive and covers a lot of ground in barely 3 minutes. Dante's View starts off similar, as a weirdly image inducing glom of soundscapes and effects, before launching into a melodic, easy paced rocker, and even has a bit of a Middle Eastern theme. The Racetrack covers a lot of ground too, with equal parts space-orchestral, electro-dance, Middle Eastern, and cool jazz elements.

Mustard Canyon has a potently rhythmic electro throb, deep space symphonics, alien effects and dreamy melodies, and then in the last minute shifts to full blown dance mode. 49'ers is similar and includes spoken word by the late great Robert Calvert. Titus Canyon is a cool grooving, melodic spaced out piece that would be the perfect soundtrack theme music to Al Chemical: The Movie!. Old Dinah is quite different, being a quirky, whimsical piece that's part stage show, part Kurt Weill, and part alien effects. It's tough to describe but very cool. Kevin is credited with "drunken hobo crooning" and that couldn't be a more apt description. And Zabriskie Point is a deeply atmospheric piece that closes the set on a somber, yet meditative note.

Alan has built up quite a resume, having been in Hawkwind, Bedouin, Gunslinger, Pre-Med, The Meads of Asphodel, others I'm probably forgetting, plus numerous solo albums, and Al Chemical adds impressive and enjoyable variety to an already stellar body of work.

The Alan Davey website alandaveymusic.com is no longer active but now there is the Alan Davey Bandcamp site and he is on Facebook.