Sunroof! - Cloudz

Label: VHF Records

Released: 2003

Style: Abstract, Experimental, Psychedelic

"Bi-annual collection of pillow sound from Bower & Co. Fairly mellow and spacey, ala the "Embroidered Birdsong Nearly Meadows" disc from 2001's Bliss dbl CD. Layers of twinkling keyboard, guitar, unidentified fuzz, short wave, etc. Very much in the style of Harmonia/Cluster in spots. There's a couple of amped-up moments here, including surprise lead guitar action on "tornado rose canoe," and the excellent fuzzgrilled rock of "Primavera." "Best Sunroof Ever" - Neil Campbell" - Label

Tracklisting:

1 Machine (9:33)

2 Grasshopper (3:27)

3 Viva (5:42)

4 Zero (7:58)

5 Universal Acceleration (7:42)

6 Tornado Rose Canoe (7:39)

7 Silver Nazi Suicide (12:23)

8 Primavera (7:59)

9 Silver Zero (7:55)

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Cave - Psychic Psummer

Label: Important Records

Released: 2009

Style: Psychedelic Rock

"Mixing equal parts Can and Stereolab (who, of course, took more than a bit from Can themselves) with a grooving and cruise-worthy psychedelicism propagated by the likes of Funkadelic, Cave manage to sound at once immediately familiar and entirely original, a trait uncommon in today's increasingly oversaturated music landscape. Where many bands seem to be loosening their belt of late however, Cave is continually tightening, forging their jams into focused demonstrations of their collective potential.

Where Cave stand out is in the band's ability to do this without ever losing the intricacies and feeling afforded to in-the-moment creation. Rather than sterilizing their sound into a palatable and time-wary take on the extended, horizon-minded style they practice, the group takes full advantage of both studio and approach to craft each piece into a work the form of which only elevates the group's output.

Such is clear from the very opening, when the rich guitar line of "Gamm" is built from the ground up into a thudding instrumental. After a patient intro, the unit explodes into pure energy, each instrument contributing to the throb and shape of the whole. No note is superfluous here, and the focus gives the piece an even clearer trajectory. The following "Made in Malaysia," with its hyper synth lines and clacking drum work, fuses a nearly punk chant with an absolutely undeniable and deranged riff whose effect is garnered from the construction of the lines themselves rather than the overall effect. This is an immensely precise spaciness being conjured.

Elsewhere, the group displays the subtle mastery of form they have. The dancey funk of "Encino Men" emanates outward while the brooding post-punkisms of "Requiem for John Sex" built towards a kind of post-rock vocabulary that eschews any sense of wanky self-indulgence in favor of pure group energy wielding. The result is a special disc that easily represents the strongest statement from this group yet. Great material and great production rarely coalesce in such a clear and fertile vision as this." - Brainwashed

Tracklisting:

Gamm (6:23)

Made In Malaysia (3:38)

Encino Men (3:12)

High, I Am (4:36)

Requiem For John Sex (6:36)

Machines & Muscles (3:57)

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Steve Gunn - Sundowner

Label: Digitalis Recordings

Released: 2008

Style: Folk Rock, Psychedelic Rock, Experimental

"Steve Gunn is probably best known as a key component to the mighty GHQ with Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards) and Pete Nolan (Magik Markers), but his solo efforts have been even more impressive. With a couple limited & hard-to-find CDRs under his belt and a few offerings under the moniker Moongang, Gunn is ready to step out of the shadows and into the spotlight with his first proper CD. This music is finely tuned and expertly crafted by Gunn's capable hands, showing his skill not only as a guitarist, but as a songwriter as well.

"Sundowner" may short & sweet, but it has an epic feeling. Gunn reaches deep into the vaults to line the walls with hypnotic acoustic guitar dirges, organic drones, and banjo ditties. And unlike any of his previous work, he also unleashes his voice on three songs, showing that not only can he play with the best of them, he can sing too. When he's not wowing the listener racing around the fretboard, his simple but effective vocal hooks are sinking themselves deep into the confines of your memory." - Label

Tracklisting:

1 Concrete Beach (3:42)

2 For The Horse, Etc. (4:07)

3 Imi The King (6:14)

4 Money Train Blues (3:56)

5 No Atlas (6:33)

6 Over The Hill (4:13)

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Steven R. Smith - The Anchorite

Label: Root Strata

Released: 2008

Style: Psychedelic Rock, Avantgarde

"Root Strata is proud to present the reissue of The Anchorite, a dazzling jewel in Smith's substantial discography. Performed live to two track with the aid of tape loops and prerecorded takes, the music maintains a drifting, painterly quality that easily evokes the American west as much as the European east which Smith so lovingly mines for his Hala Strana recordings. Sepia toned and tinged with a luminous distortion, The Anchorite, as the name suggests, is reserved, pulled back and solemn, some kind of hermetic prayer for the end of the world. " - Label

Tracklisting:

1 Stars Heaped Up Like Grain (3:52)

2 Procession (3:22)

3 Paths In The Bower (3:34)

4 The Anchorite (2:41)

5 Vine (4:35)

6 Ampulla (2:50)

7 Moss Landing (3:13)

8 Anastasis (4:02)

9 Closing (3:40)

10 Ascension (5:52)

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Kawabata Makoto - Hosanna Mantra

Label: Important Records
Released: 2007
Style: Abstract, Psychedelic Rock

"Guitarist, violinist, performer on numerous traditional instruments, composer, leader of the Acid Mothers Temple, Kawabata Makoto expresses in this solo performance all his mantric cosmical vocations and spins them into space sonorities! He took inspiration from the Popol Vuh album of the seventies Hosianna Mantra, during his visit to A Silent Place headquarters in late Winter 2006. In a sunny Sunday noon spent in the country-side, eating and drinking Apulian specialities and listening to some great experimental records, Makoto and his Italian friends Pierpaolo and Pasquale, took the decision to start this cooperation. A few days later, back in Japan, Makoto recorded the Hosanna Mantra album at the Acid Mothers Temple between March 12th and 13th, using electric guitar, bouzouki and sitar. The result is this new fantastic sound coming from the cosmos. A simple gem of crystalline beauty." - Label

Tracklisting:

1 Scarlet Phenomenon (20:11)
2 Hosanna Mantra (19:32)
3 Door Of Your Enigma (7:06)
4 You Are All Of My Love (7:10)

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Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. - 41st Century Splendid Man Returns

Label: Essence Music
Released: 2007
Style: Noise, Psychedelic Rock

"Motorik krautrock rhythms work side by side with interstellar signals, ghostly female voices and analog synths. Bursts of damaged psych brilliance and free guitars open and seal the album, healing the aural wounds for/from the mammoth droney, mysterious and transcendental ambient experience of the title track, built with the aid of a non traditional array of instruments, like sarangi, sitar, zurna and tibetan trumpet. Definately not of this world.

This is one of the many incarnations of the band, a combo also featuring, at the time of the recordings, the beautiful vocals of Cotton Casino and the appearance of Tatsuya Yoshida from Ruins as one of the special guests. As always, monster guitarist and mastermind Kawabata Makoto leads the troup to ensure a safer trip." - Label

Tracklisting:

1 Ruck Zuck (7:08)
2 41st Century Splendid Man (14:49)
3 Genesis Of Humanity (Amoebae - Volcanoes - Dinosaurs - Humanity - Civilization - War - Extinction - Robots) (9:15)
4 Dalai Gama (4:40)
5 Hello Eskimo Or Polyhedral Mu (14:21)

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The Alps - III

Label: Type Records
Released: 2008
Style: Folk Rock, Experimental

"Although III might be the third album from San Francisco trio The Alps it marks their first studio-based record and a fresh direction for the psychedelic supergroup. Made up of Tarentel mainman Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, ex-Tussle member Alexis Georgopoulos (better known as ARP) and Troll member Scott Hewicker there is a deft amount of skill on display as the three rip through eight tracks of sizzling spiritual bliss. Comparisons here are easy to bring up – Popol Vuh, Ennio Morricone and Serge Gainsbourg spring to mind for starters as the band toss and tangle through thick drum breaks and reverberating sun-drenched guitar lines.

III feels like a lost soundtrack to some crumbling Italian surrealist classic with its pounding basslines and swirling synthesizers. This is visual music, inspired by the likes of Werner Herzog, Alejandro Jordorowsky and Michaelangelo Antonioni, but what results is far more than a pastiche. Rather the trio have concocted a record which while being aware of its sprawling influences is far more than the sum of its parts. The finest excesses of progressive rock and the leanest intricacies of the psychedelic folk scene have been splashed together with a distinct dusty funk overlook to produce something which is totally out of time. Free from some half baked scene or other this is the result of three musicians doing exactly what they want." - Label

Tracklisting:

1 A Manhã Na Praia (5:28)
2 Hallucinations (7:35)
3 Cloud One (4:44)
4 Trem Fantasma (7:42)
5 Labyrinths (5:09)
6 Pink Light (1:48)
7 Echoes (4:18)
8 Into The Breeze (4:07)

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Cloudland Canyon - Silver Tongued Sisyphus

Label: Kranky
Released: 2007
Style: Krautrock, Psychedelic Rock, Experimental

"Silver Tongued Sisyphus is a secular call to prayer with humming, looping and loping ambient passages interspersed with bursting rhythmic energy and agitated guitar lines. Recent live shows have sounded like an unauthorized soundtrack to netherworld versions of The Swimmer or The Scorceror. Pulling influences from the foggy ether of generations past, Cloudland Canyon has staked their claim to the shadows of cult musical culture of the late 1960's and early 1970's German underground scene." - Label

Tracklisting:

1 Dambala (11:34)
2 Silver Tongued Sisyphus (11:58)

Link

White Rainbow - Prism Of Eternal Now

Label: Kranky
Released: 2007
Style: Lo-Fi, Psychedelic, Ambient

"With the release of ...Eternal Now, White Rainbow has surpassed typical solo project territory and is now a virtual elemental force. At a somewhat brief 71 minutes, his kranky debut pulses and flows with mantric chants, clattering percussions, sighing sustains and guitar leads unashamed of their scorching transcendence. He breathes new life into archaic sub-genres such as progrock, new age, and hippie folk incantations, while never stooping to the negative aspects of any of them, and at the same time remaining a step ahead of the technologically crippled and virtuosuo-less looper pedal scene. Prism of Eternal Now leaves behind the bounds of gravity for a free floating meditational headtrip of inner space exploration." - Label

Tracklisting:

1 Pulses
2 Middle
3 For Terry
4 Mystic Prism
5 April 25th 11:14pm
6 Guitars
7 Waves
8 Warm Clicked Fruit
9 Awakening

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