Gypsy Treasures’ new album Buried Goods is one of those name-your-price deals up at bandcamp. It’s minutely layered, eerily reverberating psychedelic vamps that wouldn’t be out of place on an Electric Prunes album, or the Vampyros Lesbos soundtrack, and they’re absolutely hypnotic. Aria Jalali, otherwise known as Railcars, accidentally rediscovered the album’s basic tracks stashed away in his loop pedal on a recent European tour, and realizing how good they were, decided to finish the project, which he’d begun six or seven years ago. He gets extra props for tagging this as “sample-free” – looks like he knows that the audience for this is serious purist stoner music fans.
Because these instrumentals are all built from loops, the catchy, vaguely Indian hooks run over and over again as bizarrely oscillating washes of sound move into and then out of the mix. The first track, Stray Dogs of Wroclaw, sets surfy Chicha Libre guitar over a simple bass hook and a million swirling feedback and reverb effects – the Ventures as done by Scratch Perry, maybe?
The second track, Four Horsemen was ostensibly recorded live: its distant, minimalistic Middle Eastern tinged menace reminds of Savage Republic. Tadpole Walks Home, true to its name, is a slippery, slinky groove pulsing along on a swooping fuzz bass lick and creepy, tinny pitch-bending guitar sonics. The last cut, Of Moorish Towns blends watery chorus-box guitars and gamelanesque effects over an echoey Godspeed You Black Emperor style dirgey backdrop. Good to see that along with the digital download, an analog version of the original 4-track recording is also available on cassette from Not Not Fun.
March 19, 2011
Posted by delarue |
Music, music, concert, review, Reviews, rock music | analog trance, aria jalali, chicha libre, chillout music, electric prunes, ghoul house, godspeed you black emperor, gypsy treasures, gypsy treasures band, gypsy treasures buried goods, gypsy treasures buried goods review, gypsy treasures review, indie rock, instrumental music, instrumental rock, not not fun, psychedelia, psychedelic music, psychedelic rock, railcars aria jalali, railcars band, rock music, savage republic, stoner music, trance music, vampyros lesbos soundtrack |
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The Dirty Three meets Friends of Dean Martinez meets Brooklyn Rider meets My Bloody Valentine – that’s what the absolutely killer, hypnotic new album by cinematic, psychedelic Austin instrumentalists My Education sounds like. Just as Steve Nieve did with F.W. Murnau’s The Last Laugh and Chicha Libre have recently done with Chaplin films, My Education chose to compose a new soundtrack for Murnau’s Oscar-winning 1927 silent film Sunrise. Weaving elements of dreampop, art-rock and baroque music into lush, densely shimmering soundscapes, the album transcends any kind of label that might be conveniently stamped on a film soundtrack.
The opening track is a pretty, wistful circular fugue theme with strings, in the same vein as Brooklyn Rider’s recent work, or a louder Redhooker. The second segment, City Woman Theme offers a tip of the hat to Pink Floyd’s Breathe, building to a swirling, dense cloud of dreampop reverb guitar. With an ominous, David Lynchian feel, Lust layers strings and stately guitar accents over a slow swaying beat, swirling and blending hypnotically down to just a texturally beautiful thicket of acoustic guitars over drums. Then they bring it up again.
The tense tone poem Heave Oars has staccato guitar echoes winding their way through a wash of eerie noise. Howling overtones and finally the drums come pounding along, with a fierce martial riff straight out of something the Church might have done on Priest = Aura, a volcanic ocean of roaring guitars that finally fades away unexpectedly in the span of a few seconds. The next track, Peasant Dance alternates between a fast, rustic shuffle with vibraphone and viola, and majestic gypsy-flavored metal. The album wraps up with the apprehensive, tensely cloudy tone poem A Man Alone and then the title track, its theme baroquely working variations on a simple hook cleverly spiced with slide guitar, Scarlatti as played by Floyd circa Dark Side. It’s all absolutely hypnotic and psychedelic. The album is just out on Strange Attractors; the band will be on summer tour, with a full schedule of dates here.
May 9, 2010
Posted by delarue |
experimental music, Music, music, concert, review, Reviews, rock music | ambient music, art-rock, atmospheric music, austin bands, brooklyn rider, chicha libre, church band, classical rock, david lynch, dirty three, explosions in the sky, f.w. murnau sunrise, film music, film score, film soundtrack, Friends of Dean Martinez, godspeed you black emperor, guitar music, heavy metal, instrumental music, instrumental rock, metal guitar, metal music, movie music, murnau sunrise, murnau sunrise music, murnau sunrise score, murnau sunrise soundtrack, my bloody valentine, my education, my education band, my education summer tour, my education tour, my education tour dates, orchestrated rock, pink floyd, post-rock, prog rock, progressive rock, psychedelia, psychedelic music, psychedelic rock, redhooker, silent film music, silent film score, silent film soundtrack, soundtrack music, steve nieve, strange attractors label, strange attractors records, sunrise silent film, tone poem |
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