AMANITA VULVA - DWELLERS OF KLEINE EILAND
sloow 2015, edition of 100
RAISING HOLY SPARKS - OLD TIMES & END TIMES
sloow 2015, edition of 80
fresh haul from the undeniably great SLOOW TAPES handily scores a highest possible double recommendation
"improv band from Brussels featuring Bart Sloow, angouleme oridian, Bear Bones Lay Low, Weird Dust and Bonzai Tarzan. Free your fungi mind!" -- a suggestive play on amanita fulva which is a mushroom (in the section vaginatae no less) that is one of the few edibles in the amanita genus, but don't let that wiki regurgitation fool you, DWELLERS OF KLEINE EILAND is some seriously potent stuff, drawing deep from the wells of ASH RA TEMPEL and CAN, establishing an organic mystic psychedelic sound, smoked out as all get out and nurtured on the freeform freakouts of RED KRAYOLA, riding the same vibes as HERBCRAFT, MENDOCINO and VON HIMMEL, while the track "lepista nuda" hints at a soft spot for ALICE COLTRANE's JOURNEY IN SATCHIDANANDA (i mean, who doesn't have a soft spot for that one?), while the finale "free your fungi mind" channels the VELVETS "european son" - of course none of this comes as a surprise if you're familiar with, well SLOOW TAPES in general, but in particular band members BART SLOOW aka BART DE PAEPE and BEAR BONES LAY LOW by way of SYLVESTER ANFANG - all preconceptions are in play here on this supergroup's debut (?) that exceeds all expectations from the moment i first laid eyes on the artwork til my tape deck clicked announcing the end of side 2
"Psych folk drone music by David Colohan lost in the mists of time. Featuring Alison O’Donnell of Mellow Candle fame." -- on the face of it, OLD TIMES & END TIMES is hardly anything like the RAISING HOLY SPARKS works i'm familiar with, which admittedly is far fewer than i should be, my primary point of reference is FOUR SACRED MOUNTAINS which flew under my radar in 2013 via AWKWARD FORMATS as a double cassette box set, which i loosely described to a friend as "kinda like if NATURAL SNOW BUILDINGS ate STARS OF THE LID and belched this out" - meanwhile OT&ET washes up on the shore of otherworldly folk where trails blazed by folks like BEN CHASNY and PHIL ELVERUM are now found abandoned and overgrown, so it forges its own way through the wilderness with some shimmering psychedelic drone that fortuitously washed up alongside, and some male/female vocals that at times recall BIG BLOOD - it's not what i expected, but fantastic nonetheless
both tapes are now available at the PSI LAB SHOP - it looks like OLD TIMES & END TIMES is already sold out at the source, i'm sure DWELLERS OF KLEINE EILAND isn't far behind
http://sloowtapes.blogspot.com
