Showing posts with label Psychedelic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Psychedelic. Show all posts

Tuesday, 29 October 2013

Slow Spin - nightfall's reverie

It happens ever so often that translating aural stimulus into words seems like a rather futile or strenuous task, primarily because of the constraints inherent within language itself. The subjectivity of the translating medium is contentious as well, and cannot be disregarded. However, if we are to believe in ‘objective’/universal human categories such as introspection, memory, nostalgia, emotion and expression, however vaguely defined, we might find traces of them resonating in creative works produced by others. The correlation established thus might be framed in different ways by different agents, but it is still something that is felt. As an ode to this vicarious revelry, whenever I listen to Slow Spin’s ‘nighfall’s reverie’, I do feel the tunes embracing the aforementioned categories with a yearning seldom heard. The whole enterprise is steeped with it; from the reverb laden vocals to the mellow acoustic picking; from the sparse field recordings interspersed within to the minimal trinket-based soundscapes. It’s a marriage between an earthy folk aesthetic and ambience, and works well most of the time.



The creator seems to exist in a self-created microcosm, and the little snippets that constitute 'nightfall's reverie' weave into one another in an episodic fashion, reminiscent of sporadic epiphanies or paint strokes that are visceral yet contemplative. At times, Slow Spin's flirtation with psychedelia leads to the dissolution of conventional structures, and gives us a glimpse into a state of being that might be schizophrenic, heightened, highly receptive and aware in ways that transcend the norm. (The reference to schizophrenia is merely metaphorical, of course). You can download the EP from mooshymoo.com, or stream it on soundcloud. (The Podhajsky-esque cover art is done by Samya Arif, and is also something that needs to be appreciated in its own right).

Favourites: 'call too', 'pace', 'aslant'.


Wednesday, 2 January 2013

Chi.Boss - IslamabadVice

Here's something interesting. A roughly-hewn bassline. A kick-snare combo making a foundation for a basic beat. Hi-hat hits flirting and swirling against flanged electronic debris. An awkward clearing that gives way to sinister/sleazy keys. Escalation, escalation, whitenoise, whitenoise, a complementary synth-line. Slippery when it comes to immediate intuitive grasp, it took me a few listens to absorb it fully. The tune is aptly titled 'IslamabadVice', and is composed by 'Chi.Boss': yet another musician to join the roster of the collective known as 'Forever South'. (Yes, they do crop up like steroid-fed mushrooms). The last few siren-yielding minutes of the tune are constantly pulsating. The pixelated cover art featuring a fat-bellied chillar/thulla just makes things better.



Monday, 22 October 2012

The Joomi Experience - Belvadere Street'

The EP 'Elyria' was undoubtedly the band's most memorable presentation. 'The Joomi Experience' is the brainchild of Muhammad Ali Suhail and Syed Zain Ul Abedin, and they purport to experiment with sound, and it's visual presentation. While we haven't seen any significant development on the visual front minus the album artworks, the band has followed up in the sonic realm by releasing two more albums since.
A part of me wants to write more about the EP, but i'll refrain (for now).




'Belvadere Street' is the third track on 'Elyria', and is in many ways emblematic of the earlier TJE sound. The bass is slick, and the guitars notes oscillate between delayed chords until the Tool-esque grungy riff enters the picture. Only that it's not Tool-esque in so far that it keeps changing it's tangent every now and then with the help of mini-wah-wah-ed guitar runs.



Thursday, 18 October 2012

Orangenoise - The Morning After

Coming from the local shoegaze stalwarts 'Orangenoise', this infectious tune was released about a year ago. Slightly different from their more recent tunes, it features a plethora of heavily panned sonic matter floating around a juicy bassline that melts out of the speakers. That's the only word I can use to describe. It's fluid. Viscous. The reverberating-space invader percussions help to stretch out the tune along its bass-centric structure.