Oresund Space Collective - Good Planets Are Hard To
Find
(Transubstans Records 044)
From Aural Innovations May 2009 update
Oresund Space Collective are not so much a band as an ever-changing club of
spacerock jammers from Copenhagen. Despite (or perhaps because of) the revolving
door membership, OSC have been prolific in their output, both in terms of quantity
and quality. "Good Planets Are Hard To Find" is their fifth album
in as many years, and like the others, it clocks in at a maximum disc time of
over 79 minutes.
Oresund seem to have only two commandments when it comes to recording material,
those being that everything must be improvised and and recorded in just one
take (although the sleeve notes admit that there was one solitary overdub on
track three, when the synth went out of tune during the jam and a new solo had
to be recorded over the top). Band members have such imaginative noms-de-rock
as Mogans, Luz, PIB and Dr Space, the sleeve notes indicating that this is the
first Space Collective disc not to feature core members of Mantric Muse and
Bland Bladen. Instead, new member KG has boarded spaceship OSC, bringing in
sitar (amongst other instruments), featured heavily on the opening and closing
tracks.
"Good Planets Are Hard To Find" opens with the ten minute title track
featuring above-mentioned sitar and a very trippy Eastern vibe. Unlike with
other improvisationsal spacerock monsters such as Acid Mothers Temple, Farflung
and First Band From Outer Space, the volume controls are not set at eleven with
everything louder than everything else. Instead, there is a certain grace and
subtlety to the playing, as instruments casually slide in and out of the mix,
complementing rather than competing with each other. Thus OSC are less spacerock
than head-spinning space fusion, seemingly owing as much to Miles Davis as to
Hawkwind.
The nine minute "Space Fountain" and twenty minute "PP746-3"
(an enigmatic, if not catchy, title) both have more of a straight ahead "rock"
sound, with overdriven guitars layered on top of vintage Hammond B3 and funky
bass grooves. "My Heel Has A Beard" (another enigmatic title) is the
shortest track on the album, clocking in at a "mere" six minutes,
starting off slow and hazy before increasing speed to resemble an instrumental
version of Hawkwind's "Uncle Sam's On Mars". Overall, while Oresund
Space Collective don't promise to rock your socks off, they will certainly serve
as an excellent soundtrack fro drifting through the void.
Check out the band web site at: http://www.oreundspacecollective.com
or http://www.myspace.com/oresundspacecollective.com
Check out the Transubstans record label web site at:
http://www.myspace.com/transubstans or http://www.recordheaven.net
Reviewed by Pat Albertson