Well, this is an unexpected turn of events, even for someone like Don Falcone, who has built a whole career out of unlikely collaborations. Falcone first appeared on the mid-1990’s U.S. spacerock scene playing keyboards with Melting Euphoria on 1994’s Through The Strands Of Times, before moving on to a variety of projects, including Spaceship Eyes and Spirits Burning, who existed concurrently for a time in the late 1990’s. The first official Spirits Burning album was 1999’s New Worlds By Design, with subsequent releases including the co-credited Bridget Wishart projects Earth Born (2008) and Bloodlines (2009), and 2008’s Michael Moorcock archive-trawl Alien Injection. With their most recent album being 2011’s Behold The Action Man, a collaboration with sometime Hawkwind lyricist Roger Neville-Neil, Falcone must surely be one of the most well-connected pan-generational figures in spacerock, with work blending and crossing a multitude of styles. Clearlight, on the other hand is the vintage 1970’s symphonic progressive rock project of Frenchman Cyrille Verdeaux, a truly gifted keyboard player, around whom congregated an ever-changing array of guest stars (including members of Gong), to release a run of mainly instrumental albums, starting with 1975’s Clearlight Symphony. Verdeaux has continued to use the Clearlight name throughout the ’80’s and ’90’s, while also recording under his own name, to the extent that band and keyboard player have become virtually interchangable. The tragic death of his young son resulted in Verdeaux travelling to India, where he studied yoga and meditation, which strongly influenced his subsequent work on albums such as Ethnicolours, Messenger Of The Sun, Journey To Tantraland, and his most recent release, 2007’s Shamballa – A Journey To The Crystal World.

So much for the back-story. As can be expected then, Healthy Music In Large Doses is an eclectic album, which spans a number of genres. One thing to make clear at the onset is that, despite input from several one-time Hawkwind members, and Falcone’s own space-rocking past, this is definitely not a full-on spacerock experience. Rather, the music on this mainly-instrumental album is rooted in jazz, folk, psychedelic pop and even reggae. The album opens with Treasures At The Dawn Of The Century, a kind of world music piece featuring multiple synths, organ, flute and tabla. Raised On Coal And Oil, strongly features the violin of Stella Fergusson, who appears able to reach notes of such height that only dogs can hear them, interweaving with Verdeaux’s gentle piano arpeggios across seven minutes of floating and bass-driven jazz. Our Secret Cloud is a gentle, almost spiritual, piece which opens with chanted male/female vocals, moving into purely ambient territory, including what appears to be backward guitar, and closing with a reprised choral passage. Verdeaux provides spoken-word vocals – in French – over tenor and soprano sax-flavoured jazz on Infinite City, while Falcone’s percussion duties include marimba, sound eggs, finger cymbals, U.S. kitchen bell and Italian rattlesnake! Unusual percussion aside, this is truly prog rock at its most jazzy, bringing to mind latter day Soft Machine, or Bill Bruford’s Earthworks. Cyndee Lee Rule’s violin weaves its way through the Indian sitars and woodwinds of Hand Signals & Daily Horoscopes, which contains a piano passage strongly evoking the original Clearlight Symphony. The standard of musicianship here is just jaw-dropping, while never being showy. Cool Can Of Cola On The Forehead (one of the few tracks on which Cyrille Verdeaux does not play) is funky reggae, perfectly evoking the image suggested by the title. Healing Power Of Magnets sounds so close to Pink Floyd’s classic Breathe that it is a wonder Gilmour and Waters are not given a co-writing credit; the music suggesting the same feeling of melting euphoria as Dark Side Floyd (and for which Falcone named his first band). Verdeaux again steps back on the dreamy synth-led Travellin [sic] Sideways, while Falcone gets a credit for providing ocean and wind; additional synths are provided by Paul Hayles, who was briefly a Hawk and Sonic Assassin. Kingdom Of Music is another perfectly titled track, with fluttering arpeggios dancing on the wind. Michael Clare supplies dazzeling bass playing on the jazzy In Search Of Friends On The Day Of Masks, with gliss guitars by Gong associate Fabio Golfetti, who provides more of the same on the brief shimmering sound picture that is Italian Lake. The Road To Shave Ice is as baffling as its title would suggest, with Thom Evans (of Hawk associates Melodic Energy Commission) credited with “playing” wrench, umbrella and jaw harps, and Falcone contributing samples of ocean waves, Luau rhythms and chants, and gift shop instruments. Reggae-flavouring is sprinkled on album closer Bring It Down, written and sung by Gong’s Daevid Allen, and certainly sounding like it, with eco-warning lyrics – “Telecommunication sits in castles made of sand” – contrasting with the jolly melodies and tenor saxes of Purjah.

Healthy Music In Large Doses does pretty much what it says on the tin, and sounds much like you would expect from a collaboration of minds that released Found In Nature and Clearlight Symphony. Spacerock it most certainly isn’t, but seekers of a gentle yet funky uplifting panacea will find much to enjoy here, and in most generous doses too!

For further information on Spirits Burning, go to http://www.spiritsburning.com or http://www.myspace.com/spiritsburning
Further information on Clearlight can be found at http://www.clearlight888music.com

Reviewed by Pat Albertson

Hot on the heels of their debut release, Aurora Symphony, Red Planet Orchestra is back with Secrets of Eternity. Red Planet Orchestra is the UK based duo of Vincent Rees and Peter Smith, who were the same musicians who created the T30 Control albums Blade Of The Sun (2003) and Hollow Earth (2006). Secrets Of Eternity consists of 4 tracks – two lengthy pieces and two shorter ones.

Cosmos Remix and Time Drift are the short tracks at just under 5 minutes each. Cosmos Remix is pure floating orchestral space electronics. I like the combination of astral electronic wind instruments and flittering effects that sound like a flock of birds greeting the new day. And in the last minute we hear lovely spoken word in Welsh by guest Heather Jones. Time Drift features heavenly, meditative floating space, with a low end bass sensation that rumbled in my brain under the headphones, shooting star synths, and more brief spoken word by Heather Jones.

The 31 minute Eyes Of An Angel and 12 minute Rapture Of The Cosmos are the epics of the album. If you were to look up “Space Symphony” in the encyclopedia, instead of words it should be represented by a link that plays these tracks. The titles are appropriate as this is angelic and rapturous music indeed, with its combination of majestic symphonics, astral string section, moody soundscape drone, and gradually, almost imperceptibly developing melody. Heather Jones spoken word returns briefly on Rapture Of The Cosmos, and though I don’t understand Welsh, her voice is soothing and is an ideal match for the music.

In summary, another beautiful set from Red Planet Orchestra. Throughout the album I imagined myself in an outdoor concert hall, the cosmic electronic symphony playing at night under the stars. This would be ideal to perform in a planetarium.

For more information visit the Red Planet Orchestra web site at: http://redplanetorchestra.bandcamp.com
The site notes that a limited edition CD of the album will be released later in the year

Reviewed by Jerry Kranitz

Ask the casual music listener what they consider to be the sound of the ’90’s, and the most likely answers you get will be a combination of grunge and alt rock, or techno and Britpop. Few indeed would be familiar with what was then known as the “new wave of US spacerock”, the isolated strands of which were brought together to a certain extent by the legendary Cleopatra label, which released a number of compilations featuring bands like Farflung, Pressurehed, Alien Planetscapes, Anubian Lights and Architectural Metaphor, performing either their own material or classic rock covers of the likes of King Crimson, Pink Floyd and Hawkwind. Buried deep underground, these bands helped to inspire a third and current generation of spacerock bands including Oresund Space Collective, Secret Saucer, Litmus, First Band From Outer Space and plenty more who are still going strong today. Although Cleopatra Records is still a going concern, things have been rather quiet for most of those American bands that kept the flame alive in the ’90’s. The release of Architectural Metaphor’s Everything You Know Is Wrong is therefore a most welcome surprise, a bit like finding a gold nugget amongst rubble thought picked clean.

Although a version of Architectural Metaphor, built around keyboard player Paul Eggleston, was releasing cassettes in the late 1980’s, it took the arrival of guitarist Greg Kozlowski to record their proper debut album, 1995’s “Odysseum Galacti”, which contained a version of Hawkwind’s Sonic Attack, a statement of intent if ever there was one. 1997’s Creature Of The Velvet Void featured a twelve minute take on Hawkwind’s Golden Void and, far less obviously, The Velvet Underground’s All Tomorrow’s Parties (a storming version of Pink Floyd’s Echoes was a staple of their live set). Appearing at the Strange Days Space Rock Festivals and opening for the likes of Gong, Pressurehed, Ozric Tentacles and (perhaps unsurprisingly) Hawkwind, the band line-up which recorded 2004’s live Other Music included former Dinosaur Jr drummer Pat “Murph” Murphy. Between then and now there have been no new transmissions from spaceship ArcMet, and it appeared as though the band had vanished into a black hole. However, 2013 has heralded the release of Everything You Know Is Wrong, a stunning return which features “new” vocalist Andrea Aguayo (she actually joined in 2005, but this is her recorded debut with the band). Actually, it may be not be completely accurate to call this release a “new” album, as rumour has it that the tracks were recorded in 2005, and that the band may not be a functioning unit. Nonetheless, Everything You Know Is Wrong is a full length studio album of previously unreleased tracks that serves as a great introduction to the band for those (myself included) who missed them first time around.

The album opens with the riffy Apocalypse, which sounds a little like early Uriah Heep, but with wailing female vocals, and a crunching freakout guitar solo. Strangely, Architectural Metaphor have never had a permanent bass player, but this absence just gives Murph more room for his jazz-style drumming, and gives the band a kind of “dislocated” sound (in a good way!). With that Echoes cover in their live set, and On The Run appearing on 2004’s Other Music, it is no secret that the band have a heavy Pink Floyd influence, and Nuclear Sun features Saucerful Of Secrets-style choral vocals. The writing credits include Deb Young, drummer/vocalist who left the band in early 2000. The three-minute title track is a semi-acoustic ballad that showcases the soulful vocals of Andrea Aguayo, who won a couple of awards in jazz magazine Downbeat before she turned 18. The title Neu Klangfarbenmelodie would suggest motorik rhythms, but instead we get nine minutes of wild spacerock improvisation built on jazz drums, freaky guitars and whooshing keyboards. The Temple Song is just a two minute interlude before Wasserfall (Zeit), which features spooky wordless female vocals, pulsing synths and Gilmour-esque sustained guitar lines. S.P.Q.R is another three-way spacey jam credited to the core instrumental trio of Eggleston, Kozlowski and Murphy, parts of which sound like their interpretation of Cirkus from the Cleopatra tribute King Crimson album Schizoid Dimension. With no bass in evidence, the riff is held down by Eggleston’s keyboards with Kozlowski and Murphy soloing over the top. A second Wasserfall, subtitled Der Weltraum, runs for a scant two and a half minutes, before the final track, an amazing cover of Roxy’s In Every Dreamhome A Heartache [sic] kicks in (is it just me, or does this sound like the chord sequence to Hawkwind’s Assualt And Battery?).

Regardless of the origins of these tracks and the current status of the band itself, Everything You Know Is Wrong is an excellent slice of classic spacerock that deserves heavy rotation on my CD player, and has made me want to investigate their earlier work. Let’s hope it is more than just an epitaph to a great band.

For more information, see the band’s website http://www.architecturalmetaphor.com
NOTE: At the time of publication this web site is still under construction. Inquiries for the CD should go to arcmet@yahoo.com

Reviewed by Pat Albertson

Ambient music can so easily fall into the trap of long, repetitive and frankly, quite boring swashes of synth pads. There’s all sorts of that kind of stuff out there. So when something like Dadirri’s Electrified Space Bacterium comes along, it is a welcome shock to the system. This is ambient music that is alive, complex and stimulating. Not that you can’t just kick back and chill out to it, but it is the kind of ambient music that Brian Eno described, music that can just as easily fade into the background as it can grab your attention and make you really listen.

Dadirri is a side project of Australian musician VisOrtis, who has been involved with numerous bands, collaborations and solo projects over the years, including Vocabularinist, DJ Urinal Cake, buMscUzz, and Mekigah. On this particular project, he teams up with 30 year veteran home taper Ken Clinger from Pittsburgh. The music on Electrified Space Bacterium is very different from the chaos and mayhem often present in VisOrtis’ other projects, but although it is a much more chilled out, ambient space sound, it can be just as challenging to listen to, which makes it far more fascinating than your run-of-the-mill ambient music.

The pieces on this album are mostly shorter tracks in the 3 1.2 to 6 1/2 minute range, which gives VisOrtis and Clinger a chance to conceptualize and execute a number of different sonic realizations. The music slips sideways through lyseric landscapes, easing from lilting and gently melodic to disquieting and even disorienting, often within the same piece. It’s like listening to music broadcasts from another world, mere hazy fragments reaching your ears, as it is joined by rich, organic, earthly resonances that paint hallucinatory colors within. Throughout the album, and perhaps tying it together, there is a sonic motif, something like the sound of a million bells ringing, caught on the wind, and heard from far away, that permeates many of the tracks, sometimes rising to the surface, sometimes sinking to depths. It’s quite a unique sound, and lends elements of both wistful nostalgia and intriguing mystery to the proceedings.

This is more than just ambient music. Electrified Space Bacterium comprises fully realized psychedelic environments, trippy dreamscapes for your journey down the ambient expressway into the blazing night. Lay back in the darkness with the headphones on and get swept away.

For more info, visit: http://kenclinger.bandcamp.com/album/electrified-space-bacterium and http://visortis.tumblr.com

Reviewed by Jeff Fitzgerald

The latest from Austin, Texas based Book Of Shadows features 7 tracks and nearly 80 full minutes on a limited edition CDR of only 150 individually numbered copies from Kendra Steiner Editions. As usual, the lineup of musicians can vary from one track to the next, with mainstays Carlton and Sharon Crutcher being the constants.

The set opens with Dragonfly Children, featuring the trio of Carlton, Sharon, and Aaron Bennack on guitar, keys and beats. This is a wild and freaky combination of Sharon’s vocals, spaced out electronics, guitar manipulations and effects, and a chugging rhythmic machine-like pulse. After a couple minutes Aaron settles into a repetitive guitar pattern, part of which adds a pleasant melodic sense, while Sharon continues her angelic chant and the UFO electronics flit about. LOTS happening here and I love the way Book Of Shadows puts it all together. A strong opening track. Serpent is another Carlton/Sharon/Aaron trio piece, this time with Carlton and Sharon on vocals and Aaron on percussion. Sharon chants while Carlton creates aggressive spitted shushes and whispers and Aaron jams away on rhythmic percussion. A short but interesting piece. Cherrywood features the quartet of Carlton and Sharon plus Brett Humphrey and Steve Marsh on guitar and electronics. It starts off with searing drone guitar, improv guitar noodling plus other effects, some of which have a Frippoid soundscape vibe, Sharon’s frighteningly witchy howls, a pack of chirping birds, and then takes off from there. This is all about haunting mood and atmosphere creation, with lots of interesting guitar sounds and effects, as well as creative interplay between Brett and Steve. And things get incredibly intense at times. It’s a great blend of ambience and sound exploration, but the real power of the piece is the gripping narrative flow that kept me riveted throughout its 24+ minute length.

Vineland features a 6 member lineup, with Carlton, Sharon, a guitar trio of Aaron, Brett and Derek Rogers, and Jonathan Hone on bass. At nearly 19 minutes this is another lengthy stretch-out track. Sharon chants and a droney electronic wave hovers over the proceedings while the guitars do their magic. Once again we get a sense of narrative flow, in this case like some kind of sonic avant-noise theater production, where the musicians function as actors putting on a play. The pace and intensity level ebb and flow, with mood and ambience sometimes dominating, and at others times the guitars seem to be simultaneously dueling, merging and meshing. There’s some great bass parts too where I could feel the low end drone tear right through my body. Goddess Played the Wind Chymes is a less than one minute transitional piece featuring [you guessed it] wind chymes, leading into the 25+ minute To Merry Mary and Little Bitty Bette Easter ’70, which is performed by the quintet of Sharon, Carlton, Aaron on keys and Brett and Steve on guitar and electronics. The piece consists of slowly developing drone guitar, UFO electronics, wailing effects and some pretty scaring vocal effects from Sharon. We later get some contrasting melodic guitar soloing, a spaced out soundscape wave, old time Wurlitzer sounding organ, a deep thudding bass line, and a hodgepodge of other fun sounds, making for one of the wildest mash-mash of elements on the album. Finally, Thinking of Daniel is a short duo piece with Aaron on chord organ and Jason Zenmoth on guitar. Another fine set from Book Of Shadows.

For more information you can visit the Kendra Steiner Editions web site at: http://kendrasteinereditions.wordpress.com

Reviewed by Jerry Kranitz

The Last Flight of The Hope Dempsey album – by the duo of Brendan McCusker and Andy Samford – calling themselves “The Rendlesham Forest Incident”, is a suitably hard rock chugger modeled after the primordial space rock band, Hawkwind. In fact, with the first track, Time Between Times; some might say it’s modeled a little TOO closely on Hawkwind. That is, the track lifts much from their classic Master of the Universe. That said, despite the ’70’s era spacerock references one often hears in the album; after a complete listen, the guys can be forgiven, because they transcend all that with their obvious enthusiasm for the genre AND good, tight musicianship. And after all, isn’t all genre music a retelling of the same original innovation over and over? This is especially true of spacerock; we fans eat that shit up – the phasing, the warbling tone generators, and guitar freakouts, etc. etc. So if, as I say, it’s done as enthusiastically – as it is with this – and with talent to burn, all is forgiven! Fans familiar with Samford and McCusker will recognize them from their previous bands, Telestrion, and Pickman’s Model, respectively.

It starts with the demented “emergency broadcast” announcement that all listeners should “turn up the volume on their receivers ‘as loud as it can go’ “; and blasts off with the aforementioned opener. It’s a tale by an unknown entity detailing his activities through time “monitoring the human race”. One gets the feeling they’ve done their homework, as the actual Rendlesham Forest incident is a famous UFO case. The next track, The Bell is a sort of interlude with a sinewy middle eastern flavor and wordless mantras;
which takes us into Solar Barge (the same tune, really). This track is my personal fave, as it weaves a hypnotic spell, alluding to dead Pharaohs and their journey to the other side in the afterlife. Then it’s on to ‘side two’ – possibly with intent to have this on vinyl at some point – and this starts with the ominous paranoia of Space Jester. Here, electronics burble up with the repeating guitar signature, taking us on a relentless ride, along with the crew of a seemingly doomed ship in unknown difficulty.
Last Flight is another segue with electronics and flight control announcements. It moves on into The Traveller,
with vocal by Samford (actually McCusker does vocal work on all except this track). Its Iommi-like rhythm guitar crunch, and tasty lead work are both by Samford. The last track, Opiumholen der Mars (opium dens of Mars), is the psychedelic slide out, a cosmic chill out of sorts after all the ‘Sturm und Drang’ of earlier.

The drumming by McCusker is excellent throughout, and all the electronics are tastefully held in check so as to serve the old school rock sound. All in all, a worthy addition to the genre. For a “limited time” downloads on bandcamp.com (only source of the recording at this writing) includes several bonus tracks, a couple of edits and two instrumentals. Those most likely will be held off any vinyl release, but I’m hoping they keep download track #6 “Krautrock experiment” as a CD album ending track, as it has a guitar improv by Samford that one can tell came from a deep honest inside, which one rarely hears in today’s world of ‘perfect takes’. It then ends with a wild synth sqwonk, an excellent brain frying outro to the whole – if they so decide to keep it. Three thumbs up – if you’re a mutoid – and two way up for the rest of us!

For more information you can visit The Rendlesham Forest Incident web site at: http://trfi.bandcamp.com

Reviewed by Marc Paskvan

GR is French guitarist (and multi-instrumentalist) Greg Raimo, who I first became of aware of through his guitar/bass/drums trio Gunslingers. Imagine a marriage of power-psych-punk-metal trio and Acid Mothers Temple at their most crazed and you might get something like Gunslingers. Raimo’s guitar is a blistering assault on the senses, and backed by a relentlessly pummeling bass/drums rhythm section he rips and shreds, laying waste to the sonic landscape. And his vocals are as punishing as his guitar, sounding like a cross between Johnny Rotten and Damo Suzuki. Gunslingers released two albums, the No More Invention debut in 2008 and Manifest Zero in 2010, and I even got to see them perform live when they toured the U.S. Greg then ventured out on his own, releasing the GR and Full Blown Expansion LP in 2010, on which he plays all the instruments, and now A Reverse Age, credited simply to “GR”, released last year. (The promo sheet mentions a collaborative EP with Michael Yonkers that I’ve not heard.)

GR isn’t all that terribly far from Gunslingers, the main difference being that Raimo plays all the instruments. The LP opens with the steady rocking Low-Born, surrounded by an atmospheric drone feel. Some of the bass riffs on Vapours Invisible remind me of Pink Floyd’s One Of These Days, but the guitar is manically acid-damaged, and the rhythmic pulse weirdly off-kilter, making for a cool and twisted combination. The title track features nearly 9 minutes of jamming acid-drenched psychedelic punk. Hymn Of Pan is a bit different, being an acoustic song that’s like a combination of traditional Celtic and Wyrd-Folk, though with Raimo’s unique vocals throwing the odd curveball.

The promo sheet references The Magic Band and while the music overall isn’t like them I’d say the guitar on the all too brief Spectre Of The Brocken definitely has an artfully twisted Beefheartian spirit to it, though more psychedelic than Blues based. The guitar is more distinctly Bluesy Beefheart sounding on The Primitive Hoodoo, though it’s far more hyper-kinetic and has a chunky intense rockin’ groove too. Bradtenehend has a pounding bass riff that brings to mind Hawkwind’s Brainstorm and includes one of the most searing acid-fucked guitar freakouts of the set. And Action Vision is like a psychedelic version of MX-80 Sound’s brand of prog-punk.

In summary, this is a powerhouse set that will make you break a sweat. Raimo is a good drummer too, seriously amping up the energy level. Another difference from Gunslingers is that while on those albums I question whether Raimo’s vocals included any real lyrics (and who cares, I like his style), I could actually make out words at times on this album. Note that the LP comes in a numbered edition of 750 and includes a download code.

For more information you can visit the Mexican Summer label web site at: http://www.mexicansummer.com

Reviewed by Jerry Kranitz

Red Planet Orchestra is the UK based duo of Vincent Rees and Peter Smith, who were the same musicians who created the T30 Control albums Blade Of The Sun (2003) and Hollow Earth (2006). In my review of Blade Of The Sun I summarized it as appealing to fans of early 70’s German electronica, ambient/soundscape music, and all things SPACE.

Red Planet Orchestra are much more subdued than T30 Control, and the Aurora Symphony title of their first album describes precisely what it is… a symphony in space. An ambient wave of shimmering electronic string section make up the First Movement. This is characterized by a single theme that changes very little, though I sat as quietly and blissfully enraptured as if I were experiencing it in a concert hall (which is exactly how this music made me feel). The theme continues with the Second Movement, though the pace picks up ever so slightly. The ambient string section becomes a wee bit fuller and is joined by whispery electronic wind instruments, a heavenly choral feel, and a detectable melody begins to gradually evolve. The short Third Movement introduces more distinct voices, and the music takes on an avant-garde hue with the interesting way in which these voices are placed within the symphony. Requiem For Aurora transitions to a darker and more intense mood for the finale.

In summary, this is a beautiful album and Red Planet Orchestra have demonstrated how much can be communicated with so little. The music evolves gradually and subtly while packing an emotional punch throughout. Headphones and undivided attention essential.

For more information visit the Red Planet Orchestra web site at: http://redplanetorchestra.bandcamp.com

Reviewed by Jerry Kranitz

Oceanfire is the solo project of UK multi-instrumentalist Keith Hill. Hill is notably in the bands Signified and Civilian Zen, and has worked with not only various Hawkwind alumni in the past, but has also done work with spacerocker Vert:x. The music of Oceanfire is much closer in style to the electronic rock of his Civilian Zen project than it is to the alt-metal crunch of Signified, but he does inject a little heaviness into things as well. Exit-Rejuvenation is Hill’s follow up to a pair of EP’s, A Set of Songs Parts 1 & 2 that he released in late 2012/early 2013.

On Exit-Rejuvenation, spacerock collides head on with upbeat, experimental/electronic music, for a distinctive and electrifying sound. The trip gets underway with a short, deep space ambient intro amusingly titled Exit (although likely a reference to the title of the album itself). After that, Oceanfire launches into Tribes, an exercise in heavy progressive psytrance. Synth whooshes whirl and swoop through pounding beats and pulsing rhythms as weird effects layer upon weird effects and vague melodies snake their way through the maelstrom, then gradually fade as the piece draws to its more minimalist close. Hill shies away from the more ‘new agey’ aspects often heard in the psytrance genre though, giving it a harder, weirder edge. The next track, Elevation, takes that same basic electronic template but morphs it into a heavy slice of spacerock, framed by something that sounds like Pink Floyd’s Welcome to the Machine elevator, complete with riffing guitars and vocals (although the vocals are fairly minimal, and fairly deep in the mix). Dystopia is next, an ambient journey that sounds like the soundtrack to one of those walkthrough displays you see in your local science center, accentuated by the authoritative voices speaking of technology that echo through it. The rest of the album pretty much takes the listener on a cosmic journey through spacerock realms, while still utilizing that electronica twist that gives Oceanfire its unique sound. We glide through Metaverses, with heavy guitars pounding along to a propulsive 2/2 drum beat as hazy, alien symphonies slip and slide across the rhythmic expanse. We race down the descending electric guitar chording, stunned as it crashes into great howls of space/time in Rejuvenations. 44khz (v.1) lightens things up a bit, being a kind of jauntier take on what Hill did in Metaverses, and then we return for the finale, Reversed Reality, which kind of breaks the mould, ripping out of the electrosphere into deep, spacerock territory, replete with scorching guitar work from Hill. A brief coda ends things off in the form of Land, as astronaut Chris Ferguson brings us in for a smooth landing amidst bleeping electronic effects and space shuttle noises.

When Jerry reviewed the original two Oceanfire EP’s earlier this year, he wrote that he’d like to see Keith do a full-length album that focused more on the spacerock aspects of his sound. It sounds as if Mr. Hill took heed. Exit-Rejuvention is one of the most exhilarating spacerock albums to come out so far in 2013.

Keith Hill has made both this album and his previous EP’s available as free downloads on his Bandcamp page: http://oceanfire.bandcamp.com. What more can you ask for? Awesome spacerock for free!

Reviewed by Jeff Fitzgerald

Hot on the heels of reissuing Journey To The Centre Of The Eye, Cleopatra Records’ Purple Pyramid subdivision has released a 2-CD reissue of Remember the Future, perhaps Nektar’s most popular album. Released in 1973 (’74 in the US), Remember the Future was Nektar’s third album and the first for which they toured the US. No strangers to concepts, Remember the Future was their most sprawling yet, consisting of Parts 1 & 2 of the title track across both sides of the LP. Mind expansion and new awareness were the ultimate themes of Journey To The Centre Of The Eye, and these concepts are more fully formed on Remember the Future. The album tells the story of Bluebird, a visitor to what we presume is Earth, who is shunned by the natives because of his appearance. No surprises there. Bluebird eventually encounters a blind boy and tells his story by way of visions he places in the boy’s mind. Bluebird then gifts the boy with new eyes and wisdom. Pretty trippy, huh? 1973 indeed. I didn’t discover the album until later in the decade but this was precisely the kind of stuff I was ripe for.

What I always loved about Nektar in the 1970s was their ability to take hard rock into the progressive rock realm without the bombast. When they take off into instrumental passages on Remember the Future, there are multiple thematic twists and turns, but the band rock hard too, and while it’s not as overtly space rocking as Journey To The Centre Of The Eye, there are moments when Roye Albrighton’s guitar rips ferociously with an acidic bite that’s like the jaws of a T-Rex. Roye is like a cross between Jimi Hendrix and Dave Gilmour, but wholly and uniquely himself. He’s a hell of a soulful singer too, and still is today as I learned when the band toured the US in late 2011. Some of the best instrumental passages on Remember the Future are when Roye’s guitar and Allan “Taff” Freeman’s organ are front and center together. These were NOT meandering freeform jams. These guys were more than capable musicians and a tightly wound ensemble who could communicate a freeform, otherworldly feel within a carefully structured context. I think all their albums from the 70s hold up today better than many of their contemporaries, and are among the albums from the era I revisit most.

The Purple Pyramid reissue comes in a quadruple fold-out box with liner notes by journalist Dave Thompson. The bonus CD includes three “radio edits” from the album, which are ok extras. But the real bonus is the 8 song “1970 Boston Tapes”, which represent the earliest Nektar recordings. For some reason that I can’t fathom there is no explanation about these recordings in the CD notes. I first encountered the songs on the 2011 It’s About Music label reissue of A Tab In The Ocean. The same songs were the bonus CD on that reissue, and the CD notes included an explanation by Roye, describing how American producer Charlie Dreyer saw the band in Hamburg, Germany and brought them to his studio in Boston to record. Early versions of New Day Dawning, Do You Believe In Magic and Good Day are here, all of which would later end up on the 1973 2-LP mega-hard rocking Sounds Like This set. Candlelight is a song that would have been very much at home on Sounds Like This, with its blazing guitar and organ. Among the other songs that never made it on a Nektar studio album are the hard rocking The Life I’ve Been Leading, the peaceful loves songs Where Did You Go and Our Love Will Last Forever, and a cover of the 60s pop song Sealed With A Kiss. Clearly this pre-record deal Nektar was making the most of the recording opportunity to cover as much musical territory as possible. It’s fascinating to hear these songs recorded in 1970 and then imagine the debut Journey To The Centre Of The Eye that came out the following year.

For more information visit the Purple Pyramid web site at: http://cleorecs.com
Visit the Nektar web site at: http://nektarsmusic.com

Reviewed by Jerry Kranitz