MANTRIC MUSE - Dragon's Cave, København 11/30/01
From Aural Innovations #18 (January 2002)
This was the first Mantric Muse gig since June 2000. I had not seen the band since Feb 2000 but I had heard the demos and recent recordings the band had made and they sounded fantastic. The band has evolved into an incredible three piece unit with Magnus handling all the guitars and the Prophecy and Oscar. I showed up early and hung out with the guys as they waited for the people to arrive. It was going to be mostly friends but a lot of people showed up and the place ended up totally packed (50 people). The band started around 10:30 and opened with a 25 minute mostly electronic number called Sfunx. The sound is difficult in this little cafe as there is no real PA and no monitors, etc. After some advice from me and others the sound improved as they increased the bass and guitar volumes so the drums did not seem overly loud in the small room. Next up was Deep Sea Cheops. A very cool song with great looping synths and guitar. An old song that has been quite reworked called Pholkreg was next. Wobagong Wookie followed and is a favorite of mine. Great song. All the songs are instrumental and the band really groove. Sort of like a more laid back Ozric Tentacles is the best description I can give but the band are in no way just a lame copy. Narnia was next. This used to be the bands name wheh I first saw them back in 1998 but they changed the name as there were already quite a few bands with this name. The band ended the first set with Azur, which has a great guitar riff and one of the heaviest numbers that the band plays. After 40 minutes break, the band came back out and started to just jam. They ended up playing a lot of their very old songs and doing more free form jamming. They ended up playing for another 2 hours and 10 minutes and soon it was after 3 in the morning. Wow. What an incredible evening of music for 20 kroner ($3). Look out for the bands first full length CD out on Burnt Hippie Recordings later this year. Check the band out on the web at: http://www.mantricmuse.tavshed.dk.
1st set: Sfunx, Deep Sea Cheops, Pholkreg, Wobbegong Wookie, Narnia, Cinope, Azur 2nd set: DJ Morph Jam, Hologram Hindi, Lost In Karachi Jam, Mystic Union (DMU), Associations, Zanzibar (with Today Jam), Sinbad Søfareren, Eleventure, Sfunx.
Reviewed by Scott Heller