John McBain - "The In-Flight Feature"
(Duna-Records )
John McBain - "The In-Flight Feature"
(Duna-Records )
From Aural Innovations #33 (March 2006)
This is pretty cool... ex-Monster Magnet guitarist teams up with most of the old guys from Monster Magnet (no Dave but Tim and Joe) to make some far out Krautrock ("In Santiago Airspace" track) and strange music. Some of the stuff is a lot like the Wellwater Conspiracy stuff as well. All instrumental and with a really cool psychedelic headphone mix but not heavy psych at all, but much more laid back and spacey. The CD has 10 tracks in 47 minutes. The opening track, "The Underwater Pornographer's Assistant", is all bass, drums, guitars and samples, creating a very special spaced out sound as some of it is looped. I love the lead guitar on this number. Twisted in someway. "Vimanas over Nob Hill" is a short 39 second guitar drone that leads into the long "In Santiago Airspace" track, which features Jon Kleinman, Tim Cronin (guitar), and Gerry Amandes on guitar and vocals. This is very much a repetitive groove track like CAN and Circle. Coolest track on the CD for sure. Next up are 2 short psychedelic tracks. "HubbleBubble" again features Jon and Gerry and begins with some strange twisted words and female vocals, creating a track that Syd Barrett would enjoy! "Farewell to Iron Age" is a longish spacey track with some cool cool guitar (even backwards). For "VS666", John brings out the acoustic guitar. This one reminds me of Pink Floyd a lot. "Metronomicon" is the final long journey on the CD, at nearly 9 minutes in length. John begins with some layers of delay guitar over which he layers some more sounds, made with the guitar and this goes over and over until the track develops in a beautiful and spacey way. "Fog Machine" ends the CD with 2 minutes of noises and manipulated sound, before some guitar is lightly strummed and echoed away... away... away...
For more information you can visit the Duna Records web site at: http://www.dunarecords.com.
Reviewed by Scott Heller