Electric Moon - "Live in Immerhin"
(Sulatron Records 2011, st cdr 011)
Electric Moon - "Live in Immerhin"
(Sulatron Records 2011, st cdr 011)
From Aural Innovations #42 (May 2011)
Sula is busy releasing his new band’s music on these limited edition CD-rs, which is great for his fans as these are generally quite good recordings and performances as the band is a highly improvised unit and playing well. This double CD set features 4 pieces, two of which are very long (57 and 47 mins each) from a concert from 12/30/10 in Würzburg, Germany. The artwork is really cool on this CD. So what about the music? Sleepwalker starts CD 1 and is 57mins and starts with mostly a heavy repetitive bass in E with Sula making sounds. The real guitar does not come in for many minutes and the drums start around 5 mins. A very heavy intense psyched out wah guitar kicks in at 6½ mins. While Sula is freaking out I get a bit bored with the monotonous playing of the bassist, but she does use a few effects now and then. This is a very long journey and you have to be very patient and perhaps stoned. Around 17 mins the jam is almost dying out. Sula does not seem sure in what direction to take the jam at all but starts to come in with a more intense guitar again after some delay riffs at 20 mins. Anyway, this jam is very long and searching with several slow sections where not a lot happens. Not the band’s most inspired jam. CD2 starts with Baba Lali’s Monotronic OM and it starts with a repeated bass sound that slowly gets louder and louder and then the band starts to go somewhere. It takes around 8mins before things get going but sadly the sound has changed a bit from the first CD and now the bass and drums really dominate and the guitar that Sula plays is too low in the mix when the drums really kick in. What happened to the sound? At 13-14 mins Sula is playing some delay guitar stuff and Lulu some bass effects but it sounds like Sula is in the other room compared to the other instruments. Anyway, I did not make it through describing this jam due to the lack of guitar. Manic Farewell ends the show (which it sounds like there were not a lot of people left by this time) and lasts 25mins. 9 mins has gone by and not a lot has happened yet. It is like the band is waiting for Sula to do something and everyone is quite hesitant. Still Sula is too far in the background. 23 minutes in now and Sula has not really played much very interesting that I could hear and has been noodling away in the background and nothing very manic really happened. If you are a fan, check it out, if you are new to the band, don’t buy this one.
For more info, visit: http://www.sulatron.com and http://www.myspace.com/electricmoons
Reviewed by Scott Heller