Surya Kris Peters- There´s light in the Distance (Kozmik Artrifactz)

Kris is back with another fantastic album. It was released digitally in Jan 2025 but the vinyl is out at the end of April. It starts off with the moody track, Karmic Repeat,  driven by an intense bass synth and drum track. The track really gets going when the great lead guitar kicks in and off he goes.. What a great heavy riff on this one..  Crushing the Walls of Silence starts with a modular synth loop and then some guitar is played over the top before the drums kick in. This one goes thru several shorter movements in its evolution. Great riff. Life is just a Dream is a slower piece with some beautiful guitar playing.. The Darkness they Prefer is a haunting piece of music.  Embrace Your Enemy changes the mood a lot and is mostly synth based but then some killer guitar kicks in. Lovely feel on this one.  If he did not play so beautifully, I would say, leave the guitar out but damn… Mode Azul has a nice bass line that everything builds off of on this journey.  What a great hypnotic riff that comes in here and there inbetween the solo parts.  A Night In The Desert (and a long way from home) starts with a bit of a storm and then the main song fades up with another haunting moody guitar riff and the main groove and drums really starts to pick up as does the intensity. What a great melody and feel on this track. Red Satin & Pearls starts with synths and drums with a nice use of repeated synths (sound a bit like horns) and melodic guitar lines as it builds in energy and then dies out. Let's Wait Out The Storm closes this masterpiece..  Lovely way to end the album…  There is also a digital bonus track called Tough Love.  Some of this stuff could easily been the template for later day SBE material so if you are a fan of SBE, for sure check this awesome album out. What a great talent this man has…. 

https://electricmagic.bandcamp.com/album/theres-light-in-the-distance 

https://kozmik-shop.com/ 

More Experience- Horizon of Events (Old Hippie)

This very cool hippie inspired group from Poland are back with another album of eastern inspired 60 psych influences.  The CD starts with Deep Cosmic Kisses. Sitar, tabla, positive lyrics and a nice vibe to get you started.. It ends with a slow spacey drone. Some really nice synth kick as well as organ as the journey progresses. Later a more intense guitar (backwards) to start and it slowly builds, and swirls in layers before we finally come to an end. Track 2 starts with some acoustic guitar, pad synth, some effected voices in the background a dreamy vibe. It  Wait a Minute is like a light piano jazz track with a laid back vocal but the twist of some sitar playing and odd sounds here and there. Later it builds up with a crazy lead synth and wicked wah guitar!  After this section there is a very trippy vocal section and some tablas start to come in and it becomes a bit more percussive.  A sort of vocal mantra! Later there are throat singing, strange field recordings to end it. Track 4 starts with some voices, mixed very low that slowly build up and the music begins. The band gets quite spaced out on this one after a bit of jazzy stuff, they disappear into another world for a while with vocoder vocals, and other stuff.. It is a very interesting and diverse album with long tracks that evolve a lot of the avg 10mins or so...  Cool album folks..

http://moreexperience.bandcamp.com 

http://facebook.com/more.experience.music 

I Spy- Toca da Raposa, Travanchina, PT March 29th, 2025

I Spy is a local rock band and lead by the charismatic, Andy Shades. He is a UK singer, songwriter who writes all the songs and leads this group. The core of Larry on Keys, Andy- Acoustic guitar, Sax, all vocals, and Gino on Bass has been set for some years and I usually see them at least 2x a year.  They are a fun band that mix high energy music with more laid back songs. A lot of political and ecological and other themes are sung about in his songs.  The band mix a bit of jamming as well especially when Andy grabs the sax.  Tonight they had a new lead guitar player (maybe the best they have had) and a drummer, that has played with Andy in the past. Usually it has been Rob.. 

Anyway, a lot of new songs that I had not heard were played this night. On this day they released the first studio material that has been recorded over the last 3 years in Andy´s studio.  See link below. 

I think all the 4 songs on the EP were played. It was a big crowd of about 80 people at Toca (it was opening of the new camping season) but only about 25 inside the bar where the band playing and really focused on the band. They were really good this night. I did not see the full set though.   A very good local band. Always good live.. Too political for some people but Andy was in a good mood and having fun and no sound problems to get him angry!!  Fun.. saw lots of friends..

https://andyshades.bandcamp.com/album/we-are-the-monsters-ep