Mantric Muse and Storskogen- Operaen, Christiania, DK Feb 9th, 2013

          Mantric Muse, the Copenhagen instrumental progressive psychedelic rock band are back playing gigs once again in support of their new CD, which came out in December 2012. I used to hang out and see the guys play all the time but they stopped playing live in 2006 and are not back. It was a cold, snowy night but some people decided to leave the house. The doors did not open until 22 and MM started playing about 22:45. Stefan and Thomas from Gas Giant came and they had never seen Mantric Muse back in the day. Tom, as well as some of the regulars that come and see the band out in Dragens Hule were here as well. I guess about 35-40 people were in the audience. The band opened with an older song in a new arrangement called DMU. Next was Sinbad Søfareren and this sounded great. The sound was good upfront to the stage but further back in the room, it was a bit boomy and the drums had a special sound. We stood up front. Cinope was next and I filmed this one. See below. Nanoid was next but they had to stop about one minute into the song as the computer synth sequences and the band were slightly off. Magnus stopped everyone and they reset and off they went. They play a great version of Azur, Sfunx, the ambient track Gnoxience and ending the set with a long jam on Deep Sea Cheops. They also played a new song that they have not recorded yet called Armh. It was a cool set and some people were dancing and into it while most sat in the corner not sure what to make of it since they were here to see the Swedish Reggae band that was next!

Set List: DMU, Sinbad Søfareren, Cinope, Nanoid, Azur, Gnoxience, SFunx, Armh, Deep Sea Cheops

          Next up was Storskogen (Large Forest), a band described as Swedish Forest reggae. I was not sure exactly what that was until the band started playing and then I understood. They are a 7 piece band with bass, drums, guitar, keyboards, percussion, sitar and a lady who played violin and flutes. I really liked the opening track (see video below) and now I could understand why it was forest-folk reggae. The violin really made it cool and the sitar was a nice compliment. The sitar player only played on every 3^rd song or so and they mixed instrumental songs with ones with Swedish vocals. The guitar player and female violin player did the singing. I actually thought they were quite good and unique and I don’t think I have seen a band quite like this. It has been some years since I saw a reggae band and I enjoyed it. Cool evening..

http://www.mantricmuse.com