Thursday, May 23, 2019

Uffe Lorenzen- Triprapport (Bad Afro Records AFRO0056LP)


Uffe, also known as Lorenzo Woodrose, is back with his 2nd solo album. This album features many of the same guests as the previous record and Uffe recorded all the regular instruments himself.  As the cover and the album title, suggest, this is a bit more psychedelic experience, especially if you understand the lyrics, and smoke a spiff and just lay back and take it all in!  The album features 8 track starting off with the quite spaced out Psykonauten! Some nice spacey synths by the Moody Guru on this one. Alting er Eet has a darker vibe and some angry vocals but musically, this is a lot like many of Uffe’s songs. Tripprapport, starts like a song from the first BW record but features some tablas and sitar to give it that extra Eastern psych vibe.  Lovely vibe. Side A ends with Angnkkoq (Greenlandic??) is an acoustic track with a drone keyboard and more laid back vocal and some interesting lyrics. Lille Fugl is a dreamy acoustic track with some nice flute playing and excellent vocals. Floden sees the return of the sitar and a bit more effects on the vocals to make it more psychedelic and trippy. Aldrig mere Ned has this really interesting tribal drums and vibe and is something totally different from anything Uffe has ever recorded. Cool stuff. The closing track Hallo hallo Frøken, is the only cover song, by the old Danish songwriting team of Vinding & Claëssen.  Another solid record with great songs. The guy is fucking talented…


Skifting- Lyset fra Stammen (Underklang)


Skifting is a quite old Danish band. I saw them in the late 90s and again a few years back at Kildemose Festival. They have not had a new album since 2014. Kasper, from Måneskjold played and help to push the band into a heavier psych are for a while but he does not play on this record. The current line up is: Uffe Ejlerskov - Vocals/ Guitar, Emil Deleuran Poulsen – Drums, Ask Lindquist Ejlerskov – Guitar and Hans Windeløw – Bass.

The record is quite short and features 6 songs.  The title track is first and quite psychedelic with a bit of an effect on the vocal and some quite heavy guitar parts at time. IT starts fast and heavy with one melodic riff. It slowly starts to space out with some cool effected guitar. All the vocals are in Danish. In I Spind is a short rocker, while Vinters Bid, brings things down with a bit of mystic dark vibe to it before it gets heavy and psyched out with a nasty fuzz guitar and riff. At times is the heaviest track on the album but also the most spacey. Great dynamics. Flip the record over for Udkantsfærd.  This is a mid tempo track with a nice melody and some powerful bursts of guitar, a bit like old Bevis Frond.  Drengens Væk starts very melodic and and then gets quite heavy and intense and then back to the melodic parts. Then there is a really long psychout like On Trial or Spids Nøgenhat would do. Cool record. Wow.. I had not expected this.


Fans of other Danish psych bands like Spids Nøgenhat, Dragontears and Måneskjold will dig this.



Sendelica- Secret Knowledge-The ORB- Windmill EP (Strange Fish)


The Welsh band is back with a new EP which features 4 versions of the same song, done as remixes with the ORB.  The first version is very much like a dark side of the Moon track, very laid back and spacey with male and female voices, and saxophone.  The remixes are basically the same song but some of have more effected or slightly different vocals. It is released on 12” vinyl and with a bonus CD in some issues.  Below is the story behind the record taken from the bands bandcamp site:

“On July , Fruits de Mer release a very special record called 'Windmill', marking a rare organic collision between three disparate outfits who turned unimaginable tragedy into a beautiful eulogy after an astonishing musical journey.
On the night of Sunday June 3, 2018, writer Kris Needs lost his soul mate Helen Donlon after an illness she preferred not to know about. A respected literary agent and author, Helen and Kris had got together in 2013 and lived happily in a medieval cottage in Thaxted until events took their terrible turn. Kris was already on a mission to bring Sendelica into the mainstream music press and struck up a friendship with Pete Bingham that was already pointing to a cover version of Tim Buckley's 'Driftin''.
On hearing the awful news about Helen, Pete went and quietly transformed the music into a poignant eulogy with this tragic new dimension to deal with, bringing in Sendelica bassist Glenda Pescado and sax titan Lee Relfe to enhance its gorgeous swirl. When Wonder, who had sung with Kris in Secret Knowledge 25 years earlier, heard the piece she called it 'Windmill', after the beautiful place where Helen had been laid to rest. "The windmill looks so big and strong and beautiful," she explains. "In a silent way it watches over her, like you did. And it never stops, always protecting." Wonder flew to the UK all the way from her home in Cleveland, Ohio to sing the song at the magical Mwnci Studios, near Cardigan, giving a heart-wrenching performance while facing Helen's photo (wearing her favourite purple velvet scarf) that reduced the room to tears. Helen's beloved dog Jack, now her earthly representative, was also there to make the picture compete.
It didn't stop there either. Kris's old friend Alex Paterson had already said he wanted to do a remix. Working with Paul Conboy, his co-pilot in Orb spinoff Chocolate Hills, Alex produced two time-stopping remixes, using a recording of Helen's speech on her beloved Ibiza at the 2017 Breaking Convention conference; her last major appearance in public entrancing the crowd at the world's foremost psychedelic drugs conference.
With Kris's photo of the Thaxted windmill on the cover, a rare heavenly synchronicity seemed to have been at work to produce this record. It's an unimaginably beautiful tribute to a very beautiful person, lost too soon but alive forever in the music. She would have loved it. “




Liquid Orbit- Game of Promises (Nasoni Records NASONI207CD)


Liquid Orbit is from Bremen Germany and this is their 2nd full length record. This album features 6 tracks with plenty of great solos from both the organ and guitar. The opening track, See me Falling is a solid retro rocker with a nice female vocal (she comes across a bit more relaxed on this record, which I like better) and great solos. Shared Pain slows things down and starts with a more falsetto vocal at the start as the track slowly builds up and comes back down. A lovely song and keyboard solo that sounds a bit like a violin.  The mid section takes me back to early Pink Floyd. Some really nice dynamics in this track.  Please let her Go, starts with a nice slow funky groove.  The track slows down and gets quite psychedelic 4-6mins into it. So cool how they seamlessly cruise back into the funky groove where it all started. Great song.  Game of Promises is next and this one rocks pretty hard at times but also has a lot of changes and dynamics. Fly with Me is the most sort of mainstream like song but a beautiful happy song with the occasional spacey synth in the background for a nice effect. This goes a bit back to the Anders days from Mandragora light show Society! Yerlorene Karawane starts with a vocal chant, drone synths and then the bass and drums kick in and then the main guitar line as this cool psychedelic rock takes form. I love the middle eastern vibe on this one.  Excellent song and a great ending for this record.


Monday, May 6, 2019

DR Space and Martin Weaver- Green Bean Café, Tábua, Portugal May 4th 2019


One year ago (May 5th), Martin and I played together at this café for about 30 or so people for the release party for my 2nd solo album. Fast forward a year and Martin has played a couple of gigs with my band, Øresund Space Collective in Portugal and we have made a record together. Today was the official release date and party to celebrate the making of the 3rd Alien Planet Trip record.
 
We had one rehearsal three days before the gig and it went pretty well.  We jammed for about 75 mins to prepare some ideas for the release party today. 

We showed up at 14 and sent up all our gear and did a bit of a soundcheck and it all went very smooth. At 15, or a bit later, we played the entire record for our wives and about 4 other people.  A 16, sadly, hardly anyone had showed up. Last year we had about 20 people from our local group of friends that came but not a single one this time around. I was pretty disappointed that none of them came to support me and Martin.  Pretty hard to get an audience in this part of the world, and there is so little live music and then none can make it a priority.  Such is life. Anyway, we met some nice new people who showed up (from seeing the description somewhere else) but I think there was only about 10 people total.  
Anyway, we started with Martin on the highly modified custom acoustic guitar (he can loop, it has effects, etc…) and some more laid back spacey stuff and he played the riff from Where Aliens go to Die.  Then he switched to electric and had programmed some tracks with drums and also some with bass and we played another hour or so.  At some point, he also played his 2 string bass (tuned to E and A). That was tribal.  It was pretty cool rocking at times, spacey and I had a good sound and time. It was my biggest live set up every, I think (ARP Odyssey, Octave CAT, Nord Lead2, custom modular).  We had one jam, that just did not work for either of us but the rest of the set was great, we both felt. We had a 20min break and talked with the audience and then played one more 17min piece (See the video below). I think we played about 90mins total.  It was all video taped and it was really fun. They invited us back to play again in the fall for an evening gig.  Thanks to Sharon and all the staff at the Green Bean and of course the people who turned out for some out of the ordinary music. A super cool place and fantastic people.