Trigon- Kozmik Kraut Jam (Self Released)

Trigon have been around on the Germany scene for more than 30 years now. It has been a while since they released a new album but they are back. They play jammed out instrumental rock music.  Brothers Rainer and Stefan on guitar and bass and drummer Rudi Metzler recorded this album live in 2023.  Side A is the long 23min Achtung Traumspoiler track which has the signature Trigon sound and progresses thru slower or mid tempo parts to more rocking stuff and Rainer changes his guitar tone with various pedals here and there but often preferring a quite clean tone.  Nice piece of music. 

Side B features 3 shorter tracks and starts with a short drum solo intro on Guten Morgen Aurora. Rainer then noodles away over the bass line as the track starts to develop. Some really nice wah guitar work on this track that really builds up to a rocking and intense end. Hinterm is a short 3 min piece that really rocks and Rainer rips it up on the guitar. Setzt das Sonnensegel has some jamming parts with a wild wammy guitar section. It gets very spacey at the end. Nice album.. Good comeback guys….

https://trigon.bandcamp.com/music

https://www.trigon.in/ 

Astrodome- Seascapes (Copper Feast Records)

Astrodome, are a Porto based band, that have been pretty quiet the last years so this album snuck up on a lot of people. A happy surprise…   The band took a different approach to making this album though. The others were recorded live with some overdubs while this album was a real studio creation with a lot of time and effort put into different parts and sections and more sound manipulations.  The album features 8 tracks from 1mins to 10mins in length.  The short opener sort of sets the stage for the entire album with its dreamy sounds of the sea and simple guitar line before heading into Doldrums End.  This an uptempo track that slowly builds on very intermittent guitar lines and floating synths. Maelström is next and keeps the tempo pretty fast as this song is also very spaced out despite the tempo. Wow…. dreamy, trippy…. then there is the guitar solo, very melodic. Espic Hel Horizon is also very dreamy, post rock, spacey…… Nice build up. Erebus, seems to follow a lot of the same type of musical themes we have heard already on the record, continue this echoey dreamscape. Riptide starts with a high energy rocking start but then drifts back into space again. Lots of long delays give it a very spacey feel with the synths. Cool….

Aqueora is a short mainly synth piece but a bit of guitar at the end.. Sirens, is again very relaxed and spacey.  It is a cool album but seems like a lot of variations on the same dreamy themes over and over again, I could have used a bit more variety in the album. I think people will find it a bit too laid back from what they expected after the Astrodome II. Nice music… Great spaced out sound. 

http://astrodome.bandcamp.com 

Octopus Syng- Insanity is the song we Sing (Self Released

Jaire is back with another set of 11 songs of weird Syd Barrett meets Roky Erikson madness. Boy is this a fun album.  Some songs like his previous albums, nice melodic songs but then there are far out ones like My Weekend, Where is all my Stuff which I really liked a lot.  Factory has that 1967-68 Pink Floyd vibe for sure.  Chamber of Primal Desires has a great bass line and some interesting lyrics and a good drive, Jaire plays a bit more guitar on this one and sings less.  Tripped bit towards the end and then back into the song. Hedvika is getting Married is one of the more rocking (but a bit off kilter) tracks with a psych garagy feel and long guitar section before returning to the vocals. Far out.. Do you have a light??, ends this album, with a stripped down song of just Jaire on guitar and vocals…  Fun album…. 

https://octopussyng.bandcamp.com/music

Infrared Hologram- Exploding Flowers (Astral Magic Music)

This is a new project by Rainer Neeff (The Pancakes etc.) with The Honey Mountain Band. It features the spoken words of Shane Beck (The Last American Poet) and Santtu Laakso (Astral Magic) on other instruments.  

The track starts very spacey and Shane kicks in 20 seconds into the track as his story unfolds. It is a strange track with layers of spaced out synths, guitars, but not real groove and track starts until 5mins in and then it starts to take a new form as the drums, bass and organ kick in for about 5mins and then they space out totally again with just guitar and synths. Shane comes in here and there throughout the track. It is hard to describe but just listen and go with the flow as it follows a similar pattern across the 39 mins. Drums are not used that much but in a few sections until the ending. Overall, a  very nice and interesting piece of music for the mind…. Float away…

At the moment this is a digital only release and out on 31/10/2024..  Check it out if you have the patience… 

http://astralmagic.bandcamp.com 

Black Spy- Songs of Dissonance (Art Safari AS0011)

This is the 2nd album by this interesting Finnish band from Helsinki. The trio play a strange mix of noisy, dissonant rock music with a bit of psych influence at times..   Hollow Ground starts things off with a nasty noisy guitar tone and riff and stays this way except in the vocal sections which are quite melodic!! Rat Race is a more heavy rocker a bit of psych at times. New Dark Age starts off spacey but gets loud and nasty as it gets going. The song Nothing kicks up the tempo a notch. I really like this one. Ocean of Fears is more melodic. Fall, is my fave track and long 16mins freakout of sorts….. Strange, weird and wonderful band… A lot of people will not quite get it though!!

https://postyouthrock.bandcamp.com/

Ozric Tentacles-Stengade, København, DK Sept 27th, 2024

I arrived at the venue about 16 and the nightliner was there and all the gear was in the venue and doors wide open. There was Ed. He saw me and said Hello Scott and has been a long time and we shock hands.  He then went back to his guitar and I said hello to Silas, Pat the drummer, light guy Jasper (Fruit Salad Lights), sound guy and Cory, the new bass player, Saski… It was lovely.  I had a chat with Ed about his guitar effects, if they brought an extra Supernovation II with them on tour incase one went down but they only bring an extra power supply and since they bought the extra power supply they have had no problems!! I watched the sound check. They mostly use it to just adjust the in ear monitoring, playing a bit of Eternal Wheel, Sploosh, Throbbe and that was it it. No complete song.  Sound was great but the drums are too loud. This sound guy they have had for more than 10 years brings a great clarity to the sound but the drums are like 50% of all the sound.. If he brought them down 20%, he could the best soundman I have heard with them but no way..

Concert was sold out. I stayed until about 1815 and went and had some dinner while they had caterered vegan food, which Cory loved but a lot of the band/crew said it was one of the worst meals of the tour. Pity… 

Anyway, Doors opened at 20 and the place filled up and we all hung out in the bar. I saw and spoke to lots of old friends (Mikael Krog and his girlfriend, Magnus and Sonja, Jesper, Peter, Yann, Finn, and Christina, and many others..)   Silas and Saski started a bit after 9 and played a great set. Cory played bass on nearly all their songs and it was great. It is very Ozric like in some ways but with their own more world music twist. She as a beautiful voice and plays lovely guitar and flute as well. It would be more powerful if they had a real drummer.  The programmed drums are good (too loud) and they have great songs. Silas (who looks a lot like a young Steve Hillage), is a great guitar player and keyboard player. They said their album is nearly finished and will for sure be out next year. Tonight was their last gig on this tour. 

Set List: Vespers, Spheres, Allisone, Universal, Moonsong, Dreamer, Milky, Shaow, Shakti

Ozrics were on pretty fast after they finished. I missed 15 seconds of the intro on the recording. The started with Eternal Wheel and then into Erpland. Wow.. Great start.. It was a fantastic show of old and 3 songs from the new album. Lotus unfolding, Green Incantation and Burundi Space Port, which I do not think they played before this tour. Ayervedic was one of my faves and not sure I had ever seen them play it before.  We got the Throbbe, Sunscape, Mooncalf, and ended the show with Sploosh… It was almost 100 min show. 

Set list: Eternal Wheel, Erpland, The Domes of G´Bal, Lotus Unfolding, Sunscape, Burundi Space Port, Ayurvedic, The Throbbe, New song, Jelly Lips, Sploosh 

Sadly, we got no projections tonight and the lights were ok but I wanted the projections… It is a bit hard in this club with the low ceiling but ØSC, we always manage..  Anyway, amazing night. I hung around a bit after and talked with the band, and Magnus and Sonja..  Awesome night… 

Progressive Circus 2024- Babel, Malmö, Sweden Sept 28th, 2024

I was still tired from the night before but I took the train over and met Jocke, Tobias, Lars, Pär, and 5 other of their friends and we had some amazing burgers at this place before this 4 band event was to start.  We arrived at the venue and were surprised that the doors were not open yet. It was 16. I talked with old friends I did not expect to see like Anders, Ann Karin, Erik, Yann and others while we waited.  Agusa was supposed to start at 1610..  Doors opened about 1615 and Agusa started 1630. I had not seen them in years and they were better than ever. I think they played 4 songs. Tim (Ex Ozrics, ØSC), he joined his old band on percussion, congas, bongos, etc. IT was great.. I think they played 45mins.

Green Asphalt, another local band, they did a tribute to Gentle Giant, with half their set originals and half Gentle Giant songs. They opened with Out of my Head, played Power and the Glory and some other great songs. They had two female singers, one who played violin. Their dad was the other main vocalist and played keyboards. It was very cool but their songs were not nearly as good or interesting as the Gentle Giant songs. Fun…

Bossebandet, a tribute to Bo Hansson was next.  The youngest guy on the stage fot this did was probably 65!!! Kenny Håkensson (Kebenkaise) played guitar but all these guys were well known Swedish musicians. It started off with really spacey instrumental vibe. Cool stuff. They played more shorter songs and a few rockers as well. I liked the beginning part the best but it was all good…

Ozric Tentacles were on at 21 exactly and played the same set as the night before in Copenhagen but tonight we got the awesome Fruit Salad Lights by Jasper.  It enhances the show so much.  I enjoyed it just as much as the night before but stood on the 2nd tier up so I could enjoy the visuals and the band. They were having fun but the energy was different from Denmark where the audience was right in their face and really into it. This was an older crowd, more proggy….  Still they got a great response and it was awesome.. After Burundi Space Port, Tim, who used to play drums with the band before the new guy Pat, joined on percussion, congas, etc… What a cool addition and they all seem to enjoy being with and playing with Tim again. Sadly, the sound man, mixed him so low you could barely ever here him. Only in the most quiet parts, so he did a lot of lovely air drumming. It was great. 

After an amazing version of the Throbbe they played a new spacey track. Ed said something funny about Shrimp in the name…  The last two songs were very electronic and Sploosh very cool..  I could see them every night.  This show was filmed by the band and 2 cameras from the venue. My friend Anders also filmed 4-5 songs as well. I know they multitrack recorded as well. 

We hung out until they nearly kicked us out and I said by to the band. Great to see so many old friends from Sweden (Anders, Ann Karin, Erik, the guys in Agusa, etc.). It was a great two days. 

The next day of the Prog Circus was Soen, Soniq Circus, Paatos and Moon Safari. 

Set list: Eternal Wheel, Erpland, The Domes of G´Bal, Lotus Unfolding, Sunscape, Burundi Space Port, Ayurvedic, The Throbbe, New song, Jelly Lips, Sploosh