Psychedelic rock

Paying Homage to Hendrix via HazeHound’s Macrodose

/ N. P. Ryan

Info on HazeHound is thin on the ground. Other than a bandcamp account no online presence can be found; but don’t let that stop Macrodose being an album of monumental proportions.

Beyond short opener ‘Hell is real’—a track feeling very much lifted from a 60’s sci-fi movie—title track ‘Macrodose’ shifts the album into its overall groove: an utterly mind blowing amalgamation of Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Clutch and Radio Moscow. Continue reading →

Chilling with the Rampaging Bahboon’s Thunder Ape

/ N. P. Ryan

Bahboon’s Thunder Ape is a release of outstanding proportions; marking the Japanese band’s ten year anniversary there’s an instant relationship to be found with the album due to the deep rooted cohesion in its flow; while simultaneously every turn along the way expands the river’s banks, rises from the waters with religious purpose to push the spire on the Church of stoner ever higher and wider. Continue reading →

SLOTH

/ N. P. Ryan

Into ‘Lucifer’s Doorway’ suggests Hell has frozen over in awe of the complexities that follow:

‘Evil Hand’ has a doom sound rooted in the 70s that equally sounds fresh as a daisy and sometimes surprisingly light as a feather to boot, elevated not only by the vocals sitting eerily perfect at the top of the music, but also the intricate solos that hedonistically wind through the epic and expansive melodies to create a compelling and contemplative swirl. Continue reading →

Etran de L’Aïr: The Desert Blues Brothers

/ N. P. Ryan

To mark the commencement of a 2023 US Summer tour, Etran de L’Aïr—which translates to the Stars of the Aïr—have released two live tracks recorded in Seattle earlier in the year; available for digital download, they’re also NYP (name your price, which includes free if you need it to be).

Seattle is a long way—seven-thousand miles thereabouts—from Etran de L’Aïr’s hometown of Agadez, Niger; a city located in the Sahara desert and the country’s fifth largest.

Etran de L’Aïr’s sound is generally described as desert blues. It’s a genre description in much part originating from the epithet desert rock already being taken in the West by a bunch of stoners who liked recording while out of their trees while out in the deserts of the States—some groovy tunes coming from their endeavours, it should be said—while the sound coming from Africa has a vibe and undercurrent distinctive to musicians in the region. Continue reading →

White Hills: Mitosis; an interpretation

/ N. P. Ryan

Mitosis is an album that swings from completely submerging the listener within its own narrative realms to the rhythms synching the mind with any task at hand like an internal soundtrack of one’s own making so seamless it almost isn’t there because it feels like it always is.

The ability of Mitosis to detach the listener from itself while simultaneously never leaving their side is all the more incredible when knowing the meaning of the album’s name and song titles (something I didn’t on first listen).

To quote from the album’s bandcamp page:

‘MITOSIS (/mai’toUsis/) is a part of a cell cycle in white replicated chromosomes are separated into two nuclei. Cell division by mitosis gives rise to genetically identical cells in which the total number of chromosomes are maintained.’

Continue reading →