Salamander - Birds of Appetite (2003)

Salamander is a band I know next to nothing about (you can find a more complete bio at Camera Obscura); based out of Minneapolis, this troupe of psychedelic marauders has apparently been turning out their own smoldering brand of space rock since the early 90's, although the label bio linked to above would seem to suggest the band's currently status as one of semi-permanent hiatus. While the basic instrumentation here is somewhat standard psych-rock fare (guitar/bass/drums), the band prides itself on both its non-traditional use of said rock instrumentation and its use of non-traditional rock instrumentation, including "hammered dulcimer, shenai (an oboe-like instrument), and something they call the 'space whistle'." This particular album, 2003's Birds of Appetite, was my first introduction to these masters of ambiance (though I have no idea how or where I discovered it), and it remains my favorite of their works.

While the Om-like album opener 'Vessel is Vacant' suggests strict Summer of Love worship with its tablas and half-chanted vocals, it's eventual descent into gentle drone foreshadows the album's subsequent minimalist turn. On Birds, Salamander is most successful at creating long, smoldering songs that utilize crescendo much as a post-rock band might without falling into the conventions of that most amorphous of genres; for all of it's bombastic song lengths (it does feature four songs over the eight-minute mark), this album has a distinct late-night psych feel matched by a earthy, folkish tone. With little or no vocals on most of the sparsely layered tracks, the music is left here to speak for itself, evoking a mystical, haze-ridden atmosphere with a drummer and lead guitar player who make no attempt to mask the influence of Indian classical music on their playing styles. The band's name - which comes to us from a semi-mystical animal thought in ancient times to be born of fire - is a perfect fit for the mood achieved here, at once brooding, lysergic and somehow vaguely alchemical.

Those of you with a Paypal account can still get the 'Birds of Appetite' CD here, or download it from us.

Gong - Pre-Modernist Wireless: Peel Sessions 1971-74

First off, thanks to postcooksey for shame-kicking my lazy ass into restarting this once-stagnant blog. I have a slew of to-be-posted albums on my desktop, and it is time for me to get to work on them. Here's goes.

This album, which is actually not an album at all, compiles the appearances of trans-continental prog champions Gong on the legendary John Peel show on BBC Radio. Gong, a band of tripped-out fuckheads that is almost as famous for its bizarre mythology as for the idiosyncratic music it produced, show themselves here as a capable live act, with the songs losing none of their charm whatsoever without the playground of a studio (a common trait of late-60's sike, where production techniques often masked boring, by-the-book pop numbers as bold and experimental). In fact, what this set accomplishes is to demonstrate that for all the conceptual wonder-pinnings of their long-form concept albums, Gong wrote fucking great self-contained songs that hold up even without spoken-word interludes about 'pot-head pixies' and the like (not that there's anything wrong with that!). From acid-folk ('Magick Brother') to irreverent ska ('Clarence in Wonderland') and of course the cosmic anthem "You Can't Kill Me," Gong provides one of those rare listening experiences that feel like one has been temporarily transported into the mind of a lunatic, only to discover that it's actually a lot more fun than the so-called 'real world' (a dull waste of time, this author can assure you).

For those of you unfamiliar with Gong's studio output, you can find their essential first five albums over at Black Acid; as a hint, the band generally followed the era's transition from psychedelic to progressive rock, with their early works resembling an especially spaced-out take on late-60s psych, exploding into full-blown prog with the infamous "Radio Gnome Trilogy."

It seems to be out of print but you can find "Pre-Modernist Wireless" as a $45 import on Amazon, or opt for sheer musical piracy here.

Electric Wizard - Come My Fanatics... (1996)

The album that took doom metal out of the caverns and into the stratosphere, Electric Wizard's Come My Fanatics is an absolute shit-storm, rumbling through one's bones with enough force in a single riff to induce multiple unplanned trips to the bathroom. If you thought you'd heard an overdriven bass guitar before coming across this album, think again; EW draw from subsonic influences including supernovae, continental drift, and the tortured cries of the imprisoned god Loki to produce a toxic rumble so heavy it will move your subwoofer several feet across the floor. Fusing impossibly fat, smoked-out blues with a Satanic take on the kosmiche style pioneered by bands such as Amon Düül II and Can, Electric Wizard occupy a metalliverse all their own, often copied but never equaled.

For more E-Wiz, including 2000's excellent Dopethrone, check out Anthem of the Space's collection here

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Manuel Göttsching - Inventions for Electric Guitar (1974)

While technically credited to his Ash Ra Tempel / Ashra outfit, Inventions for Electric Guitar is in fact a Manuel Göttsching solo exercise, following the legendary space-rocker through a series of complex tape delays to produce three ambient prog epics somewhat reminiscent of Robert Fripp's 'Frippertronics' work with (and without) Brian Eno. While there are plenty of tape-delay masterworks out there to sort trhough, IFEG stakes out its own claim to worthiness on Göttsching's incredible speed and precision, along with a fine sense for mood and - dare I say it - negative space. What I love about this piece is its listening dynamism: while it can certainly be appreciated as an ambient piece, those who pay close attention are rewarded with countless intricacies that are all to more impressive when one considers that all sounds here were produced with a single electric guitar.

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