27 April 2012

Between - 1974 - Dharana

Quality: 4.5 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 4.5 out of 5

     Between continues their decent down the rabbit hole here, cranking up their world fusion voltage on this LP.  I certainly wouldn't accuse these Germans of copying Mike Oldfield, but the dense walls of arpaggiated sound does echo some lessons learned from that artists "Tubular Bells."  Of course, here they relieve the tension by juxtaposing that sort of thing with tricks like throat singing.  The rugged krautrock vibes of their last album are played down here for a journey to the center of your soul.  You need to be up for a meditative ayahuasca space ride when you throw this one on the turntable (or more likely hit 'play' on your mp3 player).

     Again, the star of the show is probably the title track, running more than 20 minute and giving you the closest experience that you'll get to mind dancing with the Peruvian Amazonian shaman short of hiring a boat in that direction yourself.  "Joy... Sadness... Love" recalls a touch of Terry Riley-like oscillating organ set amongst a chant and flute led drone.  "Listen to the Light" presents us with a dew-dripped mind voyage into the primordial garden of delights, while the closing "The Voice of Light" is a stew of ambient sound and chanting that encases your being into warm carbonite.

     This music existed a few steps outside of typical existence when it was released, and it still sounds like it's being broadcast from a hyperspace cosmic bubble.  It's a very groovy thing to massage your mind and presents us with a intriguing alternate history of the boundless musical scene pulsing out of Deutschland in the early 70's. But what do I know?  I'm just sitting here slamming chu-hi and rambling about tones that you've just got to hear for yourself.

11 comments:

12vjoe said...

Looks really cool. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

I'm having the best saturday morning listening to this. A good breakfast, some coffee, an egg. Sitting in my sofe, writing a little bit on my thesis and listening to this. Thanks man.

Dee said...

way cool, man

Anonymous said...

i am shocked to see, that all the mediafire links are dead. yesterday everything still worked. fuck mediafire for ruining all the good blogs.

Dr. Schluss said...

Hmmm... yeah, that's a hell of a thing. I'm on vacation for the week and away from my regular computer, so we'll start getting a few links up after that.

Dr. Schluss said...

It seems that everything is nuked. My original music certainly shouldn't rank as any sort of violation.

Anonymous said...

http://www.mediafire.com/?1l6lvgvg6cr68jj

Anonymous said...

Lovely stuff. Thanks man.

elpaisa said...

It's So Cool!!

VieuxSac said...

4'38 of first track, and I already want to thank you. Good stuff, doc !

Anonymous said...

thanks for turning me on to this beautiful lp. parts of it remind me of Oregon's work with Vasant Rai. very much appreciated. -john