Strangers Family Band - 2009 - Strangers Family Band

Quality: 4 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 4.25 out of 5

Strangers Family Band pretty much hit the nail on the head in term of psychedelic re-creationists. Other than a slight modern sheen in the recording quality, this is a pretty authentic sounding mix of the bad trip tone of the Doors mixed with some of the freaky garage rock punch of folks like the Chocolate Watchband and the Electric Prunes. I suppose they hit the Doors sound pretty hard, but when you get right down to it, not many bands really emulate the Doors, so I'll give the Strangers Family Band a pass (I really dig the Doors anyway). There are a few excursions into the twee-er sound of British psych as well, but that doesn't excite me quite as much.

Following an enjoyable ominous intro, "Girl I've Been Taken" serves up a slice of Nuggets-ready psych rock right from the outset with its groovy beat and chiming lead guitar. It's a fun example of 60's style 12-bar blues mangling. "Wooden Hands" goes straight for the Doors' sound, almost coming across like an unreleased track from "Morrison Hotel." For me, though, "Strange Transmission" and "Beware the Autumn People" are the main events. Both tracks use the Doors vibe once again as a basis, with "Strange Transmission" building into a fine freak-out jam, ad "Autumn Peopl" borrowing the "Five to One" stomp. "No One Sees Her" and "Tangerine" both have a 'Brian Jonestown Massacre getting really happy and going twee' sound. I'm not as enamored to those ditties, but they work well for what they are.

Strangers Family Band aren't particularly about innovations, but they are extremely accurate in appropriating the sounds of the 65-67 L.A. scene. I've always dug that meaty, produced sound (far more than the San Francisco bands of that era), so while the music here is a little derivative, it goes straight for my musical sweet spot. As a side note, this is technically an EP, but plenty of mid 60's L.A. bands put out 27 minute (or less) LPs, so this plays pretty well as a complete album.

http://strangersfamilyband.bandcamp.com/

Gas - 2000 - Pop

Quality: 4.75 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 5 out of 5

The title of Gas' final album is probably about 90% ironic. I imagine that Wolfgang Voigt drove Gas in general with a very specific aesthetic in mind, and "Pop" does little to break that. We still get oceanic synths and orchestral samples with ghostly house drums blaring away somewhere in the distant background. Still, each of Gas' albums somehow succeed in creating an identity of their own within this seemingly limited framework. "Pop" is no exception to this rule.

Like the other Gas albums, "Pop" sports no actual track titles and is best experienced as a whole. It's the little details that distinguish it. The album opens with the first few tracks featuring almost easy-listening style orchestral samples. Perhaps this is meant to reference the title. Of course, these samples are all phased out and weird sounding, but still, the sentiment seems to come across. The fourth track is based on a surprisingly clear (for Gas) piano synth riff whose syncopated bounce also suggests that the "Pop" title is not intended to be completely ironic. It's after this track that the listened is thrown headfirst into swirling, beatless sound for twenty minutes (this is where your mind is supposed to drift somewhere just east of the Vega system). The final track throws all the pieces together for a definitive example of the Gas sound.

The music of Gas is very much something that can only be experienced. While Voigt's project inhabited a small area of music space, he really managed to artfully milk it to its full potential. While "Pop" doesn't quite inhabit the almost sacred ground that I feel "Zauberberg" did, it's a wonderful ambient album that is certainly near the top of its class.

Buy Me:
Gas - 2000 - Pop

Gas - 1999 - Oktember

Quality: 4.25 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 5 out of 5

This is an EP from ambient master Wolfgang Voigt. As far as I can tell it's practically impossible to find (my own search was quite exhaustive). The sound of the music is very much in the basic Gas mold: heartbeat percussion, endlessly repetitive musical motifs plowing through your braing as you're lifted up on a bed of ghostly samples and synths. Yet, it's amazing how much milage and textural variation Voigt gets out of this template, and there is a dark facet to the Gas ethos that is on display on "Oktember."

The first track here is actually from the contemporous album "Konigsforst." It was on the CD, but not the vinyl, although it is certainly a fine track that has a space lounge twist on the Gas sound. The main event, however, is the second track. This 15 minute epic has a very dark, almost-but-not-quite grinding sound that makes me imagine a tour of a post-apocalyptic industrial wasteland. I don't think it's the best place to begin with Gas, but if you're already familiar with some of the proper albums, it's absolutely necessary listening for a band that only has four album. It's sort of a missing puzzle piece.

Gas - 1998 - Zauberberg

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

Back when Tower Records was still thriving in the US, they published Pulse Magazine, wherein folks would have their ten desert island discs posted every month. This album is a shoo-in for my personal ten desert island discs. Gas' music is formally described as 'minimalist techno,' but to me these ethereal loops and minimal, submerged-sounding percussion exist in their own netherworld which defies any easy classification. More than almost any other music (William Balinski excepted), Gas propels my mind somewhere else.

The tracks on this disc are all untitled, but it's probably best to consider the entire album as a single piece named "Zauberberg." We start upon an infinite ocean of sound, which ebbs and flows for several minutes. As the piece progresses, we start to move upon the surface, with beautiful, strange, and sometimes even disturbing images passing through our mind's eye. The tracks build upon a strengthening heartbeat. Maybe it's the sound of the abandoned lunar disko. Eventually we are returned to rest back in our infinite ocean. "Zauberberg" turns out to be a mystical musical pyramid. As listeners, we are allowed to explore the interior in all of its transcendent glory.

This is music that cannot be hummed while walking down the street, or chopped up into representative parts, but it is amazingly visceral. I imagine that if you're trawling around the Psychedelic Garage, you may be in the market for a musical trip. I don't think you'll find one much better than "Zauberberg."

Buy Me:
Gas - 1998 - Zauberberg

Malachi - 1966 - Holy Music

Quality: 3 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 4 out of 5

Here's an early example of an album attempting to run the ambient music sweepstakes. Malachi is a droning, acoustic affair that does manage to break some ground that groups like Arica would
later cultivate, but they unfortunately do it without much of a pulse. Still, there are some interesting musical moments and interestingly oddball instrumentation. To me this is basically a bunch of burnt-out, yet sometimes amusing beatniks trying to approximate the sounds heard from the temple stairs. If nothing else, it's a record that functions well as background music.

All of the tracks are entitled "Wednesday," followed by an ordinal numeral. The sound of the tracks tend to belay that uniform system of titling. We get a great deal of texture amongst the tracks, but not much of a sense of flow or discernible melodies. The music here is kind of static. The "Fourth" and "Fifth" compositions (confusingly tracks three and four on the album) almost dissolve into silence, with very minimal instrumentation defining them.

I keep trying to get myself to like this album, but I just feel like there's not quite enough there. There is the foundation for an awesome album present here, but to me it seems annoyingly incomplete. It's like the group laid out their building blocks, but neglected to actually do anything with them. Give it a listen and you may find some inspiration in the grooves that simply alludes me.

Buy Me:
Malachi - 1966 - Holy Music