The Heavy Company - The Heavy (Please Tune In . . .)

It's Sunday morning. Third cup of coffee is already drained but the desired caffeine effect is evading my brain. Hiding from my cortex as if I was a movie slasher and it was my prey.  Details are hazy, but I remember last night something about some Gin.  And some Bourbon.  There may me more to the story, but until pictures appear on Facebook or an embarrassing video on YouTube breaks 1,000,000 hits, I'll deny it.

Just setting the stage here.  Giving you a peek into my brain as I plop down at my Ripple desk.  There's submissions to go through, reviews to write, and the ever present threat of needing to catch up with the Record Label accounting.  I need some music to get my brain moving. Something heavy but not damaging.  Something with enough energy to clear the cobwebs and kick that caffeine into effect, but not enough to make my eardrums shudder.  I want it slightly dark, definitely psychedelic.  I want some bleeding guitar effects to swirl through the clouds in my mind but enough of an edge to cut through that haze like a ray of sunlight blitzing down from the heavens.  I want it to light up my brain.

I want The Heavy Company.

Metaphysical psychedelia is the name of the game here and The Heavy Company do it just about as well as anybody out there.  First and foremost is the understated, yet always effective guitar work of Ian Gerber.  Psychedelic rock of this irk has a tough fence to straddle.  Somehow, the guitarist has to find a way to evoke the hallucinogenic dreamscapes that he sees in his mind, layering his tone with effects and variety, yet never lose himself up his own ass.  Too much masturbation and the music become boring.  Not enough variety and it feels empty.  Ian finds that place.  Each note seems perfectly chosen; not necessarily planned--because that would lose it's spontaneity--but felt perfectly in time with the music and the flow.

Behind Ian, Jeff Kaleth on drums and Ryan Strawsma on bass propel the compositions forward, filling in the spaces between the strobe-light guitars and smoky haze.  Again, no over playing here.  No bass lines trying to compete for attention.  It all just flows into one seamless swirling flow.  One kaleidoscopic river, currents of sound and colors, smells and visions.  A mushroom trip of music.  Perfect.

I suck again at my empty coffee mug.  Nothing but air.  Yet, I'm feeling better.  Somewhere within the six songs of this free EP, I've started to revive.   "Please Tune In . . ." opened the doors for me slowly, an introductory opium den of gentle drums and cloud-puffs of guitar.  Nothing too harsh, just an invitation for what's to follow.  Then somewhere during "The Heavy," my brain starts to awake.  Slowly, nothing jolting.  Ian's guitar reminds me of passages of Colour Haze or My Sleeping Karma.  Spartan and clear, tracing out a delicate harmony.  Vocals are a bit buried in the mix, but by the time they come in, something new is hinted at.  Maybe it's because the boys come from Lafayette, Indiana, but there's a definite earthiness to the song.  A lone cowboy riding the prairie feel.  Western-tinged, rootsy, yet still defiantly psychedelic.  That's not a mix I'd heard too often and lays claim for new territory.  Like a prospector staking out a claim, The Heavy Company have declared their piece of land.  Midwest psychedelia.

"Black Tuesday," adds a touch of classic 60's-70's rock to the mix.  I hear a touch of Bad Company in the main riff, while the bass percolates behind, before the song wanders into pure jam territory.  Bring that harmonica in, let the riff dirty up a bit, pick up the pace.  Yep, I'm feeling stronger now.  Maybe I'll actually be able to face the day.   "Wormweed," brings in even more muscle to the tone, effectively toughening up the sound, getting my heart beating just a bit, pumping that long-awaited caffeine to my limbic system.  It's all been a perfect progression from the haze to the rock, as if the whole EP tells one singular story.   "Monsignor Charlie Bird," brings the sky down, the requisite coolness, before the final cut "Caged Bird," kicks my mind back into regular time.  A chugging guitar riff, still earthy and classic.  Good stuff.

The Heavy Company find that rare balance for many psychedelic bands, effect-laden and THC-adled, yet still focused and rocking.  I dig the rootsy-vibe under the fuzz, it keeps the album rooted in terra firma even as they float off and explore.  The riffs are driving enough to keep the song moving, the jamming is spontaneous and extended enough to fuel the imagination synapses.  Dig into this album for your own hangover, or make it the focus of your future hangover to be.  Heck, get the hangover out of the way completely, just dig into this album.  If you're a fan of the Elektrohasch label brand of darkened spectrum psychedelia, this album will hit your sweet spot.

Download it all free here

--Racer

On the Ripple Desk – Featuring My Sleeping Karma, Boris Smile, Eastern Conference Champions and Floater

So much good music, so little time.  Let’s jump right into it then, shall we?

My Sleeping Karma – Tri

And there it was . . . Mt. Everest standing right before me.

It was 2006 that Mrs Racer and I took off, flew around the world and spent 3 weeks trekking across Tibet to Mt. Everest.  Standing at basecamp, at 20,000 feet, the glory of Everest’s summit before me, the majesty of Rombuk Monastery behind me . . .  it was a moment of pure magic.

I didn’t bring any music with me on that trip, but if I had, it would’ve been this new, mesmerizing album by Germany’s My Sleeping Karma.  A while back, I wrote about my love affair with their second album, and I’m happy to say, that Tri is every bit as trance-inducing, hypnotic, powerful, and dynamic as Satya was.  My Sleeping Karma don’t create soundscapes, they create sound universes.  Alternate dimensions of Krautrock beats, undulating, snaking guitars, swirling, miasmas of melody.  Each of these 9 instrumental tracks is capable of transporting me somewhere in place and time.  Some alternate reality, some imaginative dimension.  No one else has ever sounded like My Sleeping Karma, no else ever could.  This is psychedelic, space rock at it’s finest.

“Brahma” is playing right now, and in my mind’s eye I see Rombuk monastery, the monk’s walking the grounds, the mountain before me.  I feel the emptiness of being on the ceiling of the earth, the spiritual abandon of being this much closer to God.  My Sleeping Karma can take me there.  Just wait until you see where they can take you.

Buy here: Tri
Buy mp3: TRI

Boris Smile – Rockets EP

One of a long list of discs that’s been sitting way too long on my desk waiting for review.    Boris Smile, a collective of young musicians fronted by singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Wesley Chung, bring a definite emo angle and modern twist to indy rock.  Chung’s disaffected vocals are strangely magnetic, drawing me into this release with his earnest passion and heart-felt searching for truth.

Using the Rocket as a theme, Boris Smile traverses a spectrum of moods from the introspective to the robust., perhaps never more moving than “Apollo” which seems to imagine an Apollo astronaut saying goodbye to his wife and children before launching off on a mission.  Delicate and touching, filled out with gentle strings and angelic harmony vocals, this song could just as easily translate to our current day soldiers leaving home for the unknowns of war.  Like a modern retelling of “Space Odessey” Apollo strikes the heart of real emotion.

But Rockets isn’t a one-song pony.  “Aurora” captivates with its loosely strung acoustic guitar and dreamy melody, while “Are We Alone,” sets the tone with the airiness of its spartan arrangement.  This is a sincere album of lo-fi, acoustic emo.  If you’re a fan of Pedro the Lion or Broken Social Scene, you should look deeply into Boris’s smile.

Buy here (mp3): Rockets EP
Buy vinyl: Smile [Vinyl]

Eastern Conference Champions – Santa Fe EP

I have to admit, it took me a little while to get into this twisted dab of dense folk drone, but once I got it, really got, I couldn’t get the damn thing outta my head.

Eastern Conference Champions are a trio who’ve already been kicking walls and knocking down doors, contributing songs to The Twilight Saga and appearing on “Last Call with Carson Daily.”  But don’t let those accomplishments put you off.  What we got here is hardly the commercial drabble you might associate with a film like Twilight.  ECC play a deceptively folky, alt-country drone rock that sounds unlike any I’ve ever heard.  Where a song like “Common Sense,” nearly flattens with it’s effects-heavy guitar riffing, Teutonic beat, and fuzzed bass, “Bloody Bells,” is just as deceptive with it’s twangy vocal and tinkering percussion.  “Sideways Walking,” finds a new beauty in its spartan melody while “On Off,” crashes against the shore with another layer of muted guitar. 

I guess the most reasonable place to look for inspiration here is Neil Young, because only he could effectively change up moods so quickly and effectively, rocking or folking out, while always sounding so distinctly like himself.  ECC do that as well, and they do it damn well.

Buy here: Santa Fe

Floater – Wake

Talk about a band with a sound all their own.  Floater take the muted heaviness of grunge, toss that into their witches brew pot, add in the musicianship of prog, some flourishes of psychedelic rock, spice it up with some pretty random time shifts, tribal percussion, and a singer who’s voice is achingly familiar (like a distant Michael Been of The Call).  Stir that whole concoction up, bring that massive wooden spoon up to your lips, and the potion that results is surprisingly tasty.  For those of you who like your rock a little unpredictable yet still familiar, progressive in scope but accessible in execution, heavy yet melodic, you just might find your own musical elixir here.

“Concrete” after it’s ambient, neo-Floyd intro bursts out as anthemic and full of bravado as much of the early Call material.  Even the chorus “Now I can only say/that I’m alive/I’m alive/I’m alive” sounds like something that would’ve burst off the lips of the recently departed Mr. Been. And trust me, that’s a good thing. The Call were always one of my favorite bands.  So take their passion and drive, meld that with some seriously prog-minded chops, toss in enough powerchords to light up a small nation and we’ve got a winner here.

“Cannonball,” follows suit, as does the rest of the album.  This is big, big music played with intent and sincerity.    Call it alt-prog, post-alt-grunge.  Whatever.  Call it good, and you’d be correct.

Buy here: Wake


--Racer