Here’s my second playlist of the year, which is shaping up to be yet another brilliant one musically with some great new releases and long overdue re-issues.
Flemish Weave by Mugstar
“Rarely after listening to an album do I just want to sit in silence for a moment to think about what I have heard, but ‘Magnetic Seasons’ by Mugstar is such a record…it is an album whose four sides each mark out something different…these, I imagine, are the seasons of the title. Separately they all stand up as something that is great and rewarding according to different moods…together they form Mugstar’s most complete work to date, a collection of tracks that marks a evolution of the band’s sound to a new level of complexity, cogency and consistency.”
Read the full review of Mugstar’s Magnetic Seasons album here.
Baphomet by Dreamtime
“‘Baphomet’ opens with what sounds like some intense ritual cleansing as we pass into the Dreamtime realm. The shakers, chanters and outback noise forms a cacophony of sound through which the band pepper with pulses of guitar, bass and percussion. With the cleansing finally over it feels like we can finally enter the ritual space as the music whirls like dervishes before breaking out into the sort of powerful heavy psych that electrifies the soul…seriously, what a fucking track!”
Read the full review of Dreamtime’s Sun album here
‘African Spacecraft (2092 AD: Lift-off, Journey and Landing)’ by The Lay Llamas
“‘African Spacecraft (2092 AD: Lift-off, Journey and Landing) will be familiar to many as it appears on Rocket’s totally brilliant compilation ‘Crystallised’. For those who haven’t the clue really is in the title. This is a beautiful kosmische track but with African beats and rhythms. It is stripped back and full of space as we are taken on an exotic trip into a spiritually cosmic unknown.”
Read the full review of The Lay Llamas re-issued debut album here.
Death Cult Blues by Psychic Lemon
“This is evident in the next ‘Dead Cult Blues’ with it’s baroque bucolic beginning, before it explodes into a prog monster full of plaintiff guitars and Jethro Tull-esque flute. This is really such an accomplished track: complex, ever changing and yet with a strong central theme running through it. There is a real drive to this track with the band playing on the leading edge, yet always in control…magnificent stuff.”
Read the full review of Psychic Lemon’s debut album here.
Skyling Slip by Naam
I’ve only come across Naam recently, but I really like what I’ve heard so far. ‘Skyling Slip’ is taken from the band’s debut album, and can also be found on the equally excellent Kingdom EP.
Harmonic Steppenwolf by Shooting Guns
“‘Harmonic Steppenwolf’ gets right into the groove with that amazing and seemingly endless repetitive riff that grabs you right from the outset and doesn’t let go until it drops you in a wibbling mess at the end. If ‘Harmonic Steppenwolf’ doesn’t seize your attention and lock you in, then you ain’t gonna like the rest.”
Read the full review of the re-issue of Shooting Guns’ ‘Born To Deal In Magic: 1952 – 1976’ here.
Sourkraut by The Band Whose Name Is A Symbol
“What I really like about this recording is that you get a real sense of the gig progressing as you get deep into the set. For me this is something rare with live recordings which, by their very nature, you listen to away from the setting in which they were recorded. Here I could really imagine being there, and am very pleased that this performance was captured and released.”
Read the full review of TBWNIAS’s ‘Live 2010 Dominion Tavern’ here.
Nuda Per Satana by Heroin in Tahiti
Superb track from the Backwards Records compilation consisting of fifteen tracks presented as a stunning tribute to the fabulous Italian film soundtracks of times gone by.
Exorcism by Killing Joke
From the 1994 album, Pandemonium, this is one of my favourite Killing Joke tracks. Full of bile and political angst, it is a live favourite and put to stunning use on the band’s recent UK when it was re-positioned as a commentary on our (lack of) response to the refugee crisis.
Lamagaius by Lamagaia
“This one-track 28 minute album was originally recorded in 2012, and has previously only seen a very limited cassette release the following year, Lamagaia itself was founded in Gothenburg, Sweden in 2010. Three years later from that comes a self-released vinyl edition limited to 300 copies, and for the majority of us, for whom this is our first chance to hear it, I have to say it has been worth the wait.”
Read the full review of Lamagaia’s album here.
You can find my other writing for Backseat Mafia here.
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