progressive rock / post rock / progressive rock

One of the reasons why I started this whole Merchants Of Air thing was to push underrated albums and artists who rarely seem to be featured elsewhere. The world of music is so vast and so magnificent that many interesting acts get left behind and that's a shame. So I started seeking them and writing about them. Soon they started finding us and in only a few years time there was an overwhelming amount of albums coming in, many of which are still in my day-to-day playlist. 'All The Useless Spinning' by Polish duo Miist is one of those underrated and underappreciated albums, one which takes me back to the roots of Merchants Of Air.

Miist is Michał Koczor on guitars & synths and Robert 'Falon' Kułakowski on drums. They seem to share a mutual love for jamming, which almost continuously shines through on these tunes. They also share an admiration for psychedelic and progressive rock, plus they have at least three albums by post rock bands in their collection. In their rehearsing studio, they mix all of these elements and influences together into a neat collection of immersive and energetic compositions and luckily for us, those tunes are now available on CD.

The album opens with the long 'Philosophy of Pessimism'. This anthem immediately sets the tone: atmospheric, cinematic, immersive and quite often overwhelming. Although coined as heavy psychedelic rock, there is so much more to experience. Throughout the entire album I hear influences from bands like Monkey 3, My Sleeping Karma, Casa Sui but also Pink Floyd and even Tangerine Dream here and there. Yeah, instrumental, psychedelic and progressive but most of all immersive and captivating.

I'm not going into a song by song description on this one. The songs are quite similar in nature, driving on a mild tempo, delivering amazing guitar licks and solos, plus a high jam feel. The album feels like a concept record, with highly narrative melodies and plenty of variation to keep it interesting. So yes, this is an underrated album, one which deserves a lot more attention. Miist is a talented duo which ever progrocker needs to check out immediately.


​Serge

psychedelic / alternative rock

The Netherlands are well-known for their diverse and eclectic music scenes. From the dullest shlagers to the raunchiest grindcore, everything is being made there. That obviously includes rock music, and in this case, I'd like to call it long-distance rock.
Long-distance rock music, the kind which makes you want to step in a old Chevrolet and drive for hundreds of kilometres while cranking up the volume, that's what you get with this album by Dutch rockers No Man's Valley. Or at least, that's what I experienced, especially with the gritty, grungy and bluesy opener 'Outside The Dream'. 


The music on this album cannot be easily described, although I can throw in heaps of styles and references. While the opener was a stoner blues cracker, 'Eyeball' blends alternative rock with cabaresque experimentality. Throughout the entire thing I hear influences from bands like Pearl Jam, Pink Floyd and Deep Purple, plus, since the final track is titled 'Murder Ballad', I expect some Nick Cave references in there too. Oddly enough, that gloomy slow rock feel mostly shines through in the beautiful 'From Nowhere'.

So there is alternative rock, there is grunge, there is psychedelic desert blues but there is also a brilliant atmosphere that brings me back to underground venues and the sheer joy of discovering live music. If No Man's Valley manages to deliver the same quality on stage as on this album, I see great things coming for them. Although I doubt if any of these songs with ever make it to the charts, their solid composing skills will certainly turn some heads into their direction.

On stage, the gritty rocker 'Lies' will probably be a fan favorite. For starters, it's one of the few uptempo tunes here. It has an infectious chorus and massively enjoyable organ melodies. Many butts will be shaking, that's pretty much a guarantee. In all, I think you just can't go wrong with No Man's Valley if you're into original and authentic rock music. So yeah, I think this is a pretty damn good album, one that will quite often appear in my day-to-day playlist from now on. 


​Serge

psychedelic rock / garage rock / stoner rock

experimental / jazz / drone / ambient

Ormo Records

doom / stoner rock

drone / ambient / experimental / noise

Attenuation Circuit

electronic / techno

bandcamp

drone / doom / shoegaze

ambient

equanimity. Those twenty minutes of Sublime Silence contain healing and reposeful sounds which are welcome in this over-stressed society we live in. If you are into this kind of meditative sound creations, there is a lot to discover from this artist on his Bandcamp page.

ambient / dark ambient

Dark and melancholic ​moods change into spacey ambient tonalities, sometimes kittenish, other times filled with doom. The world of Sílení is covered with alienated sounds and moods. This is an excellent piece of work. Dark ambient lovers, if you listen to Sílení’s Long Forgotten Bowers, you will get hooked. We sure did!

dark ambient

Mother Destruction above standards in this genre. The album is a varied piece of work caught in a deep haunting, emotional prison. Sacrifice and dedication are translated in penetrating sounds and choruses. The nightmare never seems over in this pungent journey of hellish fires. 
Another quote from Empty Chalice: ‘… the lost ones are retracing the path of the oldest fairy tale: coming home’. Well, we did come home and we still feel home between the moods and vibes of this wonderful dark ambient recording.

dark ambient

Winter Light

over a ten year period. Nimh is active since 2001 and has already more than twenty physical albums released. Sound chasers will be pleased and excited with the multi-layering of soundscapes, field recordings, voices and the experimental manipulations of samples this album contains. The sustained drones create darkened and emotive moods. Beyond The Crying Era is an outstanding soundtrack for a SF/horror movie that does not exist. It’s time to dig deeper in Nimh’s music history. Speaking about a discharge!

dark ambient

the world of Anantakara. We’ve noticed psychedelic influences appearing in the mysterious structures of  the tracks. The eight adventurous ambient pieces on Momentum Lapses are filled with a variety of lovely compositions and moods. Rumors told us that this album will be released on CD in the future. Anantakara stands for “ to make infinite” in Sanskrit. In some way this album does.

Serge (1-6)
​Patsker (7-11)

electronic / ambient / psychill 

Mindspring

Eschew is an album released on March 8, by American independent record label Mindspring Music. An electronic music project of musician Kri Samadhi – better known by the alias A Pale Void –, on this marvelous album, the artist is truly inspired to showcase the expansive potential of a very personal style of space music, loaded with a modest degree of tempestuous dissonances, renewed by an imponderable and majestic conjuncture of dense harmonies, that display the sonorous virtues of latent echoes, eager to disperse throughout an endless and lugubrious universe a sensational platform of genuine artistic restlessness, that seems consciously desperate to revitalize the obscure vicinities of a vast array of creative possibilities within the genre. 

While the style of A Pale Void is drastically diluted in the peripheries of mostly calmer and serene melodies, the sound is predominantly vague, opaque and dilated at the epicenter of its sensibilities. With beautiful and peaceful tonalities that ostracize the gentleness of quiet and discreet thoughts, the sonorous style prevalent on Eschew is elegant, though ordinary and predictable to a certain degree. Nevertheless, there is a hidden grandiosity present in the harmonies, that effectively highlights the somber nuances of its most relevant qualities. 

With seven tracks – 1) My Love For You; 2) The 11th Hour; 3) Dragontree Rituals; 4) Eschew; 5) Immense Subtlety; 6) Palace of Dreams; 7) Rivers; –, this album presents some beautiful harmonies that ostensibly filters the grandiosity of its own genuine artistic ambitions, something that becomes evident in the title track, a wonderfully magnificent space ambient sonata, whose cohesive sonorous unity navigates over the ocean of a sagaciously effusive and abnormal creative axiom, that rejuvenates into the graceful sensibility of its virtuous horizon of splendor the latent ambivalence of an ambiguous and isolated nefarious rhythm, that desperately wants to conceive in the interior sentimental placidity of life a dark galaxy full of emptiness and solitude.  

An intriguing album that has bizarre, but profoundly authentic sonorous virtues – relevant enough to aggregate an innovative set of elements into the genre –, Eschew is a sensible, sinister, technical and methodic album, whose fearless, fugacious and underground experimentalism definitely highlights its proverbial qualities, that are lucid and meticulous enough to create a dense and pristine musical layout, whose ambivalent textures conceives an entirely new and desolated universe, that effectively instigates a projective and inspirational talent, wise enough to completely innovate the space ambient music genre, with a whole new set of amazingly pungent and sinister elements. 


Wagner

electronic / ambient / progressive / psychill

The Invisible Sun is an album released in March 29, by Serbian electronic music artist Branko Stojiljkovic, best known by the nom de plume Argus. An exceedingly imponderable, vast and effusive album, whose consistent and omnipotent atmosphere extends over diluted realms of gracefully harmonious and abstract infinities, the music of Argus filters and rejuvenates psychedelic elements in a delightful and wonderfully methodic prism of colorful algorithms of splendorous patterns, displaying an organic synergy of dynamic sonorous proclivities, that overemphasizes the exceptional fluidity of a fantastically elongated creative tissue.  

With nine tracks – 1) Questions; 2) Holy Smoke; 3) The Invisible Sun; 4) The Forest Sings; 5) You Are The Power; 6) Clouds; 7) Aurora; 8) On a Lonely Path; 9) Sadness; – the album is a veracious and genuine psychedelic journey throughout a marvelous spectacle of sounds, whose gracious sensitivity revolves around a vivacious ocean of serene and peaceful melodies, exposed in an expansive scale of revolving tenacity, that compresses the constrained essence of its own reasonable, introspective and gregarious grandiosity.   

With a lucid creativity that departs from the diluted tenderness of an infinite dispersive soul, the sound that irradiates from this album is a profoundly instinctive humane cosmogony, whose arbitrary exasperations are projected from the fertile grounds of its own originally distant musical sensibilities, although the amazingly beautiful compositions that are appreciated the entire time anticipates the fragmentary vitality of a gracefully pungent ordeal that unveils a formidable parallax of creativity, unable to stop at the pragmatic level of a splendorous and highly innovative versatile excellence.  

A formidably lancinating, cohesive and spectacularly fascinating psychedelic electronic music album that doesn’t fear being radically innovative and vastly different, The Invisible Sun is a colorful mosaic of perceptive sounds, whose immensely overwhelming and gracefully diligent style circulates within the vicinities of a cosmic dissidence, in a furiously creative turbulence, virtuous enough to reinvent a type of music that can understand the summary of its own objectives. A fantastic album whose original qualities basically creates a new sonorous diagram, The Invisible Sun is an audacious, pioneer and intuitive work of art, that defies genre boundaries and creates its own musical parameters within a diluted, but constructive dynamic of sound. 


Wagner

space rock / psychedelic rock / krautrock

There is always something magical about cooperations. Somehow, many of these albums have brought out more of each artist or band than you would have expected, often with surprising outcomes. So when I found this gem in my mailbox, I was immediately interested. 

3rd Ear Experience is a respected psychedelic jam band and Dr. Space (Oresund Space Collective) has been lifting my spirits for quite a few years now. Although living in different continents, both acts have managed to create an energetic and cohesive album, a quite varied one, too.


Everything begins with a solid rocker. 'Screams Of Eagle Bone' quickly comes up with the uptempo drums, the groovy bass and the immersive saxophone. Butts will shake and heads will bang, be it mildly. Like 'Anam Cara' and 'Dreams Of A Caterpillar', this opener was created out of jam sessions by 3rd Ear Experience. Later, Dr. Space jammed along with the basic recordings before Rabbi added a few overdubs and mixed the whole thing. 'Anam Cara' continues the kraut/space rock feel, a bit slower but certainly as immersive as its predecessor.

With 'Dreams Of A Caterpillar', the project delves into the world of psychedelic ambient, with space sounds and sequencers. This long track is perfect for a trip, and even to dance to. With this, the cooperation jams along with legends like Ozric Tentacles. 'Coin In The Desert' is cut out of the same sheet (*). It carries the same immersive bass lines, soundscapes and rhythms and just makes you happy. It's like a mild LSD trip without the LSD. In the end, 'Sue's Dream World' closes off in sheer ambient style, beautiful and mesmerizing. 

In all, this is a fantastic album. Psychedelic music you can dance to, shake your head to or just enjoy while lying on the floor with your eyes closed and your mind open. So, my psychedelic friends, put this in your pipe and smoke it. You know you want to.


Serge

(*) free translation of a Dutch expression.

ambient / classical

Sound In Silence

experimental / noise

alternative rock / psychedelic rock

death metal

post rock

ambient / classical

doom / black metal

black metal

hardcore

metal / death metal / metalcore

facebook

psychedelic / chillout / slowtrance

Elemental Garden is the most recent album by an electronic sound artist known by the alias of Kaminanda, released on February 15. The artist’s seventh album, Elemental Garden – seventy-three minutes long – has nine tracks: 1) Waters Within; 2) Exotic Flowers; 3) Jungle Claws; 4) The Crucible; 5) Saffron Mountains; 6) Philosopher's Stone; 7) Dreamscape; 8) Blood and Tears; 9) Elven Forest; with pretty harmonious, dense and exotic grooves, Elemental Garden certainly is one of the most beautiful, versatile and creative albums that I’ve ever heard in the genre. With exceedingly synchronic and dynamic drumbeats, and ostensibly surreal melodic tonalities aligned with discreetly ascendant rhythmic devices, the style of Kaminanda is progressively dilapidated throughout the sensible resonances that abundantly floats in the periphery of the music, navigating tangentially in never-ending hyperbolic sonorous possibilities, that revolves around its own psychedelically vibrant pragmatism. 

With an intuitive discretion that overhears its own perfectly cadenced sequences, Elemental Garden displays a gracious set of profoundly cohesive and delightful harmonies, whose melodic impulses are driven by an insanely secure, though audacious creative splendor. With a majestic level of authenticity, that understands the grace of its own meritorious vivaciousness, the album – with all of its horizontal and objective grandeur – seems envisioned as a very singular and opportunistic reassessment of the genre, showcasing throughout its ordeal a vast degree of monumental cohesiveness and impressive elegance.

While the album eventually exposes itself to some degree of ordinary homogeneity – which is something difficult to avoid entirely in this genre of music – it’s easy to identify and recognize in the artist a truly graceful and severe degree of originality, that in its most consistent passages, reveals an entirely different perception of artistry. With a music that understands the gravity of its own singularity, the sound circulates within a very dynamic universe of genuine sophistication, where rhythm and melody revolves around the color of its own latent, dispersive and imperative sensibilities, never to fully return to its previous state of sonorous dilated density.

With a very diluted style that seems to emerge from the colors of a fading rainbow frozen in the horizon, Elemental Garden reveals itself a majestic and gracefully pungent, exceedingly vivid album, all the way through. With a fresh degree of originality that comprehends the availability and the precision of the melodies – moreover how to work them correctly to be permanently functional in the genre –, Elemental Garden is an album full of love and essence, that displays a mordacious degree of technical proficiency, that is developed side by side with the natural creative dispositions of the artist, being the final result an exceptional album of majestic splendor. I think I can positively write without any fear of being wrong that Elemental Garden, the most recent album by Kaminanda, is a marvelously great and fantastic state of the art work, with enough qualities to begin a new chapter in the history of psychedelic electronic music. 


​Wagner

psychedelic rock / space rock

With a bandname inspired by an enigmatic gemstone and a geographic history of shamanic activities, this band from Altai, Russia, Sonora Sunrise delivers a mystic and enjoyable album. Altai in Siberia is a sacred land of ancient mountains which are said to be still keeping the secrets of ancient shamanic rites.
Sonora Sunrise's music is inspired by these landscapes and atmospheres. 'The Route Through The Canyon' is a partially improvised album, recorded over the course of a few days with extra recordings and vocals done afterwards. This gives the whole thing an organic jam-feel and a nice sense of unpredictability.

Musically, the band borrows elements from ambient, stoner rock, krautrock and psychedelic rock. Opener 'Ancient Stones (Sundown)' is a short ambient improv with vocals that remind me of some Massive Attack songs. Later on, in songs like 'Welcome To The Sandland' and 'Unexpected Trip' the influences nudge more towards space and psychedelic rock icons like Hawkwind, Pink Floyd, Gong or Ash Ra Tempel. Armed with guitars, drums and rare, vintage synthesizers from the Soviet era, these musicians paint an amazing musical picture of their mysterious surroundings, and I absolutely love that.

In today's psychedelic rock scene, Sonora Sunrise definitely deserves a place in between albums by Caudal, Hypnodrone Ensemble, Vibravoid and Øresund Space Collective, all well oiled jam-machines, capable of taking their listeners on an elaborate trip through time and space. I'm not going into a song by song description but 'Poison' is a brilliant piece of work. If I have to pick a favorite, it will probably be this one. This certainly is a must-have for fans of seemingly neverending psychedelic rock, no doubt about that.

The sounds of those vintage synths give the band that extra edge that might be needed to stand out in a massive pool of psych rock bands. Everything else is as classic and convincing as the first space/krautrock albums that have been made. If you are fan of immersive guitar solos, gently pulsating rhythm sections and amazing musicianship, you do not want to miss out on this one. Hurry up and get your hands on a copy. There are only 300 copies made and I am bloody happy with mine.


​Serge

psychedelic / chillout

Superdeep is an album released on 16 January, by Austrian psychedelic chillout sound artist Sebastian Frisch, better known under the alias Pangani. With nine tracks – 1) Jungle of Dissolution; 2) Rainbow Nosed Gorillas; 3) Mud Man; 4) Twisted Roots; 5) Tiny Temples; 6) Serious Happiness; 7) Fabric Of Time; 8) It’s Easier Dub and the hour long 9) Continuous Mix – the album is a passionate and cohesive, yet discreet and ordained fable of deeply colorful and sympathetic symphonies, that can be categorized as a fantastic psychedelic electronic music experience. 

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Despite the fact that – in an overall evaluation –, the album mostly follows the general conventions and commonalities present in the genre, the work is consistently proficient, and competently executed. The melodies are sculpted with a sincere devotion to the anatomy of the music, being imperiously dynamic, though creatively soft and convergent, and the mosaic of allegorical tonalities ascribed to the harmonies increasingly demands a sober sonorous design to perpetuate the continuous perception of its peripheral symphonies. Despite modest limitations, that makes the sound relatively homogeneous sometimes, the density and the graceful reverberations that resonates throughout the horizon of the music’s sensibilities are never excessive or superficial. The artist has carefully conceived and pragmatically delivers sensational compositions of sensitive delight, that definitely has the potential to please the genre’s main audiences. 

While you cannot expect Superdeep to be a masterpiece, at least in the absolute sense – Pangani in only rare and dispersive occasions audaciously breaks boundaries and challenges the genre’s standards, with a moderate degree of expertise, and this maybe his style –, Superdeep never disappoints either. On its best moments, the record achieves excellent results, with exceedingly beautiful harmonies that reveals a relaxed, though expansive, dilated, dilapidated and creative vitality, that fustigates the ostensible charisma that marvelously fluctuates throughout the music. 

With a style that slowly and gradually reveals some curious and evasive peculiarities, Pangani displays a relatively virtuous and colorful musical technique, that has on the majestic pulse of its vivid, intuitive and lucid artistic objectives the design of an exhilarating sonorous redemption. With a wonderful creativity that effectively projects the molecules of its splendorous dimension throughout the unlimited horizons of its fragrant and versatile musical abilities, Pangani easily overcomes the genre’s main deficiencies and limitations, to deliver to his audience a sequence of beautiful, effective and exceedingly sophisticated salutary cosmogonies, that definitely makes Superdeep a tremendously great, consistent and enjoyable work.  



Wagner