“Audacious, intelligent and well done, Spiralo is a superb blend of Ashra an early Schulze”
1 Spiralo: Seite A (Teilen I - III) 19:10 Teil I (4:16) Teil II (12:04) Teil III (2:50) 2 Spiralo: Seite B (Teilen IV - VI) 19:10 Teil IV (4:56) Teil V (8:49) Teil VI (5:25) Svart Records LP
(DDL 38:20) (V.F.) (Berlin School/Space Rock)
More than a sonic journey in cosmos; the image, the artistic etiquette and the music of E-Musikgruppe Lux Ohr is a real journey in the time when the Krautrock merged with an EM still dipped into the uncertainty of its movements. In the time when the vinyl was a king. In the time when our ears had the same curiosity as our eyes. In the time when the music transcended its vocation. After very striking Kometenbahn; one of the best, if not the best, album of 2013, the Finnish quartet comes back to blurring the spheres of contemporary EM with an album which dips us back into the soft euphoria of the 70's. The illusion is complete. SPIRALO is offered in limited edition of 500 vinyl with 200 of red color. And like in the time, the album is built around two long tracks of 20 minutes which decorated every face of a bewitching perfume of psychedelic. And like those years, we are riveted to our ears in order to seize well and fully a wonderful sonic flora fed by peculiarities as organic as cosmic.
It's thus with an overflowing of organicosmic lavas, which invades our earphones from the first seconds, that Spiralo: Seite A gets loose from the silence. The introduction is very ambiosonic, very ambiospherical and plunges a listener, starving for sonic symphonies without borders, in the interstices of ambient rhythms braided in the analog years and caramelized by flavors of metal of these vintage years. Long synth lines filled of corrosive resonances and dissonances, I hear some phases of Klaus Schulze in Picture Music, float like spectres on a structure of rhythm which is developed by jerks with drumming as well secret than the bass chords, some hatched metallic bangings and riffs of guitar which regurgitate its wha-wha under the forms of loops. The universe becomes a delicious mixture of psychedelic and psychotronic with good Mellotron flights which also release scents of ether, as well as fluty voices, which caress of their ectoplasmic chants a rhythm fed by knocks of cymbal wings. From parasitic to white noises, Spiralo: Seite A is fading little by little in the meanders of the organicosmic sounds of its opening. Built on the same bases, but a little more lively, Spiralo: Seite B sets the tone straight out with modular loops which adopt the structure of the loopy jerks of Spiralo: Seite A. The movement is of ambiences and ambient, before diving gradually into the undulations of a rhythm which lifts its gravity like a snake floating on a rock garden. The sound charms of E-Musikgruppe Lux Ohr abound with effects of loops which go and come such as long sonic lassoes on a rhythm which little by little is biting the ear with a good violence contained in its fine spiral movements. We hear beautiful solos, both from guitar and synth, sing on a rhythm divided between its jerks and its fine moderate oscillations which are abundantly sprayed by cosmic sound effects.
SPIRALO, just like Kometenbahn by the way (although more electronic, more cosmic) is an album which aims at a public fond of the psychedelic movements of the vintage years. If that can help, it's a kind of crossing between the jerky rhythms, even if less violent, of Ashra to the ambiences filled of ether by Klaus Schulze. It's audacious, intelligent and well done. And it's especially a wind of freshness for a style of music which sometimes refuses to become soaked again with the perfumes of its roots.
Sylvain Lupari (May 27th, 2014) *****
Availaible at E-Musikgruppe Lux Ohr Bandcamp