“Another nice album from Son Of Ohm to whom one can't make a bad criticism. If not that he seems too comfortable in his comfort zone”
1 Telefunken Baby! 12:52
2 Endlos 15:49
3 Third Rock 24:29
Son of Ohm Music (DDL 53:12
(Berlin School, Krautrock) (V.F.)
A bubble that bursts and reverberates its shadows in a multitude of undisciplined oscillations. A riff of guitars that repeats his birth certificate in loops. For Leonardo Wijma, the recipe is simple and really effective. And especially a winning one! Defying the rule of redundancy of minimalist structures, Son Of Ohm builds his art by bringing these ingredients from the psychedelic rock years whose magnetism has survived time. A bass line structures a base of hesitating rhythm as the bubble of the opening continues to project electronic chirps. It's with groping that Telefunken Baby! comes out of his cosmic bed to cling to our speakers. The 24-bit sound projects its impact here, at the mouth of our speakers. And we're still in this 70's EM pattern with a repetitive structure where sleepy synth pads and keyboard waves are lay down with a touch of alien harmony. The sound effects continue to form these bubbles that mutate into chirps or tones of electronic bats that like to brush past our ears. A second of riffs injects a lighter sound dimension while sculpting these ethereal solos with wha-wha fuzz effects that seem to want to establish a dialect with our senses. ZEITGEIST is the second album of Son Of Ohm in 2019. Following the road undertaken with Paradigma, the one who also plays the role of Leonardo Soundweaver on the chessboard of cosmic rock has used the technique of live improvised sessions from his studio to record the bases of his last album. Hence the feeling of promiscuity between the Dutch composer and his audience. And Son Of Ohm is no exception to his comfort zone by flirting with the sounds of the 70's while Manuel Göttsching hypnotized many ears with his guitar loops that continue to roll in the labyrinths of time.
Loops that are omnipresent in the psychedelic rock of Endlos and which, under the torture of Son Of Ohm's fingers, turn into sweet harmonic solos. If the drums, which were added in the next recording session, give that Krautrock touch, the guitar exorcises its charms with a fusional splitting approach where solos, riffs and harmonies come from everywhere. It's like being in the Ashra Tempel territories here.
Third Rock is worth the purchase of ZEITGEIST alone! This long-lasting and hypnotic 25-minute track, or so, begins with a wonderful dark atmosphere worthy of horror movies in black and white. A wave of his stretches his strange musicality that sways between a fallen orchestral movement or a pure and simple possession of the recorder. Gradually it gets transformed into a melodious line that screws an earworm in this setting always close to the borders of the unknown. A sonorous fauna is surrounding this musical ritornello. Flirting between psychedelia and cosmic electronic, she even manages to carve another line of more tortuous melody that leads this laborious introduction to the point of 9 minutes. Third Rock is preparing its rhythmic migration with a line of sustained sequenced pulsations and another random line that evaporates in a much more electronic evolution. The guitar installs a third line of rhythmic loops with riffs that are more melodious than in the first two titles of ZEITGEIST. The drums arrive around the twelfth minute. And their heavy and slow strikes structure a mid-tempo attracted to the slower side, allowing a deployment of an armada of tones and effects that fattens the musical mass of Third Rock whose visions of Krautrock, progressive rock and electronic become a perfect symbiosis. And this never put aside or throw shadow to this slow and zigzagging melodious approach that has a touch of oriental dance from the 70's. One can easily makes a fair comparison between some of Third Rock's perfumes and those of Iron Butterfly's psy rock. A very solid track that justifies its whole 25 minutes and which concludes another nice album from Son Of Ohm to whom at any times one can't make a bad criticism. If not that he seems too comfortable in his comfort zone ...
Sylvain Lupari (July 30th, 2019) ***¾**
Available in 24 bits at Son of Ohm Music's Bandcamp