This is a live set by Electric Moon and Portuguese band Talea Jacta, recorded at a club in Lisbon pre-pandemic on 20 September 2019, when these kind of things were a lot easier to arrange. In that respect it is a document of a freer time when music flowed without boundaries or isolation.

Let me start off by saying that this album has one of the most beautiful pieces of Komet Lulu artwork to date and will look wonderful on the vinyl version in all its glory. The music is three extended jams that are numbered parts one to three and sound vibrant, having been recorded through the mixing desk.

“Part 3” begins with what seems to be a mournful sigh to the universe from the guitars. Echoed lead punctuates over a slight wail that again sets us into a restful tone, as percussion begins to build the pyramid of sound to make contact with Orion’s Belt. Here the drums roll around each other as cymbals crash like a soundtrack to some great ancient pagan ceremony. Now the guitars begin feeding off each other’s energy as they enter their own inner journey.

The two bands complement each other perfectly and you can see why they joined together for this electric live performance. All I can say is that thank goodness we have a document of what happened that night for all of us unlucky enough not to be there.

-Gary Parsons-

Freak Valley is always one of those festivals that I’ve wanted to attend, but have never had the opportunity to do so. If I had gone, I would have most certainly chosen one of the two years that Electric Moon played there as I would be guaranteed one trip out into the cosmos. Here we have their live set from the 2019 festival, and what an awe-inspiring sound it is, wrapped around in one of the finest covers that Electric Moon have had to date.

“Increase” starts with a soft drone, some wah-wah-sounding bass and gentle cymbals clattering around. The line-up of Sula Bassana on guitar, Casio and effects, Komet Lulu on bass and Pablo Cameval behind the drums feel as if they want to ease us into our space journey like the anticipation before lift-off. Here we have haunted synth sounds swirling around like the soundtrack to some early ’60s Martian invasion movie. The guitar roars every now and then with some feedback, and the bass plays some deep throb notes and makes the whole thing more rhythmic, lifting the track from the near-static opening.

“The Picture” starts with a bass riff while Sula’s guitar chords get all Sabbath-like and the drums start their battery of sound. This opening is a real head-shaker and hits you right in your third eye as things head towards a big crunch of a sound, like supernovas happening inside your head. Echoed guitar swirls in the track’s middle section become the soundtrack to alien races building monoliths on Orcus Prime; it’s the musical equivalent of a Philippe Druilett book. Again, Electric Moon take us higher as the music explodes and spirals up and out into the firmament.

The album is available on CD at Sulatron Records and will have a double vinyl edition as well as a digital release via Bandcamp. Especially at this time with the pandemic still raging, cancelling many concerts for the last nine months, it’s essential to remember just how wonderful and vibrant live music is and how important it is to our wellbeing. Electric Moon are one of the best live bands around at the moment; they excel in concert, so this is a wonderful reminder why we need live music in our souls and why we need Electric Moon.

-Gary Parsons-

During the late Sixties, part of the psychedelic experience was to discover your inner self by going on the hippie trail to India and Nepal. Here people would find gurus, live in ashrams and contemplate the universe by the side of the Ganges. Electric Moon’s fifth studio album seems to be almost a soundtrack to these journeys in to inner space and the search for the cosmic otherness.

“Stardust (The Picture)” is a heavier number producing some classic bass riffs from Lulu that ground her otherworldly vocals. Electric guitar takes prominence and sounds as if the seeker is climbing a tall peak to sample the clear air and gain clarity to their inner visions. This is a classic piece of Electric Moon space rock that takes you beyond the boundaries of your own self and makes your mind dance at one with the cosmos. It’s relentless in its push forward, like coming up on LSD and knowing that you have eight hours of being elsewhere. Here we enter the temple of the mind and we are on the threshold of expanding it infinitely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zlT_KBoK8w

OK; I’m going to put my cards on the table here: in my opinion this has to be one of Electric Moon’s finest releases to date (and that takes some beating). For me it ticked so many boxes of what a great psychedelic album should be. The sound is wonderful and lush and the musicianship is excellent throughout. The album has that intangible quality that all great albums do, it’s difficult to explain it — you just have to feel the music. Its a remarkable work that fills you full of joy as the sounds envelops you. If you buy one record released so far this year, this would be my choice.

-Gary Parsons-

OK, are you ready for take off? A big heavy stoner riff, swirling noise and a cosmic chant vocal from Komet Lulu — it can only be the title track from the reissue of Electric Moon’s classic The Doomsday Machine.

“Kleiner Knaller” takes down the mood slightly, with some beautiful echoed guitar and rolling drums played by Pablo Carneval that give the track a very early Hawkwind feel as it blisters along. “Spaceman” starts with what sounds like pulsating synths that then get fed into a big riff that gets your head shaking in true wig-out mode. This is hyperdrive travel to the nether regions of the universe that sees you rush past planets at speed as you hurtle towards the edge of the galaxy. The sound crackles around you as the music seems to have a slight Doppler effect.

If you are an Electric Moon fan, then this release is a must-have. The booklet comes with some truly amazing space artwork created by Lulu’s father Ulla Papel in the 1970s and certainly sums up the atmosphere created by the music. This has to be one of Electric Moon’s finest releases, one to send you off into the outer reaches of forever.

-Gary Parsons-

It’s Friday the thirteenth, the day of bad vibes, things going wrong and surreal killers with ski masks. Some people even refuse to leave the house on this day, in case they accidentally fall over a black cat or walk under a ladder. The thing is, you know when Electric Moon are in town, any heavy bad luck nonsense will dissipate in a glow of psychedelic goodness. Even though the skies had turned grey as I made my way toward, Electrowerkz, I knew the music would have a warm glow.

The place is getting hot and sticky by the time Electric Moon hit the stage. After a brief tune up they are away, with Sula Bassana’s echoed guitar filling the venue and almost Manuel Göttsching-like as it blissfully wafts around like some Nag Champa incense. Komet Lulu’s bass hits in and picks up a riff that grounds the track as well as give it its freak-out rhythm. Marcus Schnitzler’s drumming starts with subtle Nick Mason cymbal crashes before he takes up the beat and heads into a perfect motorik section that drives the track ever forward.

You see, Friday the thirteenth isn’t so bad a day after all, especially with this kind of soundtrack.

-Gary Parsons-

Live, Electric Moon always hit you right in the third eye and this album recorded in Battenberg on the second of July (my birthday) in 2011 is a good document of everything the band are great at. So grab your stash, flick through some underground comix, get the joss sticks started and clutch your pocket I Ching and off we go.

“Cosmic Creator” starts as a slow burner. Komet Lulu’s bass riff holding the track somewhere near terra firma whilst Sula Bassana gives us some wonderful echoed guitar notes that fall like stars on a summers night. Alex Simon on drums shows how much subtlety can be drawn from the kit by using it as an almost ritual instrument. Then, all of a sudden the bass takes off and the drums kick in to one monster riff that could probably be heard by the monks in Tibet.

Big booming guitar bass notes introduce the title track. We then enter an almost Eno-style ambient proceedings as the guitar and bass notes drone on, sending you into a state of inner bliss. When the drum begins to shuffle in, it feels like we are by the mother river watching the world in all its multi-colours drift by before our eyes. Again the bass plays a melodic riff, holding the track in place and providing a lynch-pin for your mind to grab on to as you float on strange waters. You drift through time as the music envelops you and sinks in through every pore of your skin. It pulses around you, the guitars climb and soar and suddenly you are meditating at the edge of the universe.

“Burning Battenberg” starts with Gong-like electronic flutters and pulses. The rhythm starts to pick up more of a jazz vibe and feel as the Philipp Wolf plays around the whole of the kit, almost taking on a tribal beat. The bass is a steady throb that moves and interplays between lead guitar lines. Then suddenly the whole track shifts a gear into some fast freak-out. By the now the guitar is almost playing a raga and tapping into the music of the mystics. It is the tripped-out sensuality of a separate reality; a searching for peace among the cosmos — an enlightened headfuck that pulls you through the ethereal into the infinite.

This is Electric Moon’s voyage of discovery into your inner self; get on the bus and go for a ride. Who knows where you may end up?.

-Gary Parsons-

Kick out the jams and get your freak flag flying with two new releases from Sulatron. Zone Six are a mindbending mixture of members of Electric Moon, Modulfix and The Pancakes (who also get together under the name Krautzone) playing spiralling hypnotic psychedelic madness in free-form jams that have been condensed down to these four blistering tracks.

“Cosmogyral” begins in a similar rhythmic guitar vein as “Dark Star” and prepares us for the next fifteen minutes of wig-out music to come. This feels like music for a summer’s afternoon lying in the grass watching the clouds move slowly overhead as the world spins imperceptibly beneath you. Its keyboard chords hang mid-air as the lead guitar skyrockets over the top. The sound of the band at times reminds me of early Quintessence live; it has that Notting Hill freak vibe to it and a feel of exploration into inner space. By the time the track reaches its end point, we feel that we have been on a journey somewhere quite strange that is full of ancient pagan themes, but is modern at the same time.

(…meanwhile, transmitting from a nearby satellite…)

For starters, Electric Moon’s Theory of Mind has some of Komet Lulu’s most stunning album artwork to date. It harks back to the glory days of Hapshash and the Coloured Coat and the wonderful psychedelic art of the Seventies free festival movement: it is a thing of beauty to behold. This is a major point with Sulatron Records which I’ve not really address in my other reviews from the label; everything is so lovingly put out with stunning artwork and beautiful vinyl pressings; you always get excellent value for what you pay for.

“Hypnotika” has a subtle and quiet beginning, rolling synth drones punctuated over some deep-meaning guitars. Cymbals roll gently behind as echoed guitar takes us on a drift through space, out by Pluto where the sun is a small star millions of miles away. Drums begin to roll in as feedback guitar picks up pace and the low buzz of Lulu’s bass comes into play. By the time the rhythm crashes in, you can almost see the audience swaying to the musical vibes being beamed to them from the cosmos. This pure acid rock, this is touch the sky and go beyond; it’s so good you can almost feel your stomach smiling. This is the place where the psilocybin grows as tall as trees amongst the purple grass. As the track builds, it really does remind me of the free festivals of my youth, dancing beneath that big old sun in a field waiting for the euphoria to hit you. But this is what Electric Moon does best: Sula’s guitar is always masterful and at points understated, but beautiful. By the middle of the track we are hitting into Hawkwind territory circa 1971 as we pick up some space rock chordal progressions and hit the outer limits.

A hefty bass riff starts “The Picture”, which leads into a kind of “Time We Left This World Today” wig-out vibe that should get heads shaking. This builds up in layers, then slowly begins to disintegrate in to freak-out mode where guitar and drums battle it out against each other whilst all the while the heavy bass riff just keeps on pounding. By the time the track crashes to its halt, you feel almost exhausted from being on such a full-on trip.

Another wonderful album from Electric Moon; this one is for the seasoned space travellers out there who are looking beyond and want to go further. It’s released as a double vinyl album and is worth snatching up while copies are still around as it’s a beautiful thing to behold.

-Gary Parsons-

After their planet-building collaborative album The Papermoon Sessions, the lucky people at Roadburn last year got to witness the glory of both Papir and Electric Moon sharing the stage together for the massive psychedelic wig-out that is captured on this disc.

As the track begins to pick up pace again, the guitars get a lot more choppy and Christoffer Brochmann Christensen’s percussion crashes away like the sound of explosions on faraway worlds. Some mighty lead guitar freak out stamps in and suddenly we are dancing in a field at the Stonehenge free festival in 1984. Komet Lulu’s bass becomes almost Chris Squire-like at this point, giving enough twirling low end to destroy your speakers. When a more steady drum pattern clicks in, we verge into Seventies Hawkwind territory, echoed guitar spluttering around like a space rocket trying to work on depleted dilithium crystals, only for the energy to be powered up for the next stage onslaught towards its cosmic destination. The track then begins to fall towards the planet in a cataclysmic conclusion that leaves your head in a bizarre sense of disarray — or at least looking at the wreckage of the lunar module.

The music does seem at times as if the band are in a trance, and Mogens Deenfort’s synths are a bedrock of atmospheres that could hold up the 2001 monolith if it had too. At times the track did remind me of the finer moments of Ozric Tentacles as segments glide effortlessly into each other. The drums pick up pace and the track moves towards its climax with a sense of urgency before decaying like stardust near the end. Both Sula Bassana and Nicklas Sørensen’s guitar work is exemplary, as is the playing of Christian Becher Christensen, who shares bass duties.

This another excellent release from Sula Bassana’s Sulatron Records; the only problem I found with this release was that it made wish I had been there to witness such spectacular music in person.

-Gary Parsons-

It is summertime and in Britain the early morning mist drifts across fields and clings to the roots of trees. Tents are erected and the dowdy colours of winter are a thing of the past as the children of the rainbow appear from forests and their various hiding places to worship the sun, to enjoy the abundance of nature around them. And the music these spirits of the fields like to indulge in on balmy warm evenings is psychedelic space rock.

In the olden daze there would have been these wondrous events called “free festivals” where people could dance till dawn to the sound of pounding bass lines. But then came the bad times when darkness crept across the land and the free festivals were no more and the bands who played this heavenly music began to fade.

Electric Moon are the perfect festival band, bright colours and deep bass throbs all around and creates a realm of psychedelic wonderment. The only thing is, tonight they are not playing at a colourful festival like Sonic Rock Solstice (where they will be playing on midsummer weekend) but at Camden’s Underworld, a deep dark basement far away from the sun. In this cavernous gloom, various brightly coloured ‘freaks’ await the band and for the ritual from the universe to begin.

Unfortunately, due to time constraints at the venue, all we are allowed are these three monolithic tracks of summer solstice wonderment and the set draws sadly to a close. Electric Moon are the kind of band who you want to play for a very long time, to help you leave planet Earth behind for just a short while and drift among the stars of the beautiful beyond. Catch them live if you can — you won’t be disappointed.

-Words: Gary Parsons-
-Pictures: Andy Oram-

Whoa! Let’s get things straight from the start – this is psychedelic music, pure and simple. This is not pretending to be out there, it IS out there. Both Papir and Electric Moon have a way of playing that turns your brain to mulch and then kicks it out of your head towards a multi-coloured sun. This meeting of fried minds on the edge could really only produce one type of music and that is bloody great slabs of sounds for exploring the universe.

“Red Dust” opens with some Ash Ra Tempel–sounding sweet guitar chords that float as light as air over the jazz-style rhythm underneath. Its lead is swathed in echo and dances around the speakers as chiming notes happen beneath. This has touches of Here and Now to it and sounds like the soundtrack to a lazy summer’s afternoon at a free festival. It meanders through its five plus minutes until it passes into the realm of dreams.

It would be kind of lazy to mention bands like Acid Mothers Temple or early Pink Floyd when reviewing this beautiful album, but for those people who have come across either of those bands before, these artists are handy tags into leading you into the kind of experience you can expect here. This is an amazing release and one that deserves more attention. In fact Sulatron Records itself deserves a delve into their catalogue of some of the best psychedelic music released in the last few years; these records are real gems of the genre. Check them out; you certainly won’t be disappointed.

-Gary Parsons-

Electric Moon’s new release is a 10” white vinyl-only EP. These will only be available at shows, so you lucky people who not only get to see them play live can also snap up this wonderful piece at the same time.

Track two on side A is “Your Own Truth,” which starts with a bass heavy riff and scatter drums from Michael Orloff. When the whispered vocals come in from Komet Lulu we are heading towards a Kim Gordon-sounding track from an early Sonic Youth album. Sula Bassana’s guitar adds an atonal clang underneath proceedings as the relentless rhythm pounds on: this is Daydream Nation for the cosmic nation.

A great little EP and worth picking up at one of the gigs – hopefully we will soon get our chance in the UK to not only catch the band live but also pick up gems like this.

-Gary Parsons-

I am already a fan of the wonderful Electric Moon after hearing both their 2010 début album Lunatics and last year’s monumental live double LP Cellar Space Live Overdose, so I was eager to give this new album a spin. For starters, the cover is a wonderful psychedelic creation that gives a nod to some of best artwork from the late ’60s and early ’70s. What we have on the album is two massive slabs of out-there music that roll in near the 70 minute mark.

Sula Bassana‘s Dreamer is a slightly different kettle of fish; for starters it’s a solo album by the Electric Moon guitar player and is song-based rather than instrumental. This is also a tenth anniversary re-release on both CD and vinyl.

Starting with the title track, we open with an almost Arthur Brown-sounding Hammond organ, and are soon thrust into a more progressive vein with psych guitar and Mellotron under a whispered vocal. This is real late ’60s-inspired psychedelia, which somehow merges British underground sounds with West Coast-style guitar, and is a very strong opener.  Second track “Dealer McDope” is a nod, I assume, to the Dave Sheridan cartoon character. This a true space rock tune with whining synths and a great heavy riff. By the time flanged vocals come in we are heading straight to the head shop to score. “My Blue Guitar” starts with a laid back rhythm under desert guitars that sometimes spill over into Dave Gilmour territory. Think Meddle-era Pink Floyd and you’re not that far off as the organ plays gentle chords under a soaring lead.

Two bonus tracks are added to the CD release. The first, “Perry Rhodan,” is a UFO Club foot stomper with scary alien-sounding Theremin over organ and a great beat on the drums. Think Dukes of the Stratosphere meet a ’60s sci-fi theme tune here. The last bonus is a cover of Floyd’s still-unreleased Barrett era track, “Vegetable Man.” It’s always hard to review a cover of a song that you have known and loved for years, but here Sula captures the essence of the band in full Saucerful of Secrets mode by slowing the track down to a “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” pace rather that of the frantic original.

The man behind both these releases (and the Sulatron label)  is guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Dave Schmidt, who should be being hailed as a new psychedelic god with these wonderful albums. Buy these two – but wait; there is more to follow…

-Gary Parsons-