Interkosmos – Hypnotizer

Sulatron (CD) / Pancromatic (vinyl)

In the TV series Cosmos, Carl Sagan travelled the universe and beyond in his spaceship of the mind to transport the humble viewer at home to worlds beyond our imagination, taking us into the deep realms of space. While he sat there at the controls of his craft, Sagan would offer thoughts on humanity and how small we really are among the vast ever expanding universe. This re-release (on both CD and black and coloured vinyl, both mastered by Eroc) of Interkosmos‘s 2008 album is kind of like the soundtrack to that trip.

“Lift Off” starts with a bit of grand space rock ranting as we proceed towards the launch pad. After this the track hits altitude and then drifts towards Earth orbit where it remains for its duration. Sergio Ceballos‘ guitar is Gilmore-esque in its drifting fashion, Pablo Carneval’s drumming caresses the kit and Sula Bassana’s bass keeps everything as grounded as it possibly can do under such spacey circumstances. We almost hover on the edge, like a small International Space Station betwixt Earth and space. And then as the final notes echo around, we have broken free of our moorings and are left to float untethered. “Hypnotizer” starts with a line about being free from the Earth and it’s with this that the band start kicking out their cosmic jams. The track almost seems to pull away from itself at times; it’s like the band float off into nothingness for a few seconds before tumbling back into the track and continuing their voyage.

“Edentrip” (which may be a reference to the infamous Star Trek hippie episode) starts with wild Saucerful Of Secrets-style improv of tripped-out otherness amongst the solar system. It’s almost 2001-like with its thoughtful meditation on sounds of the stratosphere; it is Buddha blissed out on Saturn. “Kosmos Amigos” is based on a traditional tune, apparently, transporting The Good, The Bad And The Ugly to outer space and leaving them to Mexican stand-off — but with laser guns. The guitar’s reverb offers glimpses of wide-open desert vistas, but this time they are on Mars. The vocals are haunting and almost otherworldly.

“Floatboat” starts like an Ash Ra echoed guitar piece reminiscent of tracks on the Inventions For Electric Guitar album. It has the sound of star clusters imploding, as the echo seems almost infinite against the black matter holding the universe together. Slowly, the track builds up pace and volume and we trip into the most cosmic of space rock riffs. “Rockit” has an almost driving motorik sound, as if Interkosmos are playing at the edge of the Kuiper Belt and looking back towards the small dot which is the Earth. This in a way is the most progressive track on the album and one that jumps into almost stoner rock mode at points.

The bonus track on this reissue is a near fourteen-minute live epic called “Samphonic Trip”, which opens with a mixture of jazz/blues bass runs over Del Dettmar-sounding electronics which resemble a distress call from the lighthouse at the end of the galaxy. About five minutes in, a big riff emerges from the primordial ooze to begin to create life on a new world. This is an unrelenting musical fight at the beginning of a planet’s creation; this is the place and time where moons are born. When the track hits its final wigged-out section, you are left in awe.

I’m going to leave the final word to Carl Sagan as he sums everything up rather well: “Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere.”

-Gary Parsons-