“How puzzling all these changes are! I’m never sure what I’m going to be, from one minute to another.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
“A very irregular head” is how the late, great Syd Barrett once described himself, and from the sounds blasting from my stereo Dave Schmidt AKA Sula Bassana could lay claim to the same quote. Dark Days is the fourth Bassana album, and wow, what a head-full it is…
There are two major epic tracks on the album and at 20 minutes “Surrealistic Journey” is the first of them. A steady drum rhythm takes us into a sub-Doors/early Floyd organ part that has the mystical quality of wandering around ancient temples at dawn. The track pulses along like some mushroom-induced fantasy imbibed in the rites of this ancient sacred place. Then as it speeds up the ritualistic orgy begins, guitars and organ fighting for space amongst the maelstrom. This is trip music for the mind that will take you on a journey into the outer reaches of your own consciousness. When the track begins to slow we are back greeting the gods at dawn before a triumphal ending. “Dark Days” starts with feedback, clattering drums and atonal sounds before we move into its groovy riff. Mellotrons begin to build a string section of sound over the chords to take the track higher. This is almost a pagan primaeval sound of acid bliss.
“Bright Nights” has a subdued beginning after the bombast of “Dark Days.” Here large cymbals crash over subtle guitar and the echo traps them both in its ever-repeating world. Eastern notes begin to drip from the guitar like something heard from a distance over sand dunes then we build into a big powerful drone. This crumbles into a large slab of stoner riffage. The last epic is “Arriving Nowhere,” a cosmic travelling tune, where the guitar plays some funk wah-wah over a steady rhythm and the lead inspires us to keep on truckin’. We then hit some weird psychedelic noises on our travels, even though we are still moving the landscape has transformed into something quite surreal. We then emerge into the relative safety of a great space rock riff, and this time we are riding the cosmic winds. The album ends with the track slowly drifting off into nowhere. Another amazing piece of pure psychedelic rock from Dave Schmidt and one, I must admit, I would like to hear on the warm glow of analogue vinyl; a must.
Vibravoid’s album begins with “Gravitation Zero,” a strange outer space opening similar to “Astronomy Domine” by Pink Floyd until it moves us into pure ’67 UFO Club psych, complete with sitar and tablas. The words drift in their echo while the music takes us into a Siva temple dance at the end of the universe. “No Silver Bird” has a rolling bass sound under liquid lights guitar and again the vocals drift in a Syd Barrett way, pulling the piece together. “Photosynthesis in Darkness” is a great psychedelic pop song, three minutes of psyched-out bliss and some fine big riff guitar playing. “Travelling Without Moving” is a one minute atonal organ and guitar interlude with lovely echoed feedback.
-Gary Parsons-
