Un Festín Sagital – Kosmodynamos

Beta-lactam Ring

It’s hard not to reference Popul Vuh while attempting to describe the effect of the opening moments of Kosmodynamos, but that’s no bad thing at all. The chime of bells, an evolving ripple of flute, Michel Leroy and Alberto Parra‘s cycling clean guitar strings which coalesce in a slow percussive parade — all hold the same pregnant promise of Florian Fricke‘s singular, almost holy, vision. However, despite the affinities, and there are many, Un Festín Sagital present here four tracks of ritual music for space cadets which proceed, slowly but surely, to blow the tiny braincells of the listener by many and several different means.

So while the mood is often expansive and even mellow, there are little bursts of rapid-fire mania to keep the listener alert; like when a jazzy improv shuffle flickers into life during “A la Deriva. El Jardín de los Delirios.” This avant-gardism could have many outcomes, but blossoming into Magma-ish flourishes before a frantic descent into screaming in tongues is always an interesting option.

The real action unfurls from the farthest reaches of space and time immanentises in the form of “Bajo un Sol Inclemente,” where the flute joins a camel-loping groove of steady percussion and flanged guitars in a stirring combination of soaring melody and insistent rhythmic interplay. It’s as the hypnotic rounds burst into a gloriously monumental chorale that the album finally lifts off, bound briefly for a spectacular place where a lightshow explodes like a far-distant star brought into glimmering proximity, but which can only endure for a shining moment before folding back softly into bells, flute and a silent termination.

-Linus Tossio-