Over the last 10 years, Fred Laird and his gang of pagan psychonauts, collectively known as Earthling Society, have become one of my favourite bands. Continually evolving, each album they release explores new territory, yet stays true to their core sound. Sweet Chariot is their 10th album. In the studio the band is pared down to the duo of Jon Blacow on drums and leader Fred Laird on pretty much everything else. Kim Allen, however, does make an appearance on one track playing bass. Sweet Chariot continues to utilize the free jazz and noise experiments of the band’s previous two albums, England Have My Bones (2014) and It’s Your Love That’s Sound (2015), but this time merges it quite successf
On this day, one year ago, the world sadly lost a very singular talent in the form of Michael Kandel, better known by his recording name of Tranquility Bass. His unique fusion of sixties psychedelia, seventies funk, and modern electronica produced Let the Freak Flag Fly, one of the great psychedelic albums of the 90’s. It all began in the early 90’s though when Kandel and Tom Chasteen formed their own electronic music label Exist Dance. Together, under the name Tranquility Bass, they produced two very well received singles (considered now classics of the era) in the form of They Came in Peace and Cantamilla. Chasteen and Kandel separated ways in the mid-90’s but Kandel continued to record un
Isao Tomita, more commonly known just by his last name, was a pioneering electronic music, famous for his creative renderings of classical pieces using synthesizers in the 1970’s, and also for his spectacular concerts in the 1980’s. Tomita was inspired by Robert Moog and Wendy Carlos, and purchased the Moog III, a monophonic, modular analogue synthesizer and built his studio around it. His first album Electric Samurai: Switched on Rock did not receive much notice. It was his second album, Snowflakes are Dancing, that propelled him into the spotlight, not just in his native Japan, but worldwide. Tomita synthesized each instrument on the monophonic Moog, overdubbing in the studio to create lus
Blue Lily Commission was started back in 2000 as a solo outlet for psychedelic rock group Mooch’s main man Steve Palmer to explore world and electronic styles of music. Four Journeys is the thirteenth release for the prolific Palmer as he continues to put out unique music that combines drones, complex rhythms, deep ambiance and exotic instruments used to create his particular intermingling of electronica, space rock, meditative music and psychedelia. Four Journeys is one of Palmer’s most ambitious projects to date. As the title suggests, the album consists of four extended pieces, all over 17-minutes long. Each one is a multi-layered sonic odyssey that takes the listener on both earthly outi
