The Arcanum will act as a repository for my musical musings, mainly reviews, but may include other random related thoughts as relates to Prog. Will probably include some side quests off that though.

For those of you new to The Arcanum, or don't know my musical tastes, it tends towards the raw, unrefined, and underground side of things. Psych, RIO/Avant, Prog Electronic, Prog Folk are favorite subs, as well as the regional subs, Krautrock, Indo-Prog/Raga Rock, Zeuhl etc. However not averse to any genre (except maybe Neo Prog). If Genesis, Marillion, IQ etc.., proper, clean sounding Prog is what you seek here you will be disappointed. If it's Guru Guru, Current 93, Tangerine Dream, Amon Duul, Captain Beefheart, Acid Mothers Temple etc.. then you will probably find something to enjoy here.

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As a random little aside; it's been a literal decade since I've written a review on the site, and about 5-6 years since I've interacted on this site in any real, meaningful way. So uh, hello to all you people that remember me and to those who don't. I hope you find enjoyment in these ramblings.

Davenport Family were a collective of freak folks and psychedelic noise(unmerry)markers that hail from the Madison, Wisconsin, USA areas’ underground noise/psych scene. Davenport Family (DF from now on) carry on in the tradition of the first Amon Duul, Ya Ho Wha 13, Siloah, Zendik Community, etc. That is to say, making loose, krautrock inflicted, improvised and primitive free folk/psych/rock of the utmost heathenistic variety and quality, minus the cult aspects of Father Yod and Zendik, and more of the ‘light up a campfire and start clunking and clogging away on whatever instrument you have on hand’. It’s safe to assume most DF releases were recorded outdoors, in barns or some such other place. This applies to the community gathering only however, don’t let my description of campfire gatherings and B.Y.O. instruments lead you into thinking this is going to be a summer of love, peace dude, hippie affair. DF’s brand of communal folk freakery often times doesn’t merely flirt and toy with undercurrents of darkness, but fully embrace them. Though DF aren’t as dark, think of the similarly minded collective from Belgium, Silvester Anfang and their self-styled ‘Funeral Folk’. This final offering from Davenport Family, before changing name to Second Family Band, and continuing on in the same manner, offers a magnificent send off.

 

The nearly 33 minute jam that is At the Foot of Zodiac Mountain starts out life slowly at first. Electronics, guitar and vocals queasily and darkly groan away, often drenched in reverb and various effects. While drums and various percussion freely thump and clang, sparse and distant, before gaining momentum and tribalistic rhythm, rising in intensity against the backdrop, which has turned into a frenzy of buzzing and thrumming, feedback and noise, before falling apart and re-congealing into the void-like morass. This presents itself as a cycle, that of lysergy, slowly building into uncouth paganist noise, but upon the feverish plateau being reached, the tribal percussives, cracked and moaning guitars and electronics, whooping and hollering, everything inevitably and slowly slides back into abyss of zonked out and evilly twinkling sparsity. By the time the final recorded cycle has spasmed out into the darkness, you’ll want to join in (or you stopped listening 5 minutes in cause you hated this wonderful mess, fair play).

 

I unashamedly love these communal groups who jam out wild, percussive, psych freak outs, and this dark and gloamy, paint spattered little cassette offering sits at the top of this niche pile.

Gutter prog FTW!

Gutter Prog is an appropriate term (and great label name) to describe this stuff, I'll have to start using it now.

https://gutterprogrecords.bandcamp.com/music" rel="nofollow - https://gutterprogrecords.bandcamp.com/music

It's one of three DF releases I own physically, all on cassette cause obviously.

Gordy wrote: on tour in 2014

I didn't know you were in a band/played any instruments! Can I get nosey and ask about that?

EDIT: And a third person has downloaded Zodiac Mountain from me. Your review must've caused a minor wave in the underground!

https://gutterprogrecords.bandcamp.com/album/home-coming-queen" rel="nofollow - https://gutterprogrecords.bandcamp.com/album/home-coming-queen

https://gutterprogrecords.bandcamp.com/album/them-what-lament-together" rel="nofollow - https://gutterprogrecords.bandcamp.com/album/them-what-lament-together

https://gutterprogrecords.bandcamp.com/album/blood-and-rhum-offering" rel="nofollow - https://gutterprogrecords.bandcamp.com/album/blood-and-rhum-offering

The Arcanum review No.2

 

Harold Budd – Abandoned Cities

 

(this is a rewrite of an old and terribly written review from 2011)

While pianist Harold Budd is probably best known to the general music fan for his collaborations with Brian Eno (Ambient 2 and The Pearl), his catalog is deep. Various solo albums in the realms of piano driven Ambient and Classical, along with a slew of collaborations and work done for various films, tv series, and art installations, which is what Abandoned Cities seems to have been originally created for, “ABHASA: Image-Bearing Light by Lita Albuquerque, Harold Budd, and Robert Kramer”, but I cannot find much of anything online about this installation.

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On Abandoned Cities, Budd turns in two slow moving side long tracks of hypnotic, etheric, brooding, and ultimately bleak and depressive Dark Ambient, before that was even a genre proper. The A side, Dark Star, slowly sweeps along on a bed of mournful, layered, undulating synth drones, some darker and brooding, others a bit lighter and melancholic. It’s like weaving your way through a dead, rubble strewn city. This is aided by some occasional guitar textures, slow and dour, almost abrasive, but not noisy. The B side, Abandoned Cities, takes things even slower, more minimal and more melancholic, but not quite as dark, like looking at the sun through grey clouds. If side A was a more intimate, personal look at the city, side B is a bird’s eye view of everything, slowly drifting and wafting above the streets and buildings rooves, it’s all depressive and introspective, but at arm’s length. The bed of layered synth work is still present here, but instead of guitar we have somber, quiet, and extremely minimal piano work as our aid. Neither track really goes anywhere, but that’s the point, simply wanting to show this place in your mind’s eye for a while.

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The album title “Abandoned Cities” could not have been a more perfect choice for this incredible release, same with the artwork, a B&W photo of the upper façade of a building, a teaser for all that is inside. One of the coolest musical experiences I’ve had comes with this album. Two of my hobbies, that are intertwined with each other, photography and urban exploration, lead me to a great deal of abandoned and interesting places. One of those places was the now demolished Saint Nicholas coal breaker nestled in the hills of Pennsylvania. A towering 6-7 story or higher hulking, industrial behemoth left to rot. Me and my pals had entered and were having a blast exploring and photographing the place. As often happens we tend to separate and wander around on our own. I decided to put the camera and tripod aside for a bit, put some earbuds in and just take a walk around listening to this album. It was an absolutely incredible experience to walk around this grey ironclad, rust flaked site, among old control panels and crunchy, sketchy catwalks. It sounds utterly insane to say but that was one of the most peaceful experiences I’ve had, either with music or exploring.

I really sucked at photography back in 2011, so I don't have many pictures that are worth sharing from the Saint Nicholas coal breaker, but here's a couple (all the pictures above are from different unrelated places, they just kinda fit the mood).

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Two reviews in a year? Is this insanity?

Guru Guru – Ufo

 

 

If listening to bands jamming makes you break out in small, red, itchy bumps you’re going to want to look toward some later mid 70s work for satisfaction, say the jazzy psych rock of Dance In Flames or full on Fusion oriented Guru Guru of the late 70s on Globetrotter. This is not that however. This, Guru Guru’s 1970 debut album Ufo, is a wonderful and heavily acidic mess.

On the first side we get three songs, all teetering on the edge of the unstructured abyss; flirting with uncontrolled free fall into an ocean of acid so thick and fuzzy there is no swimming out of. Stone In and Girl Call both start out a little sleepy. Some tremendously fuzzed out guitar moaning and groaning here, and some freely wandering drums and bass there (and some AUAUghghauauGhhhHh ‘vocals’ dribbled out on Stone In! Always love to hear). Both songs start to coagulate into the nearly gone, hectic and frenzied, point of no return, freak outs discussed earlier, but ending just before free fall, or at least Stone In fades out and Girl Call is rather abruptly, but kinda, effectively cut off. Also have to stop and mention how much I love the guitar distortion on Girl Call, some truly deranged, heavy, and fuzzed out wah wahs. Next Time See You At The Dalai Lama starts off sounding a bit more structured than anything else on the album, and seemingly more deliberately paced. The structure and pace does start to falter and waver, Ax, Mani, and Uli all rambling and coasting off into the cosmic brain, then coalescing for a slight time, before succumbing to the drift again.

Now, to flip this f**ker over, and here we find that the inevitable has happened. You dance and prance for so long on the edge of psychedelic insanity, that falling into the vastness of kosmische sea will occur. The first of the two songs, sharing the album name, Ufo; sees our intrepid oceanic trawlers completely immersed into nebulous and hypnotic soundscapes. Guitars, electronics, percussion, and effects all dither and scratch around and about, occasionally swarming together into a truly wild proto industrial/noise piece here. A musical rendition of a grimy, old piece of space junk limping through the cosmos. While plenty of classical composeurs ;) were fiddling around with long and exploratory pieces of music, I find they never seem to actually be all that enjoyable, or reach the depths that more amateur works do. When you fiddle with the unknown the known ain’t going to cut it. The final track Der LSD/Marsch is more grounded, but no less prescient. The first half, Der LSD I guess, sees some strung out guitar calling out over foggy, sunken graveyard, while some plodding bass and wispy and haunting, electronically treated flute(?) (Kraftwerk!?) slowly flow around. This all mends together into possibly the most cohesive our intrepid group have sounded, or it just seems so after the past 12 minutes. Marsch is appropriately titled, because after making it out of vast cosmic, oceanic, expanse it’s a long walk back. Guitar, bass, and drums all have moments of cohesive, buoyant, forward drive, but fall into a tired and languid sounding plod on occasion.

 

Proclaims the group on return “Soon the ufos will land and mankind will meet much stronger brains and habits, lets get ready for that.”