LUCID DREAMER

Andrew Robinson is a multi-instrumentalist and MAGUS is the vehicle through which he brings American Psychedelic music to the world. This particular record contains remastered songs from two of his earlier albums "Traveller" and "Highway 375".

"Traveller" opens with eerie, spacey sounds for over a minute as an electronic beat comes in reminding me very much of early PORCUPINE TREE songs.There are some brief vocals after 5 minutes. "Khyber Pass / Nostradamus" opens with strummed guitar, synths and drums. It all stops as a gentle guitar melody with vocals takes over.The synths come and go. "Until The Sun Burns Out" has quite a monologue of a man telling about some disaster that has taken place, as another PORCUPINE TREE-like beat comes in like on the first song. Unfortunately there are some distorted vocals that are really annoying. The guitar comes and goes."108 Steps To Babaji" is an atmospheric tune with slowly played guitar and synths. Andrew plays all the instruments on this track and it's a great song.

"Rif" is over 20 minutes long and the first 4 minutes has some good guitar melodies on it.Then there is not much of a melody as different sounds come and go in this spacey soundscape. Halfway through the song a beat can be heard coming through the waves of synths. Some scorching guitar follows. Nice. This is my favourite song on this album. The next one "Highway 375 Suite" is another long one at over 18 minutes in length. More spacey music with a beat as synths,guitar and drums lead the way. The song stops 6 minutes in as sounds from deep space echo. We get a beat again 8 minutes in, as the tempo changes continue throughout the rest of this song. The final two songs are live versions of "Khyber Pass / Nostradamus" and a section of "Highway 375 Suite" called "Arraks-Dune-Deset Planet".

Overall I like this album,although it has it's ups and downs. It certainly would be worth buying if you want to check out some of MAGUS' early work. While "The Green Earth" and "The Garden" would also be nice additions to your Psychedelic collection.