GAMELAN INTO THE MINK SUPERNATURAL

I didn't know what to expect from this album; I bought it on a whim after being intrigued by the title (you know it's prog when there's a phrase like "Mink Supernatural" in the title). Well, needless to say I was pleasantly surprised.

When I think "space rock," I tend to think of compositions like Pink Floyd's "Shine on You Crazy Diamond," where the melodies float around in a sea of pleasant ambience. That is not what this is. This is space rock, alright, but these guys are not gently floating, they are hurtling through at light speed, crashing into asteroids.

Silly metaphors aside, this is really a great album. "Megatherion" and "Para5" are almost noise rock, with very little proper melody to speak of but a lot of really cool and crazy sounds coming from the band's instruments. "Echoh Air," is a bit more structured, but not much, and the jamming has a very sixties kind of feel, to my ears anyway. The best point of reference I can give would be some early Pink Floyd like "Careful With That Axe, Eugene," but that' an admittedly imperfect comparison. There's probably some Krautrock that would be a better reference point, but my range of knowledge in that genre is pretty limited so I can't give a perfect example. "X-Visitations" I would almost describe as a dark ambient track, with a lot of scary sounding noises and effects. "Gamelan," reminds me quite a bit of Can's "Halleluhwah," where a fairly consistent drum beat is held steady while the sounds around it get crazier and crazier. Again, that's an imperfect comparison, but it's a similar sort of song, and with this kind of music it's hard to find good comparisons.

Overall, this all-instrumental album is a very good one, but certainly not for the faint of heart. Personally I think I'm a bit lucky this wasn't the floaty space rock i was envisioning, because I can't imagine that would have been anywhere near as interesting to listen to.

4/5