COSMIC MINDS AT PLAY

Without a question, you must grab a copy of this one kids! Mind bending, mood enhancing, life changing music with loads of wicked space grooves from these Swedish cosmo'nauts. Try to imagine an evening of the OZRICS mixed with HAWKWIND and the psychy late 60's west coast music scene and your not far from the truth. This album delivers tons of freaked out guitar solos layered on top of heavy keyboard laden swirling synth textured atmospheres with friendly support of the rhythm sections (drums and hand percussion.) Songs are nice and long with two tracks well over 20 mins and effortlessly explore the unique and diverse regions of your mind. Tempo changes are quite frequent and seem to nicely break up the music, preventing it from becoming too static or repetitive. "Cosmic Minds At Play" is clearly one of the most progressively psychedelic sound sculptures I have heard in a long long time and is simply killer brain food.

This is so far the best recording from THE SPACIOUS MIND that I have heard, containing four tracks with lengths varying between ten and twenty minutes. Unlike in symphonic music, these epics don't have much rhythm changes, difficult and distasteful solos nor new-age influenced lyrics. Playing evolves from simple compositional themes and the players create an euphoric, intensive and unique atmosphere in their music. The first and the last songs are the best in my opinion, and both two tracks in the middle are very good too. I have enjoyed this album both by meditating it at home, and while overspeeding on highway towards northern Lapland. If you're fond of improvisation and retro stuff, buy this CD without hesitation!

4.5 stars.This is such a trip ! I wasn't that impressed with "Organic Mind Solution" my only experience with this band, so I wasn't expecting much with this release.These guys are experts at creating atmospheric soundscapes that sort of drift along beautifully.They also can make a lot of noise. Haha. Two lead guitarists who often play them distorted and fuzzed out. Great music to play on a long journey.

"To Earth With Love" opens with various faint sounds that come and go. Cool section. There is no real melody until about 3 1/2 minutes in when we get a full sound. Crashing guitar sounds and e-bow lead the way. This full sound lasts for 4 minutes before a calm returns.The synths sound like PINK FLOYD at first. During the 7 minute calm we get a lot of e-bow and synths, some faint words can be heard as well. The full sound returns 14 1/2 minutes in. It sounds like SABBATH briefly before the doom-like guitar lightens up some. During the last couple of minutes it settles down once again. "Sunchild" is my favourite. Probably because of the PORCUPINE TREE flavour. This one is quite spacey, yet there is a lot of aggressive guitar. It calms down 5 1/2 minutes in with lots of spacey sounds. A couple of minutes later the guitar starts to make some noise. Nice. This part is very PT sounding. An absolutely amazing ending to the song as well.

"Dnimehts Of Us" opens with the sounds of water running and birds singing as the strummed acoustic guitar comes in. It builds in sound as drums and percussion join in. Vocals arrive. It actually sounds better when the vocals stop 4 1/2 minutes in.They're back 2 minutes later. Birds singing and running water to end it. The final track is called "Seashore Trees" clocking in at almost 22 minutes, still not the longest though as the first song is over 23 minutes.This is loud ! Distorted guitars and drums. A guitar melody a minute in is good followed by some scorching solos.The wall of fuzzed out guitars stop 5 minutes in. At the same time the drums take the lead in a TOOL-like fashion as the guitars are aggressivly played. This sounds incredible. More e-bow and percussion before it settles down after 10 minutes. A change after 15 minutes as a heavy soundscape arrives. A lot of noise actually. Haha. Words are sung Indain style to end the song.

This is pretty close to 5 stars in my book. My kind of music. You don't even have to leave the farm.