HEAVY MOON

"Heavy Moon" is the name of the project headed by Jakob Rehlinger (from Moonwood) from Toronto, ON Canada. Jakob plays pretty much all of the music for this psychedelic/space rock band and has been putting out albums since 2006. The project has released 14 albums since that time with the album "Fourteen" being released in June of 2019. The album is bookended by the longer tracks, the first at just over 7 minutes and the last track at over 11 minutes with 6 other tracks which stay round the 5 ? 6 minute mark. This leaves 8 tracks total with a total time of over 53 minutes with Jakob playing all of the instruments.

"Atom Bomb Mother" starts things off with spacey sounding guitars, organ and light percussion. Soon, the beat becomes a moderate and steady foundation for the wandering organ, guitar and bass which moves along blissfully. The music is so effective that my cat stretched out in the sunshine on the window sill and rode the intergalactic wave together with me. "Burnt Side of the Moon" uses a fuzzier and more metallic sounding guitar while spacey effects swirl around and a hollow sounding effect echoes in the background. "Vermillion Dawn, Pt. 1" has a smoother vibe with acoustic and electric guitars with organ and synth in the background, but they later expand to the front of the mix.

"Wasteland Sunset" is a nice, relaxing psychedelic excersize with strumming acoustic guitars and shimmering synth effects with a continuous easy beat. Very nice and easy to listen to. "Quantum Locomotive" floats along with no beat at first coasting on the fluttering synths. After a while, a fast beat fades in with a "chug chug" of guitars in the background making you feel like you are riding on a psychedelic train. "Trans Wasteland Express" is a lot slower as the train theme continues, this time with a feeling of creeping slowly across an Armegeddian landscape. Synths carry the heavier melody with layers of organ and guitars underneath it all. Before 3 minutes, the tempo switches to a faster beat as the train is represented by the churning organ and the guitar and synths play improvised melodies.

"Vermillion Dawn, Pt. 2" comes next, this time with a heavier beat and echoing guitars with high pitched keys and space effects. There is a quasi-funky feel in the guitars mixed way to the back of the track. The vibe-like keys keep things feeling smooth like the first part, but the feel is a little bit heavier. "Atomic Crucible" is the last (and longest) track on the album. It has a much heavier beat which is also catchy, with the bass echoing the beat and cool vocal effects peering out of the synth and organ layers. The beat is reminiscent of time passing while effects continue to swirl around as the music remains based around a single chord. As the music plays through the last half, the music slowly disassembles itself, losing layers as it continues to the end.

The music is mostly driven by synths and organs which provide most of the improvisational melody lines with guitars providing mostly differing layers of heaviness throughout and taking over the melodic lines from time to time. Other than the vocal effects on the last track, the music is all instrumental and is surprisingly smooth sounding giving it a more "neo" approach to psychedelic and space rock. But the feel is the same, utilizing the feel of "Ozric Tentacles" in a more atmospheric and improvised atmosphere than that band, less structure, more improvisation and more free flowing. The music is quite blissful and will take you on a psychedelic journey if you allow it to, or it can just be relaxing background music if you prefer. Either way, it is done quite well and it is very easy to listen to. The tracks are kept down to a more digestible length, except for the last track, and that makes them easier to listen to in a single sitting. When listened to in the right setting, this is excellent psychedelic/space rock, really smooth sounding and easy to lose yourself in.

Talk about an amazing piece of space rock. Jakob Relinger is from Canada, aside from his Moonwind project, is Heavy Moon. What I love about Heavy Moon is there is zero confusion in chronological order in discography as they're all numbered (even Chicago and Soft Machine didn't number every release). This, like Trip Lava out of Minneapolis is entirely a one-man space rock project. Jakob plays everything you hear here, including guitars, keyboards and synths, bass, and drums. Musically I get reminded of the early space rock-era Porcupine Tree, Pink Floyd, and Hawkwind, with that Pink Floyd-type pace, and lots of great space synthesizers. Also what I really love is the consistency of this album so there's really no use trying to pick out highlights. For those who enjoy this type of music, this stuff needs to be heard! 12 just happens to be the first thing I ever heard, and I was able to acquire the cassette, whose quality really blew me away, because I've encountered many cassettes from various artists from Bandcamp and the sound quality left something to be desired, but not here! For those who love space rock, this comes highly recommended!