ELECTRIC MOON

4.5 stars. I'm a big fan of Dave Schmidt or if you wish Sula Bassana and this German's many musical outlets. This is my favourite of those outlets ELECTRIC MOON. Basically a trio of bass, guitar and drums with Schmidt adding guitar, synths, vocals and effects. Dave also recorded, produced and mixed this recording. I have to mention Komet Lulu who also plays with Schmidt in ZONE SIX, well she's the bass player and adds, vocals, effects, space echo and bass synths. Oh, she's an Illustrator by trade so check out the art work she does on this band's albums. What a talent.

I was so impressed with this band's latest called "Stardust Rituals". It's not as powerful as "The Doomsday Machine" which is fuelled by those distorted guitar expressions, no it's driven by the organ much of the time and is quite trippy. I prefer the new one surprisingly which is a top ten for 2017 for me. "The Doomsday Machine" is a long one as a lot of Space Rock albums are at almost 80 minutes while "Stardust Rituals" clocks in at 45 plus minutes. Both are essential in my opinion.

"Doomsday Machine" opens with this ominous repetitive beat with a fuzzed out guitar and bass helping out. Male vocals come in with a monotoned flavour a minute in. This is a mid-paced head banger and the guitar 3 minutes in is just screaming. Love that guitar before 7 minutes as well as the heaviness with vocals continues to lay waste. The heavy riffs and beats stop before 12 minutes as we get hit with a distorted guitar and then it turns dark and experimental. That heavy beat is back after 16 minutes as the vocals also return.

"Kleiner Knaller" is a top three track along with the next two. This one starts off in a laid back manner with bass, drums and relaxed guitar but it's building in intensity and tempo. Here we go! Just killing it before 2 minutes and check out the distortion before 3 minutes as they rip it up.

"Spaceman" opens with pulsating sounds that are speeding up until the disappear as a heavy groove kicks in. Great sound here. It's speeding up before 1 1/2 minutes. The guitar is grinding away almost swirling. So cool. Intense as distant male vocals arrive but they don't stay long. It starts to slow down 5 1/2 minutes in. This is really good too, love the bass and distant female vocals. She's back with space whispers before 8 minutes as sounds echo. It settles back quite a bit after 11 1/2 minutes to a more trippy, atmospheric sound to the end. Nice.

"Stardust Service" opens with distortion galore then the drums and bass kick in with a groove as the distorted guitar solos over top with aggression. It settles back at 1 1/2 minutes as the drums, bass and distorted guitar continue, just not as in your face. Spoken words before 2 1/2 minutes. Nice bass 3 1/2 minutes in as the spoken words continue. So good! The heaviness is back before 5 1/2 minutes as the vocals step aside for two minutes. How heavy is this at 8 1/2 minutes. It's slowed right down at 10 1/2 minutes then after 12 minutes it's pretty much drums, synths and some heavy bass lines. Spoken distorted words before 13 minutes. It's building again! It keeps building and the tempo is speeding up until all hell breaks loose. A calm with spoken words ends it. What a song!

"Feigenmonolog" opens with some deep atmosphere with guitar expressions in this laid back start. Before 2 minutes we get this BLACK SABBATH-like heaviness as it starts to build. Love that distorted guitar and check it out after 7 1/2 minutes. Just killing it! It settles back after 9 1/2 minutes and the distortion stops after 10 minutes as we get bass and drums with picked guitar. Nice. It settles back again at 13 minutes. Another calm then it's building again 16 minutes in until they are lighting it up big time once again. Check it out before 18 minutes!

This is my kind of music.

Solid four stars of modern Kosmische Musick--containing one of the musical highpoints of the year in the nearly-23- minute epic, "(You Will) Live Forever Now." I hope to discover more of Sula Bassana's future compositions measuring up to that one!

1. "The Loop" (8:06) a simply constructed two chord exodus set up with organ, bass, drums, and guitar strums which are intended to provide the foundation for the heavily distorted vocal. The singer's pleasant voice sounds as if he's singing to you through bong water. At the end of the fourth minute the volume rises and there is a major shift in the music to a more hard-driving trip into hyperspace with heavily effected organ and keys representing our mode of transportation. Even with the shift, this song never really sucks me in like the fourth song. It's okay if you like RAY MANZAREK/THE DOORS jams. (8/10)

2. "Stardust (The Picture)" (10:13) opens as a straight-time, two-note plodding monster. Higher pitched vocals-- heavily treated, as usual--enter in the second minute. Then pitch-modulated "white noise" guitar play. The song really congeals at the end of the third minute. Multiple tracks of the "white noise" guitar begin to weave around and within each other. Pretty cool! (9/10)

3. "Astral Hitch Hike" (4:40) simple drums (lite cymbols and rim shots), bass, and sitar tracks open this one. Bass, drums and sitar slowly ramp up with the bass and sitar repeating their singular riffs over and over. Sitar drops off as intermittent echo-effected percussive hits to an electric guitar appear. The sitar melody riff returns for the final 40 seconds. Okay. Never really hooks one nor goes anywhere. (8/10)

4. "(You Will) Live Forever Now" (22:40) an amazing prog epic that starts slowly, like an ELECTRIC ORANGE or MY BROTHER THE WIND song, with a very New Age/Indian sound coming from hand percussives, electric bass, sitar, and gentle drumming, before settling into a steady and very engaging groove with a foundation that sounds amazingly like the musical base for ROBIN TROWER's jam at the end of his timeless song "Bridge of Sighs" at around the 4:10 mark. This moment coincides with the entrance of some dreamy, trippy vocals and keyboards and just before the advent of the electric guitarist's arrival. For the next minutes, it's just a slowly building, smooth ride on the cosmic sea of a great groove. At the end of the ninth minute the guitar chooses to go raunchy/heavy distortion just before the return of multiple ethereal voices. These haunting, lilting voices continue into the twelfth minute as the guitar slowly amps up his attack. By the time the thirteenth minute rolls around you know that all band members--bass, drums, vocalist and electric guitarist--are fully locked in and charging ahead with all cylinders firing. At 13:30 the guitar switches effects to more of a screaming feedback-responding screech, scratch, and squeal. Adrian Belew would be so proud! As we cross into the sixteenth minute a descending bend in the guitarists sustained note brings us into a quiet section. Everybody is tiptoeing now. Soft, peaceful, yet the groove is still there. At the 17-minute mark begin some signs that we'll be returning to high volume: guitar strums, the return of vocals, and, eventually, cymbol crashes and MELLOTRON! The glorious, timeless, essential Mellotron. The bass pulses, vocals haunt, drums pound, and 'tron shows us the light--until the guitar begins to seer us with its fire over the final minute and a half. Amazing! Beautiful! You know you've got a great song when all you want to do is get up and move and pretend that you're one of the trance players in the song! (10/10)

Thanks to Mellotron Storm for the heads up on this one. I had a great time playing the awesome 23-minute epic on my radio show last night--a real emotional highpoint. I've really enjoyed getting to know Sula Bassana's repertoire over the past year. Keep it up!

This was my first taste of ELECTRIC MOON and it was spellbinding to say the least. I understand this isn't as heavy as their previous albums and I'm looking forward to hearing some of those. As Rivertree mentions in his review this is a very trippy album and I really dig the sound. Not that this isn't without it's heaviness, it just trips along quite often to great affect. Really cool to see Dave Schmidt on here, otherwise known as Sula Bassana. He recorded it, mixed it and produced it. He also plays electric piano, electric sitar, guitar, effects, organ and mellotron. Go Dave!

"The Loop" is one of those trippy tunes. Organ and lots of depth to the sound here as guitar and drums help out. Vocals just after a minute and they sound processed and distant. Vocals step aside around 3 minutes as the guitar starts to solo over top and then it turns more powerful after 4 minutes as the tempo picks up. Here we go!

"Stardust(The Picture)" is a top two with the closing number. Man this has that slowish, heavy sound. It's like the fuzzed out guitar is percolating as distant sounding vocals join in. That guitar is so fuzzed out I'm calling the cops. This has to be illegal. It's like a jet taking off 4 minutes in. Oh my!

"Astral Hitch Hike" is a short under 5 minute tune as we get keyboards that slowly pulse with a beat, bass and sitar. We get this repetitive melody with sitar over top throughout.

"(You Will)Live Forever" is the 22 1/2 minute closer. Faint sounds come and go and this is interesting to really listen to. I love the atmosphere. This sounds so exotic when the sitar joins in as it trips along. Distant vocals after 4 minutes. Love that fuzzed out guitar before 11 minutes. It starts to settle right down before 15 minutes. Some brief vocals after 18 minutes then it starts to turn powerful again, especially that atmosphere. Intense is the word 21 minutes in!

Without question one of the best albums from 2017 in my opinion. I'm really intrigued about their earlier albums now that I've heard this one. A must for fans of Psychedelic music.

Wow! Just another ELECTRIC MOON facet! This is effectively meeting my taste while being more smoothed and relaxed than heavy acid stoner as usual. Except Stardust (The Picture) maybe, the trio is on a very trippiesque excursion here. This one was recorded earlier already in 2014 and played live in the aftermath, though here appearing somewhat refined with vocals and overdubs. As for the dominant atmosphere just follow the extended You Will Live Forever Now and you'll know what I mean.

Sula acts like a magician, while weaving a wonderful cosmic piano, melancholic mellotron, indo/raga flavoured sitar ... and finally those multiple wah-wah drenched and soaring guitar decorations, the latter partially reminiscent of the Hypnotizer release. The looping flow will be consolidated due to nice repetitive bass lines contributed by Komet Lulu and Marcus Schnitzler's accentuated drum playing, careful, subtle. The real award anyhow goes the shortest offer, the lovely Astral Hitch Hike, not an accidental product, I'm quite sure.

The result of varying experiences over decades, more likely conceived with a clear preference on song writing, rather than jamming with intuition solely. I did not follow every band album, hence don't know exactly, if this is their first attempt to test some vocals. Bassist Lulu provides this in a mysterious, mournful, ethereal manner. Mastered by Eroc as usual 'Stardust Rituals' is a spellbinding journey crossing the band's inner cosmos, overall a very good statement featuring a proper amount of oriental flair.

That little grey puddle on the floor you're politely avoiding is what's left of my brain, after being introduced to the single-minded intensity of this Acid Rock power trio from somewhere in Germany (by way of Alpha Centauri, no doubt). Discovering the band was not unlike meeting the business end of a sledgehammer aimed at your head: if nothing else, you have to respect the sheer visceral impact of the experience.

The entire album, all of it instrumental, has only two lopsided tracks. The opening fusillade, "Mental Record", immediately charts a course toward the outer cosmos, but it's only a prologue to the all-too aptly named title track: a relentless 52-minute juggernaut of a jam session (and no, that length is not a slip of the fingers). So, how does one develop an almost hour-long, one-chord improvisation without it sounding completely self-indulgent? Very slowly, as it turns out, and with a lot of stamina.

Hell, even the most amateur punk rocker typically needs three chords to form a band. But that's a few too many for interstellar voyagers like Electric Moon. The effects-driven lead guitar of Sula Bassana sets the pace; the unfussy bass playing of Komet Lulu provides the anchor (she also created the eye-frying lysergic cover art: another facet of the band's admirable DIY aesthetic). And the stock of cool pseudonyms apparently ran out before reaching Alex the drummer.

There's nothing particularly complicated here, no true instrumental virtuosity or thematic musical development. Just pure, hardcore psychedelia, played at punishing length: the perfect diversion for all you cosmic rock masochists (and you know who you are). Why bother indulging in recreational drugs, with music like this to bend your tender psyche into möbius strips?

This is only speculation, but I'm guessing the group's albums are more or less interchangeable. So this one probably works as well as any other, with a caution: if played loud enough and long enough, it may ultimately prove fatal. But what a way to go.

Mind the puddle, on your way out...

New space rock from the Germany/Austria region - this forces to explore the line-up immediately ... and what a surprise ... real-whizz kid Sula Bassana is involved here too (of course, one or two may say). Some references to projects like Interkosmos or his solo stuff are obvious. As a multi-instrumentalist he thoroughly could have played all the equipment on his own, but this time Sula collaborates with Pablo Carneval (drums) and Komet Lulu (bass), who is also responsible for the nice album artwork by the way. Which means Sula handles the guitars and organ this time. And altogether they are ELECTRIC MOON.

Except the well-placed Eric Burdon remake Hotel Hell the other four songs are written by the complete band and beyond the ten minute mark. Cosmic jamming is the name of the game once again. 'Dangerous Planet Girls' ... ohoooo ... Gefährliche Planetengirls is the album's opener and a highlight for sure. First this sounds like they are linking to the Nasoni Pop Art Experimental Band in some way. Wah wah and organ serve a 70's feeling. Gradually a groovy hypnotic beat emerges, the rhythm mates are playing solid where Sula Bassana cares for all the other goodies speaking of tons of soaring and echoed space guitars. This sounds like they put heart and soul into it.

The same applies for the title track dominated by double tracked guitars, more fuzz styled this time and nicely spaced out at the end. Despite all the ups and downs on Brain Eaters Lulu's bass is mysteriously stoic and doomy, equivalent to the spaceship's secure working prime machine which is absolutely useful to get along on a dangerous trip. And above all Sula arranges massive guitar walls.

The extended Moon Love starts trippy hallucinatory, is seemingly meandering disoriented for a while accompanied by whispering voices until it's gathering speed really, reaching for some heavy maybe even stoner moments. I have problems to get it nevertheless - all in all this 23 minute monster track lacks of inspiration a bit - too much of a good thing as for my impression.

The band's debut 'Lunatics' was released on NASONI and is made of hypnotic grooves and spacey respectively fuzzy guitars. Hence here we have another proper effort inspired by Dave Schmidt's cosmic attitude and headed by his guitar skills. This album does not provide something revolutionary new, except the line-up if you will. Surely a must have for die-hard space rock lovers though.