MAGIQUE MISTRESS

Talk about a giant leap forward from New Aeon, and it's just in a span of one year, no wonder I've seen some discographies list Magique Mistress as being a 2001 release, rather than 1999, because you'd think there should be a wider gap between releases to come up with a release this ambitious.

For those that don't know of Heru Avenger, well, it's basically a space rock project lead by John Basil out of Orange County, California (not exactly space rock haven), and for this second (and final) release, he assembled a full band, to give it a fuller sound. I love the fact saxophones (played in a jazz style and not Kenny G.) are used, as well as vintage analog keyboards (even the clavinet is real). The title track has funky jamming with lots of jazzy guitar playing before the music switches over synthesizer. "Heka" is 30 minutes long, another funky jam with lots of distorted clavinet before the synthesizers start to take over. "Daughters of the Morning Stars" is just a great spacy piece that just blows me away.

This was it for Heru Avenger. I've heard a story of someone who knew John Basil personally, and apparently he worked at a record store and he didn't feel comfortable selling his CDs to just anyone, unless he knew what kind of music they were into (I'm sure he'd be happier if you stated to him groups like Ozric Tentacles, Ash Ra Tempel, and some jazz rock and fusion groups are what you enjoy). But even so, he couldn't stop people ordering this online, or any other record store that stocked it. For me, I was very late in discovering Heru Avenger (just starting knowing them/him in 2008), well, better late than never. There is no getting around that Magique Mistress is the better of the two. Having full band interaction helps, as well as doing more on the synthesizer than just gliding it from one note to the next over and over (as on New Aeon). So naturally, Magique Mistress would be the place to go for, a nice obscure gem of space rock.