Weites Luftmeer – Siebenunddreißigachtundvierzig (2016)

The almost old-school hard rock riff of Isosceles just comes flashing out of my speaker like holy fury. The intensity of the music forces me to my knees- I swear, this move looks cool in my head, despite the pain shooting through the back of my leg and my general awkwardness with such a “Rock Star” move.

It’s all that melodic fuzzed-out tone soaring out in every direction, reverberating through my skull with slashing blades of reverb and throbbing bass. Producing a thick haze that distorts your vision as you succumb to the music.  

The lead guitar pierces your ears, it hurts in the best way. Now you’re completely anesthetized. The fuzz of sounds in the back of your head begins to fragment and dissolve. The mind turns and focuses on the energetic drums and hypnotic bass-lines that are keeping our silver-machine on track towards the heavens.   

My personal internal monologue goes something like this: “At any moment, we could be thrown off course and smashed into a million pieces. Some will call us space trash, but we know better. There’s no looking back. Hang-on tight, my baby. Surely death and life awaits us”. And that’s just the first track. Once inside this space ritual, the situation starts to get real hot real fast.

This is heavy music with an oddly ambient atmosphere. Each of the four instrumentals builds with overwhelming walls of compressed distortion and feedback. Not so much Phil Spector or Velvet Underground, instead think more of the heavy, but melodic territory of Kyuss or Sleep.

Weites Luftmeer’s Siebenunddreißigachtundvierzig is a sonic voyage where you will only regret that it doesn’t last longer than a single LP.  It’s a sound you wish would never end. A contemporary, beautiful drone of psychedelic space rock with smoking hot sizzling space-riffs and deep, moving baselines that plod through your consciousness, creating a blissful but intelligent trip. By the time you arrive at side two for the eleven plus minutes of Trail of Thoughts, you are already a veteran space-traveler. This is not merely a retro trip. While you can hear the elements of so much influential music (Vangelis, Klaus Schulze, MBV and Spaceman 3) all over the beautiful record, the sum is greater than the parts. It’s a complex and, at times, oddly delicate sound despite the volume. And this is really where we meet the creativity of the band. Melodies being formed and explored right before our third eye, soft, gentle, and flowing, with your only decision being that of how deep into this trip you want to go.

Let’s take a moment here to mention the origins of this amazing record. The German experimental label Tonzonen Records is an independent record label dedicated to working with artists and musicians making music outside the corporatists mainstream. All of their releases are limited edition collectors’ items that strive to be “a statement of musical diversity. We mainly rely on the publication of high quality vinyl. In production, we work hand in hand with the respective musicians”. Each of Tonzonen’s releases is a distinctive piece of art and often sell out quickly. In fact, if you think Weites Luftmeer’s Siebenunddreißigachtundvierzig was something you are interested in exploring… there’s only a few copies left.

by Shawn Ciavattone