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Matt 'MV' Valentine, Erika 'EE' Elder & Moses Jiggs with Alex Neilson
As well as being one of the best looking pieces of picture disc vinyl I think I’ve ever seen this is a record thick with atmosphere. Matt 'MV' Valentine and his collaborators melt distinct moods into strands for a journey that goes from hash den to wasteland. This is the best thing Valentine and his regular collaborator Erika Elder have ever put their names to.
I’m going to run with the idea that all the songs on this LP were created from a combination of free playing and written melodies / parts. Things seem too loose to be played from scores and it’s far too consistently and conventionally melodic to be fully free. There’s equal room given to both rarefied journeying movements and hooks that shanghai the brain. Each song loosely wraps up a little universe that leaks a little as passages burrow their way inwards. Despite the many different paths taken the overall mood is that of relaxed harmony. This collective’s eponymous release avoids the hippy clichés of most psychedelic blues derived expansions.
"Raga Turasatana" is made up of some familiar elements but it instantly begins to develop into a gorgeously warm bed of music. Its delicate finger chimes glint off the sides of the crooked sitar notes creating a canopy of streaking angular patterned comets. "Poor Old Interstellar" might begin with some fairly traditional lost guitar soloing, but it soon drifts off leaving a slough of firefly sounds. This more familiar playing isn’t bad or annoying but can’t match the song’s underside droning spin. This is where the magic is on this collaborative effort, hidden deeper within the song. The same is true for "Goose Grease Rag", the only piece to features vocals. The infrequent chants build throughout this investigative piece gathering purpose like a rolling wave. These movements stretch like a pouring out of slow energy, revealing a high acoustic guitar strum and short-wave radio scanning. Sounds are glimpsed meaning it takes many subsequent listens to get zoned into the sounds place in the full picture of the song.
The only song that draws anything from darkness is "Pulsations." Its ring of menace aura drips raga stylings from under a bank of heavy pressure air, the slow low beat and jangling percussion creating trebly layers. It perfectly captures the feel of a Middle Eastern western that will never be scripted or filmed. Hopefully Matt Valentine will convene another session to see where they go next.
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