Mist – House 7.9

                Mist starts out in the best way possible. You’re immediately treated to a spastic, electronic version of ‘the rubber band’ from early Bugs Bunny cartoons. Then you hear the giant swells you’d expect from a member of Emeralds (John Elliot) and fellow komische revivalist Sam Goldberg. Despite this being meditative music, it moves quickly, never lingering too long. 

                A rhythm, however slight, moves all six of these tracks forward. They work on a large scale and often repeat central themes. Slowly they expand the template and size of each song. Eventually you get to the excellent one-two punch of the finale pieces. “Dead Occasion/Ovary Stunts” works cyclically with the beginning of the album. You’re re-introduced to near-percussion just as things begin to feel unreasonably loud. “P.m.”, works with deeper sounds.  Here they work to create a sense of wonder before introducing the rhythm of the piece.

                Spectrum Spools has proven itself to be fairly reliable in their releases. Thankfully their North American counterpart has proven itself worthy of Editions Mego’s considerable help. Mist more than exceeds my expectations. Perhaps even more than the previous releases, this is an extremely easy release to enjoy. If you want to ease someone away from krautrock into ambient, this would be an ideal starting point.

Colored Mushroom and the Medicine Rocks – Sea Channels 7.0

                Another Emeralds-side project comes to me. I’m glad they have so many, since they literally create a whole new movement of this kind of kosmische music. Sometimes when I think I’ve discovered a new band in this field, it is just another Emeralds side project. 

               Sea Channels really does it well, probably better than a lot of their other projects. Everything’s kept perfectly focused on movement. Yes, it does move, not just in traditional evolutionary forms, but from left to right. There is a lot of panning done on this EP, so if you’re not a fan of such kinds of gracious sweeps of sound, you might not enjoy this that much.

                It is book-ended by two of the longest tracks. “Sea Channels” includes the actual sound of flowing water before breaking into glorious light at the end. The two middle tracks even include a light drum machine; something generally frowned upon around these ambient parts. A slight beat only adds to the rhythm of the sounds rather than turning it into lame ambient with a beat. 

                “When We’re Both Gone” is the saddest piece on here. It has the slowest evolution out of all of the tracks, and for a while you might think it is just repeating endlessly. There’s more going on than what first meets the eye, which makes it a great closer.

                Hopefully John Elliot releases more stuff in this vein. I’d like that a lot.