There are those that might forget that back in the day, when desert rock was first making its presence felt, the desert scene was kind of split into two camps, on one side their was the chugging riff orientated grooves of Kyuss and Unida but on the other side was the lysergic instrumental forays of Yawning Man and Karma To Burn. Europe seemed to embrace the latter camps more psychedelic elements and the emergence, on the international scene, of bands like Colour Haze and Rotor seemed to suddenly explode overnight. Where are we going with this you may ask? Well the answer to that question can be found on "Submerge" a six track instrumental opus from Swiss combo Son Cesano that owes a huge debt to both the desert party instrumental jams of those USA pioneers and the experimental textured grooves of their European cousins.
"Submerge" opens with its title track a song that utilises gentleness and serenity as its opening gambit then takes off in so many directions the listener will need a map to follow its path. Floydian flavoured guitar textures, that swoop and swirl over liquid deep bass tones and complex percussion vie for space with funky on the off beat reggae grooves, heavy lysergic psych jams and moments of stark and unsettling ambience to create an ever shifting soundscape that perfectly befits the songs aquatic theme. "Cold Sleep" follows and finds the band, either intentionally or unintentionally, hitting into a groove that would not sound out of place on an early Colour Haze album while next track "Aberration" sees them blending elements of the blues and funk into a song that in places recalls the more liquid prog/rave experiments of the UK's Ozric Tentacles. "Martini Effect", a song built around big booming and addictive bass lines, has a rockier stonier edge than what has gone before and is enhanced by emotive bluesy guitar colouring while "36070", though no less rockier, has a more ever shifting and schizophrenic vibe. "Dust Age" closes proceedings with a tune that travels from throbbing heavy psych through to shimmering ambience while taking in all the necessary stops in-between, undulating and absorbing it is a superb song to round out what is a superb album.
Stunning from its first note to its last Son Cesano's "Submerge" is not an album for listening to on the fly or as background music while doing something else, this is an album that needs to be listened from start to finish allowing the instrumental grooves to wash over you in wave upon glorious wave so as to allow you to better appreciate its heady lysergic textures and subtle psychedelic nuances.
Check it out …..
© 2019 Frazer Jones
No comments:
Post a Comment