strange fish #5

And so to strange fish5. You thought there was four right. Wrong. Numbers allowing those who buy into the whole package and order all four volumes in one fell swoop get the luxury of receiving a whole CD’s worth of rarities that alas missed the final cut whether due to their length or happened that they didn’t quite fit the original Strange fish remit. Ten tracks shoehorned into 73 minutes of sounds, not bad as a freebie and rather than being some mere afterthought of fillers its a collection that holds its head and punches its weight in terms of relevance and listening excellence. Its here that both Beau and DB Turi make appearances along with a host of other cosmically inclined minds all vying for your attention and future fondness among the roll call the precocious and dare we say exceptional talent that is Jay Tausig. Its to the sonic despatches serviced by Beau and DB Turi that we turn our initial opening interest. Beau perhaps best known via his two full lengths for John Peel’s Dandelion imprint wherein his enlisted the assistance of various tractor personage before disappearing off radar and into obscurity has to muddy the waters and confuse matters a touch been known to oft re-emerge under his birth names John Trevor / Trevor Midgley – those wanting a fuller brief as to his various happenings are thoroughly recommended to hop over to the strange brew site where sits an detailed and insightful interview with the great man. ‘rainbow jam theme’ featured here is a charming curio recorded for an intended video project in the 80’s that sounds to these ears like a psyched out and trippy re-thrill of some classic 70’s TV quiz or kids show – kind of Magpie meets Ask the Family given a velvet loons and paisley shirt makeover. If the rumour is true then DB Turi must surely qualify and outrank anyone you’d care to mention as a deserving contender of any great lost / where have you been column inch grabbing hidey hole. Legend has it he was around in the late 60’s an early 70’s grooving, hanging out and influencing the great and the good of the underground scene. To date – hard to believe – there have been no official recordings – until that is – now with the  discovery of various tape artefacts one of which ‘Neptune Delta 7’ is available for viewing at http://www.dbturi.bandcamp.com with the impish promise of more to come. Rounding up Volume 5 is ’der flammenwarfer’ – a deeply intense dream drizzled odyssey that borders on the spiritual, pinpointed on an axis where Acid Mothers and Dungen collide, DB Turi crafts a hot molten magma of primal cosmic blues sautéd in moments of mellowed and graceful inclines with washes of trippy hazes of lysergia which stirred together and left to simmer forms a formidable head trip of Technicolored tonality. Rewind the clock hands back to the eve of the millennium and you’ll observe Michael Padilla of Soft Bombs fame drawing upon the elements as Elevation to weave a mesmerising drone symphony from the very same aural tapestry of a youthful Aidan Baker and into the mix sugar dip oodles of Australasian mantras, reverb snow bursts and dust crusted cosmic wooziness to its template. If memory serves me right I’m certain that Jay Tausig has in the very recent past been wowing starry eyed stereophonic heads by way of a year long album a month’s worth of Zodiac related nuggets, at 10 minutes in length ’shortwave’ sees him channelling his aural alchemy into a mind blowing sonic lightshow, a no boundaries genre bending brew heavily inscribed in 70’s styled essences and blessed with a parentage suggesting its lineage owes to pink floyd and a young hawkwind, all the time between the motorik fuelling stops and the driving galactic pulsars milky white mirages interplay and spiral with hazy hypnotism to a deft timeless intricacy that might well cause the greening of the gills amongst his peers. Next up the excellently named golden cake company whose ’floating with…..’ has I should admit been the cause of much admiring swoon falls in the Sunday Experience meditation lab, crystalline orbs twinkle spun old school electronics and a healthy side serving of woozy blissfulness is trimmed, tuned and tamed to create a deceptively delicate and dainty lunar lullaby. Stately, measured and mercurial are perhaps just three words that might appear first glance perfectly apt for describing the Cream People’s opus ’will of the cusp’ at 15 minutes in length colossal, enigmatic and serene might serve as three more, noodling ear candy cut from the mellowing post rocking armoury of Kranky old schoolers Stars of the Lid and LaBradford with perhaps a smidgeon of mid 90’s Roy Montgomery and Gavin Martin thrown in for good measure albeit viewed through the post punk visors of Artery after a heavy night blissing out on 70’s bearded sorts Mountain – best experienced doused in a haze and smoking a fat one. More admiring glances in the general direction of Mademoiselle Marquee here afforded the groove space to seduce all by way of a brace of cuts – ’salvia’ and ’sunflowersingle’ – if I didn’t know better the former is very out there with James McKeown who in case you forgot – tut tut – appeared on Volume 4 to much eyebrow raised appreciation – and something that ought to appeal greatly to long time admirers of Yellow6 and Wil Bolton and while there’s the obvious tug of the shimmering sonic silhouettes that adorn here it’s the latter cut that gets our vote as best of twin set not least because it has an erstwhile soothed hymnal grace which all said put us in mind of a thoughtfully shy and retiring flying saucer attack. Meanwhile over at ground zero Oceanfire go careering into the heart of an imploding white star with the stirring heads down ’elevations’ – a seismic space rocking bad boy curdled in locked grooving slabs of mind altering mirages nailed on a cosmic chassis previously owned by hawkwind. Last up purple rock trip serve up some chime chivvied cosmic rupturing that wouldn’t look to out of place sat on a classic full length by the Church that is after having been given served a lesson in celestial atmospheric landscaping by a particularly playful and vapour trailed Grails.