A.M.

Latest, or at least the imminent and forthcoming via Trensmat sees the second full length – for the label that is – of New Zealand sound sculptor Antony Milton under his AM guise. As ever ultra limited, pressed up heavy duty coloured wax all housed in your typically eye catching sleeves and each coming complete with download codes of the six featured tracks. Now this follows hot on the heels of last years ‘black night burning set’ entitled ‘Dragonfly’ – it is in all honesty ultra cool. And with that we could have happily walked away, job done but I’m guessing you need a little more cajoling. Let’s try this then. Does your heart skip to blister kissed space grooves – check. Are you the kind of soul likely to subscribe to sounds that blur the psych, NZ noise pop and kraut rock divides – check. Do you like your listening experiences a tad wasted, trippy and tranced out and approaching the kind of freakish bliss kissed groove oft engaged by My Cat is an Alien albeit in shorter, sharper doses – check. Taking the concept of chill out to a whole different level, AM embarks on a journey, it’s a journey into the uncharted backwaters of krautrock’s vastly expanding spectrum for here be stoned out slabs of monolith skree that equally channel as much into the hallowed territories of say Neu! and Amon Duul (title track ‘dragonfly’ certainly proving the case in point shaping up as it does into a spacewalking slab of oblivion overdrive with a detectable undercurrent of Sabbathian ‘iron man‘-esque pulsars buried deep in its core access mainframe) as they do Bruce Russell and the other forward thinking sonic alchemists cutting their teeth upon the native home grown noise scene of the late 80’s. to the actual sounds then – opens with ’fake union of uplifted charlatans’ – a freakish wig flipping belching beatnik mutant mantra, a totally bonged psychotropic bad boy blessed with a funky underpin – which sticking necks out awaiting the onslaught of nay saying responses carefully crafted with harsh words of Anglo Saxon patronage – sounds like – if you scrunch your ears up ‘the lion sleeps tonight’ – nah just joking wanted to check you were still on your toes – do me a favour pass me that peace pipe over again I’m in need of a toot or two as I fear I’m losing the plot somewhat. The aptly titled ‘glass world’ is just that, a sparse hypnotic slice of vapour trailed ambience forged upon sustained orbs of bowed aural manipulations woozily dissolving, dissipating and reforming in the ether, very blissed out Aidan Baker if you ask me. For us the sets best moment by some distance is the galactic grandeur that is ’helioscope’, possessed of an almost monastic aura amid its shimmering silvery spun astral cloud opining into the desolate depths of the cosmic voids there’s a perceptible dead echo howl instilling a somewhat eerie disquiet to proceedings. Somewhere else ‘eight to eight’ is a horror phonic slab of scalding glitch gouged 8bit dementia whilst those of you fondly recalling Sonic Boom face off with Sunray for that ‘dream machine’ release a few years ago on the, as was, critically cool Earworm imprint may well be advised to check out the sets parting shot ‘true believer’. recorded live this hulking 13 minute mesmeric monolith is a skree scorched celestial carousel trip wired amid a backdrop of critical meltdown collages and the mind altering weave of the skull numbing cacophony of fury spasms. Recommended.