the 13th dream of dr sardonicus III

Without wishing to labour on the obvious, you’ll find CD3 in your sonic stocking on the third day, a thirteen track instrumental haze of floral pastoral happenings (as found on the quite delightfully seafaring lull of the dissolving ‘lifelines’ by White Sails), frost bound celestial hymnals (easily calling to mind Simfonica’s frankly immense ‘mother Russia’ which aside holding the honour of weighing in with the lengthiest cut here also sounds like some greeting visitation from beyond the veil) and lilting delta blues bliss kisses, the latter of which we’re happily to attach to opening cut ‘April fool coda’ here served up by kuschty rye ergot – a cover no less of a Ronnie lane ditty from way back here softly turned into something of a demurring mist bound twilight treat – ah yes did we mention Fahey disciples will of course dig. Likewise channelling Fahey or more so Jack Rose albeit thumbing an old Neil Young songbook, Claudio Cataldi arrests all with the mountain folk groove of ‘ropes and strings’. Fast becoming a favourite around these here parts Julie’s Haircut shimmer in with the amorphous free spirit ‘karlsruhe’ and into the bargain sumptuously join the dots between the weird ear groove of my cat is an alien and the stoned out  magic mushroom mirage happenings of Sonic Boom’s Spectrum. Mind expansion and head turning trip-a-delica a-go courtesy of Astralasia from (we suspect) their humungous third eye traversing dream draped and woozy live album – apparently just out now – ’Sargasso Sea’ is your out there and out of body dissipating astral gliding carpet ride – need we say more. Schnauser see out the grooves at the other end of the listening soiree courtesy of some kaleidoscopic bandstand bizarro ‘henry and his magic horse’ whose chirping brass regales might just imagine some kind of strangely surreal Catweazel meets the Bonzos extravaganza. Equally freaky and decidedly spun from tropical climes Earthling Society’s ‘equatorial gardens in the rain’ has the kind of markedly lazy eyed and fragmenting mosaics that one might expect to hear fleeting the phonic spaces had giant paw ever embarked on secret studio summit meetings with mirror mirror. Elsewhere both majestic and poised Solar Music’s ‘cosmic sadness’ purrs and pines like some forlorn and bruised star carved in the image of chill tipped Floyd and piloted by porcupine tree while superfjord steal in with a titanic live rendition of ‘the great vehicle’ along the way cutting star kissed stoned out shapes upon the solar horizons with their uber retro lock grooving funky freak out. Some frankly nifty Hook-esque bass noodling coos through the mystical hypno-grooving of Spurious Transients’ ‘juggernaut’ to imagine a still potently bruised ‘movement’ era New Order on some soul redeeming spiritual sojourn. If mellow murmurs be your band then Vostok’s wonderfully loop grooved bliss hazed ‘ash magma’ might just hit your sonic sweet spot whilst proving something of a listening treat for those adoring of the palace of swords (an album review coming – honest). Main event as far as we are concerned is the craig padilla kosmiche  face off with skip Murphy who collectively star gaze and voyage upon the great Zombi / Goblin axis on the mind freeing dream weaving ‘Caravan’.