As a child, I was obsessed with prehistoric life. While lumbering dinosaurs provided the primarily source of interested and excitement, the existence of ammonites and so-called ‘living fossils’ in the form of weird and wonderful creatures such as the nautilus were also a cause of genuine fascination. Similarly, I was utterly absorbed by the TV mini-series ‘The Return of Captain Nemo’. Commercial failure as it was, I was gripped by the seeming incongruity of sub-aquatic science fiction.
If this seems like some needless introductory preamble, it’s intended to contextualise my almost compulsive attraction to this release. The title implies a hybridity of prehistoricism and sci-fi futuricity, and this is replicated in the music it contains.
A sedate march provides the backdrop to dissonant brass which lands between jazz and post-rock on the album’s opening track ‘Carapace’. The album’s vibe combines slow, strolling proggy instrumentals with weird, space-age bloops and bleeps which break the delicate drift of the expansive compositions. Subaquatic murkiness floats into gravity-free ambience, breaking into wild krautrock/jazz workouts that extend to the horizon over hypnotic, motoric rhythms.
|
It’s an idiosyncratic work, out of time and space: evoking elements of 60s and 70s TV and film , as well as prog rock, jazz and the experimental zeitgeist of those long-past decades, ‘Astronautilus’ also feels like it shares a commonality with many experimental and so-called avant-garde works that continue to emerge from mainland Europe. As such, it makes for a quite disorientating listening experience, but one that’s far from unpleasant.
a href=" http://www.theblessing.co.uk/"> Get The Blessing Online
|