Selim Lemouchi and His Enemies – "Earth Air Spirit Fire Water" album review

For many, the sad demise of Dutch band The Devil’s Blood in 2013 after six years was an unanticipated shock. For Selim Lemouchi it proved to be an opportunity to take his music in another direction, and so Selim Lemouchi and His Enemies was born. The first release by this new project, “Mens Animus Corpus”, was thought to be an eclectic collection of material, at times described as stoner rock encapsulated in a psychedelic drama. The drama is no less evident on this latest release “Earth Air Spirit Fire Water” which has an almost theatrical feel to it throughout. With only five tracks, three of which are over ten minutes, there is time to push the boundaries of straight ahead rock into a more experimental arena.

“Chiaroscuro”, the opening piece, for example, begins with a lengthy narrative sample, which develops into an unsettling journey through grandiose chord progressions and percussion, with a chorus of demented sorceresses layered over the top to take the listener further and further down. One could almost think of this as music for an elaborate stage play dealing with the inner turmoil of mankind. The repetition, the entwining vocal lines and the over whelming production seem to envelop the music and draw the innocent in. The authority gently descends into the next piece “Next Stop, Universe B” which takes off into a more easily recognisable arrangement of bass, guitar and drums bounding onward and allowing the listener respite from the menace suggested at by its predecessor. Almost its natural successor on this journey is “The Ghost of Valentine” which drifts through the atmosphere in much the same way that some of Julian Cope’s more extended ambient pieces do. Reminiscent of early Tangerine Dream, with no palpable melody or rhythm to provide familiarity, the listener glides through his or her own subconscious.

“The Deep, Dark Waters” lures the traveller into a false sense of security after the mind manipulation of “The Ghost of Valentine”. Again we have guitar, bass and drum passages, which, on the surface appear to offer hope and familiarity, but reading between the lines the music takes on an ominous undertone. After a moment to regain the senses, the intensity raises itself again allowing the guitar to ascend and screech for all it is worth. The journey ends with “Molasses” which in many ways can be seen as a summing up of the four previous tracks. There is relentless guitar riffing underpinning swathes of intergalactic keyboard, cut through with the wraithlike vocal lines of Lemouchi’s sister Farida…

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Cave - "Threace" album review

Chicago band Cave, over their six-year history, have earned themselves a reputation as being the torchbearers of the contemporary “Krautrock” sound. Locked progressions and riffs that repeat just long enough to be irritating to hear, or fascinating to immerse into, depending upon the listeners’ proclivity. In many ways it would be too simplistic to make reference to such seminal, and oft cited names such as Can, Faust, Neu and Amon Duul. Reference has also been made to the similarities between their style of playing and bands such asStereolab. Sadly comparisons such as this can a hindrance in putting contemporary music such as this into context. Far from harking back to a golden era of repletion in music, Cave brings motorik right up to date.

The five tracks that make up “Threace” each clock in at around the nine or ten minute mark, and palpably push the listeners perception of what may be possible with repetition. The compositions themselves are in no way particularly complex or angular in structure in the way that some “post rock” outfits take on the hypnotic. ‘Sweaty Fingers’ for example is laden with a funky groove, which owes as much to early 1970’s Miles Davis and the relentless momentum of “Rite” by Julian Cope, as it does to the German experimental scene. The repeating motifs genuinely get deep inside the listeners psyche, as sparse guitar and bass lines scratch away for four or five minutes. Again, depending upon the listeners’ point of view, this repetition is absurd, or a deeply spiritual experience.

‘Silver Headband’ quickly puts its’ cards on the table and lets the listener know that what you will be hearing here is unadulterated repetition, with no obvious change in dynamic and no significant layering of sound. Here we have music that is trying its hardest to be interesting and different, but music which is giving the listener space to immerse themselves and allowing them permission to indulge. It could be argued that compositions such as ‘Arrows Myth’ and ‘Shiaawka’, with their suggestion of mystical jazz-rock, do benefit from, and become more accessible because of, layers of instrumentation, which bring to mind the mid-1970’s jazz-rock of Frank Zappa on albums such as “The Grand Wazoo”…

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