PINE SMOKE LODGE "From The Yellow" c90 + c38 (Existential Cloth)

It took me awhile (as in months) to even press play on this recording because I knew I was in for quite a journey and I needed to pack some supplies. There are over two hours of music on From The Yellow a late 2011 double album by Pine Smoke Lodge. While I would usually discourage artists from sharing quite this much of their "special talents" in one helping, the loooong player is actually an ideal format for this duo from Portland, Maine (my new home town -- holla atcha void).

This is echo-laden mystic drone at it's best. A hallucinatory wash of tambura, keyboards, bells and frame drum that can be forgiven it's mild pilfering of other culture's music due to the intense amount of dedication and patience that must have been required to produce such sounds. Pine Smoke Lodge is a male/female duo that came along at the tail end of the Portland folk-psych thing and they're still doing it like it's 2006. I've seen them unspool their thing live and it's quiet a treat if you're the kind who can sit still for 45 minutes. It's not new age, it's stone age. So show some support and get the tape, or write 'em a post card.

Looks like it's still available, but the total run was only 50 copies so act fast. Get it here. Sample or here or here. Check out their dense discography here

Guest Review IV - -VELVET ELVIS + ENDLESS CAVERNS

This guest review is by Daniel Letson of Berkeley, CA. Let the fur fly.

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velvet elvis - no rules in the wasteland (cae-sur-a)

• http://www.cae-sur-a.com/ve-no-rules/
  

When I first read the name "Velvet Elvis" I couldn't help but imagine some B-list Geffen cut-out or a 6th-wave freakbeat act. Instead, I ended up with a 30-odd minute tape full of plodding, canonical stoner rock, and Hawkwind-ish hard-fantasy vocal stylings. One side-legnth epic with requisite Moorcock/Frazetta imagery dominates, while the B-side is a few more mid-length chooglers.

In their own minds, Velvet Elvis is churning out hi-grade Sleep-axis riff rock, but on tape, Bongzilla is probably a little closer to the mark. Despite acceptable chops, and a certain recidivist chutzpa, nothing sticks. Guitars chug and cymbals clang, but I'd be hard pressed to call it psychedelic, and even harder pressed to call it important. The rich tape distortion keeps the whole affair on this side of lifeless, while the slogging "soundscape" at the end is a perverse highpoint, as keening feedback and (pro)found sounds display a modicum of stylistic liquidity. In the band's defense, this kind of outing might have been given a pass 5 years ago, when bespectacled beardos sipped craft beers and Slayer onesies were flying off the shelves. Today, it's innovate or die, and this kind of heavy middling isn't flipping any lids.

endless caverns - sensei deprevation I-III (existential cloth)

• http://getoffthecoast.blogspot.com/2010/11/sensei-deprivation-ii.html
• http://www.discogs.com/Endless-Caverns-Sensei-Deprivation/release/2644701
  

I'd never heard Endless Caverns before this tape, but one furtive glance at the unlabeled cover art lets you know this one is coming directly from a "burned mind" headspace. On side one, smokey licks tangle over 3rd world amp buzz and oppressive vibrato throbbing. The saturated fidelity puts a dreamtime haze over the proceedings, as looped n layered guitar lines are bathed in phaser+'wah. On the flip, things go from austere to jazzy, and back again, as melodies cascade and decay, with occasional found sound punctuation. All in all, a pleasant if somewhat monosyllabic exercise in eastern-tinged aural visioneering.

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MED.HAMMER "Shedding Life" (Existential Cloth) C60 Ed. of 20

Death drone. That's what this is. Simple, dark, heavy. I got my copy of this tape from Existential CEO Matt, himself on a recent trip up to Portland, ME. I listened to this driving done I-95 in the rain. I'm surprised I didn't drive myself through the guard rails into oblivion.

Shedding Life is just two thirty-ish minute live sets from their 2007 tour. Matt kept talking about what a blast that trip was. I would think these guys were dosing out on codeine the whole time, not partying. Goes to show you what I know. Maybe that is their kind of party. I wasn't there. I only know the end result, and its soul crushing.

So, to be clear, this ain't no Line-6 loop station mic and a singing bowl form of hippy drone. Shedding Life is one hell of a dark Thanatonic meditation aid. Next time I smoke salvia, I hope I remember to put this on. Hell or high water, it'll be a journey to remember.

Existential Cloth on Myspace.
Med Hammer on Myspace.