Various – Shrunken Head Music (Double 7")

Krautrock, kosmiche and prog alert! Explore some inner space with this limited double 7” white vinyl!

More usually associated with the long-playing record, such genres as krautrock and progressive rock sit remarkably well on this double 7” single. As is customary with Fruits De Mer Records it's a selection of covers given over to modern make-overs. This double single opens with Frobisher Neck covering Brainticket's To Another Universe. Made with just a a Mellotron, it's impressive stuff, setting the tone of exploratory repetitiveness that characterises the rest of the EP.

Black Tempest bravely have a stab at Tangerine Dream's Rubycon Part 1, reining it in at five and half minutes in length. It works though, meditative drone giving way to motorik drive, all the while oscillating nicely.

Vespero show they're equally adept at covering Faust as they are Pink Floyd with their version of J'ai Mal Aux Dents. Repetitively hypnotic with conscious expanding guitar explorations and random vocal declarations. It's seven and a half minutes of driving band dynamics, with not a blues scale in sight.

Jay Tausig rounds the EP off with a version of Gong's The Glorious Om Riff. The opening vocal mantra giving way to the EP's most rockist track, with panned guitar breaks, synthesized sonics, and Coltrane-esque squally saxophone lines, all held together by a solid rhythm section. Get in! A truly satisfying collection, this may just be the pick of the crop in Fruit De Mer's current batch of 7” releases.

TRACKLISTING

1 – Frobisher Neck – To Another Universe (originally by Brainticket)

2 – Black Tempest – Rubycon Part 1 (Tangerine Dream)

3 – Vespero – J'ai Mal Aux Dents (Faust)

4 – Jay Tausig – The Glorious Om Riff (Gong)

Click here for more on Frobisher Neck.

Click here for more on Black Tempest.

Click here for more on Vespero.

Click here for more on Jay Tausig.

Click here for the Fruit De Mer Records website.