Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood - Animal Speak (2004)

This group not only has a name that tickles imagination, their music also has all the necessary elements that make even a more free-formed acoustic music work, 100 %. The music starts with recognisable acoustic improvisations, builds on this, rebuilds and reshapes this in many various ways making an interesting diversity in evolution, which is varying from picked improvisations, over psychedelic hypnotic tensions towards parts with more organically entangling ritualistic microtonal combinations that evolve like a sound sculpture, where all instruments are melted into one moving being, that is capable of reshaping itself with rhythms, reforming abstract minimal territories to ritualistic shamanism.

The improvisation starting on the first track, “Om Agar”, with acoustic guitars (strummed and picking) and cello, slowly builds up the sphere. Slightly the recognisable structure is opened up to more free expressions. Additional filmic arranged sounds then change the tension to create hypnotic effects around the basic improvisation with electric guitars, voice effects and keyboards.., starting all kinds of microtonal communications. This tension is thoroughly sweeped up, making the guitars scream and echo around the place, building up a true psychedelic hypnosis. It will finally make the original compositional structure disappear into a drone, without any tonal chaos related with this, until a new leading tension is formed, expressing itself through the organic interaction between all instruments. Here the music becomes like a free sound sculpture. After “The Light Of Life” this is followed by “The Life of Light”, where the layers of picking with drumming starts all over, with a few structural chords to start improvising with. With some effects the music has once fallen back to earth, becoming ritualistic with its reformed elements, smoothly developing on an attractive rhythm, and with backing moody vocals. The hypnoses of the moment here is spherical and pleasant. Within small minimal areas building up, with some breathing effects and some keyboard drone, the drumming parts are really making the further movements very interesting, also because they are a combination of contradicting and building up rhythms. By the time of “Birds of Interspace” the shaped musical form is a spherical excursion. By the time of “Swallowed hole” these sound combinations had reformed their own ritual. Within all their minimal melodic- rhythmic tiny spaces, trying to communicate with a will to be reformed into a reshaped structure, it is especially the brooding bass of the cello which keeps together the tension of movements, amongst all beautiful entangling combinations of sounds of instruments. It’s especially at this point that all instrument are melted into one instrument. This kind of free search for new sounds and structures is nothing like a loose nonsense of instruments playing next to each other. It is the brooding organic psychedelic effect that makes them even here, at their most free point, far more than at random or than one or two dimensional music which a complete free moment musically often only brings. When the chaos part, governed by energetic tensions, calms down, the music changes to a ritual temple like music with temple rhythms, bells, and overtone like vibrations done on keyboards. Still unexpectedly the concluding track is in the 70’s prog/psych tradition of improvisation. Like a slow Krautrock improvisation with tiny spacey dub effects this last track, “Sericule” is played by psychedelic guitars, fine drumming and electric bass and even more spacey effects forming a psychedelic rocking highlight. At the time the track becomes freakier, with a new form of controlled loose chaos, I think that I could not have thought of a better conclusion than this. (psychedelicfolk)