Our single of the week (20th January 2012)
...according to our Brian on Thu 19 Jan, 2012.
Icelandic psych-drone rock merchants Dead Skeletons have been garnering much praise recently on a label affiliated with cult psych-garage-gaze fuck-ups The BJM. Now this single is the first thing I've heard recently that's even half worthwhile on the puppet Too Pure label (puppet as it's not really Too Pure now is it? They'd never have put a fraction of the shit out that's appeared on this dubious singles club) 'Om Mani Peme Hung' is a cracking tune that merges pulsing technoid rhythms, star-gazing psych guitar drift, a motorik riff-tastic surge and muffled echo-laden mantras into a propulsive shamanic beast of a track. Flip over for 'Yama' which is denser, heavier and almost quasi-industrial, a monolithic slice of stomping voodoo-psych/tribal stoner rock which has you wishing to be straddling the tip of a mountain dressed only in some whiffy animal skins screaming at the sun. I'm actually so blown away by the blistering stentorian intensity of this track I'm going to invest in my first seven inch for some weeks......be quick on this one, honestly, I'm nae kidding aroooond. Blue vinyl, hand numbered, soon to be gold-dust.
• It seems fitting that with a new year dawning for the Too Pure Singles Club the label introduce you to the dead philosophy of Dead Skeletons.
• What is a Dead Skeleton? Can such an entity exist? Sonic wizards Jon Saemunder, Henrik Bjornsson and Ryan Carlson Van Kriedt probe such questions of depth and intensity through their own brand of magick and music.
• Dead Skeletons came into existence in 2008 when Jon needed some music for an art installation in the Reykjavik Art Museum. Enlisting the help of good friend Henrik Bjornsson and Ryan Carlson Van Kriedt, pleased with the results the trio penned more songs which would eventually become the Dead Magick album, a 72 minute, 12 song journey through space and time, life and death. Recording over a long period of time between September 2008 to Spring 2011, ‘Om Mani Peme Hung’ was one of the results of this process and the song that caught the attention at Too Pure.
• The techniques and instrumentation that Dead Skeletons use create an ambient soundscape ranging from triumphant to apocalyptic, to meditative and undeniably uplifting. Merging the old with the new, or rather rephrasing ancient wisdom in a format accessible to the modern mind is one of Dead Skeletons many gifts.
Tom Devine said:
loved it!
So, what do you think? Best reviewer each month gets £10 off their next order!