Sylvester Anfang II - Untitled

Nice. Trusty purveyors of bongy spacey jazzy psych rituals Sylvester Anfang II are the latest to chip in to the ever-impressive Latitudes series with these slow-burning improvisations, which total 35 minutes culled from three hours' worth of jams they recorded in a single day. For the most part it's a gnarly Popul Vuh-esque hazy, mystical sounding soup of wah guitar and dubby basslines, idly laying out sultry churning psych grooves. There's been a bit of a psych resurgence of late and I think these guys fit nicely into it...they're treading a path that's somewhere between the minimal psychedelic rituals of Sun Araw or Master Musicians of Bukkake and the more rock-oriented likes of White Hills or Gnod, which doesn't seem like the worst place to be really. There's trails of twiddly overdriven guitar and swirling choral synths over ritualistic drums that offer a rolling tribal bubble that holds everything together. Really enjoying these jams. They're restrained and therapeutic without veering too far away from the rock side of things. In fact one of the tracks kicks off with almost mod-ish jangly guitar riff that totally took me by surprise, before it descends into some gloriously mangled space jamming with pounding kraut drums, a Cave-esque bassline, explorative guitar with lots of treble and gain and valve amp abuse and Hawkwind whooshes in the background. Yeah! Aside from that things are kept more tasteful and low-key and cosmic though, inviting itself to lounge extravagantly in the tatty opium den of your heart. If you enjoyed the Eternal Tapestry & Sun Araw collab LP I reckon you'll really dig this. The cover here is a delight to behold, too. Latitudes have really pulled out all the stops this time with quite an intricate die cut LP sleeve to make a party for the eyes as well as the ears. Only 500 of these pressed too, and orders are fulfilled on the usual you snooze you lose basis...