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Time for the third and final review of the first month of this project. I have definitely saved the best for last. But I have also been ordering the albums by increasing variety of instrumentation. I started with Jake Schrock's electronic-only "Tropical Depression", then Majeure bought live drumming into the mix with "Mass Flashback". Finally we have arrived at
which keeps the heavy synth focus which is the unifying theme of this month but layers on not only drums but guitar, bass and even a flute.
No two ways about it: I friggin' love this album. Not only that, I've been "peeking" at Sungod's other works and I friggin' love this band. One of next month's three albums will be another by Sungod, I guarantee it. But, let's focus on Wave Refraction for now.
The album opens fantastically with it's longest track, "Little Gold Mouth". This is a ten and a half minute high energy Kraut-/space-rock onslaught with the classic pounding motorik beat and a catchy repetitive guitar riff. It strikes a great balance between being hypnotic without being annoyingly repetitive. It reminds me of nothing so much as Hawkwind at their heavier moments. When I was a kid without independent access to music of my own choosing, my only options beyond the radio where what my parents had lying around, and my Dad had a lot of Hawkwind tapes. They were probably my first major musical influence. A *lot* of this probably came down to the heavy sci-fi styling of much of their lyrics and album art (are you sensing a theme yet?), which already aligned with what I was enjoying outside of music through movies and books.
After this powerful opening, the album moves into 25 minutes (split over 4 tracks) of slower, gentler, less rhythmic spaced-out psychadelic stuff which reminds me at times of Pink Floyd (another influence I can thank Dad for). The transition from Little Gold Mouth into the first of these tracks ("Hypnotism") is extremely well done. The album never returns to the energy it starts with, but it never gets boring either, it drifts along in a really captivating way, alternating between being dominated by synth and by the other instruments. There are times when things get purely acoustic, like the ending of Hypnotism which is just drums and flute (including, if I'm not mistaken, tabla or some other kind of hand-drum alongside the "standard" drum kit). At times the sound almost takes on an "ethnic" or "world music" vibe, without feeling cheesy (to my ears) or feeling out place amongst the generally spacey vibe of the entire album.
The final track, "Von Innen" is kind of an oddity. It's the only track on the whole album which is purely electronic. This alone wouldn't necessarily make it stand out too much, but it just doesn't *sound* like the other tracks either. It uses this kind of cheesy synthesised clap or high-hat sound which sounds very out of place to me and like it belongs in much more dance-oriented music. I actually don't mind the song at all, I'm just not sure it fits on this album. But then, from the sampling I've done of Sungod's other albums, it's clear that they are a very versatile band. They clearly have a core sound, and I love it, but they're not afraid to sometimes slip in the occasional curveball (I've heard some bluesy acoustic guitar work on one album), which I can totally get behind. Von Innen is just Wave Refraction's curveball.
For whatever reason, I never really pursued spacerock and associated genres beyond my childhood Hawkwind fanhood. I think perhaps I just didn't think there was that much stuff like it out there. I am hugely excited to have discovered that there *is* stuff out there like it, being made today, and that it's *really* good. In some ways, this feels like the most natural turn in the world for my listening habits to take. After years of listening to metal followed by years of listening to early electronic music, why not turn to music that combines elements of both? I've been exploring in this direction in preparation for next month's purchases (I want to make them all on June 5th - on this day Bandcamp are waiving their usual share of each purchase and passing all the money on to artists), and also investigating adjacent genres, including psych rock and drone rock/metal. I already feel like this project is paying off big time!