losingtoday.com
Mark Barton
We here are still recovering from the delayed after effects of this lots last mind tripping odyssey 'the men from Dystopia' released earlier this year on the ever dependable Beta Lactam Ring imprint and a volcanic psychedelic beast it was consisting of five primordial nuggets clocking in as a wig flipping grind ridden 73 minute cranial cruise that veered into similar sonic territories as fellow label mates the mighty Green Milk from the Planet Orange and the rejuvenated Psychic TV.
Led from the fore by guitarist Niko Potocnjak a man of whom it can be said without doubt whose string work is indelibly possessed by Hendrix and easily the most proficient riff-slinger that has come our way since Acid Mothers Temple started scorching our speakers for fun with Kawabata's festering freak outs, this Croatian quartet are the uber overlords of freeform pyrotechnic out there psychedelia.
'Black OM Rising' arrives as a 500 only double disc CD / DVD set housed in a superbly art worked book sleeve with inserts with the DVD featuring footage of the band performing the album live augmented by the accompanying audio CD. Admittedly a killer set that ups the ante on their aforementioned 'dystopia' set and reveals a creative mindset at work who aren't afraid to mix up their influences and blur the generic lines, distinctly curbed with an early 70's kraut dialect this babe blends elements of freeform jazz doodles (just check out Zlopasa's exemplary arid lysergic laced saxophone shimmies through out 'RA' - a deeply intoxicating and heady brew of dustbowl mirages and exotic middle Eastern expressionism that nods obviously to the mighty Sun Ra - the same trick is repeated to greater effect on the mind evaporating 'daktari'), space rock (none more so than the head welding hypnotic gridlocked grinds found on the opening monolithic mantra 'Fluxion' wherein they take their cue from Mugstar and wire into its core matrix some seriously out there and spaced out Syd moments), stoner (especially on the fried arabesque like gridlocked soup that is 'black om rising' - very prog- kosmik-jazz), deep psychedelia while even paying nods of sorts to Discord / Touch n Go with the fragmented and disjointed frenetic math grooved workout 'tearjerker' which rounds up the set.
Seven that Spells have crafted in 'Black OM Rising' a humungous primal Trojan horse that has circumnavigated its way through rocks lost eras finitely panning its finest treasures like some aural archaeologist and carved the resulting finds into a straight ahead solid state fat free slab of pure unadulterated head trip groove. The blissed out opines of the sky firing overloading arpeggio crests that tear away at the core nuclei of the opening sequence of the 'lo' triptych are just breathtaking and sound for all the world like some hulking cosmic cruiser taking off inside your head space destined for its maiden voyage deep into the mind's eye before being trepanned within an inch of your life via the furious maelstrom of the pummelling aftershocks of the nuts down strato-intensity of the blistering full throttle carnage of 'lo II'. the stoner-esque dirty blues cutie 'Lo III' concludes the trilogy - from out of the droning cacophony of the coalescing gnarled low strung bass gnarls and the side winding saxophone wails a mooching bastard stumbles into view intermittently erupting amid free forming hallucinogenic effects laden toxic mind warping skree intermissions.
In a class of their own.
www.brainwashed.com
Matthew Amundsen
What sets the band apart from other instrumental psych groups, besides their occasional synth, is their use of the saxophone, particularly on songs like "Ra" and "Lo III." Its playing is alternately soaring or frenetic, complementing the music perfectly and giving it a unique identity. Although all of the musicians are uniformly excellent, drummer Bruno Motik in particular stands out on tracks such as "Lo III" and "Daktari." His unconventional style brings a welcome urgency to these songs.
Unlike the work of some other instrumental groups, there is never a sense that these songs are lacking vocals. Their ever-evolving arrangements provide all the entertainment they need. The band goes from whirring electronics to tribal beats to straight-ahead rock to ear-shattering freakouts with ease. They are always full of surprises, even ending the album's finale, "Tearjerker," with an airy, palette-cleansing guitar cloud.
The flipside of the CD is a DVD of one of the band's live performances. While generally the bonus material that supplements an album tends to be of average or sub-par quality, this concert footage is actually pretty good. It doesn't waste time with any artsy gimmicks and shows the band under decent lighting, capturing their music with good sound quality. The songs themselves don't stray too far from how they sound on the album proper, but that's only a minor complaint. Since I'm not sure if I'll ever have the chance to see them live, it's nice to have this footage.
There seems to be a dearth of quality rock these days, but Black Om Rising goes a long way toward proving that wrong. Lacking any fashionable pretensions, the group simply lets their music speak for itself in all of its dazzling glory.
www.regenmag.com
Matthew Johnson
If only in comparison to last year's 70-minute epic, The Men from Dystopia, the newest album from Croatian experimental rock act Seven that Spells is surprisingly concise and straightforward. Without their friends from Japanese psychedelic band Acid Mothers Temple to add to the cacophony, they're down to a four-piece, but with screeching saxophone and spaced out synthesizer added to the standard rock arrangement of drums, bass, and guitar, they still sound immense. "Fluxion" opens things with science fiction noises and retro-futuristic keyboards but eventually launches into a cheerful jam session backed by earthy bass guitar, then "RA" really gets things going with a hypnotic tribal rhythm - reminiscent of Krautrock but far heaver - adorned with wailing sax that's been fed through so many effects pedals that it sounds less like brass than some mad scientist's death ray. The album's centerpiece is "LO," a three-part epic that starts off with dark, feedback-heavy droning, takes a detour into what sounds like an army of guitarists suffering a collective nervous breakdown, then finishes up with a grim post-punk improvisation that's more reminiscent of Bauhaus at their most avant-garde than the sort of hippie jam session most people associate with psychedelia. Lest things get too dark and brooding, "Black Om Rising" is mellow and dreamy despite its ominous title, with bursts of distortion cutting through the layers of shimmering guitar to keep things from getting too blissful, while "Daktari" and "Tearjerker" move gradually back into rock territory. Though rooted in the classic experimental rock of the late '60s and early '70s, Black Om Rising displays a noisy and dissonant sensibility that will appeal to psychedelic travelers and noise addicts alike, and fans of such projects as Legendary Pink Dots or Nurse with Wound that draw upon both sensibilities will surely be twice as pleased. A bonus DVD featuring a live performance of the album in its entirety in a cramped rock club, though not particularly compelling to casual observers, provides a nice bonus to longtime fans of the band, and Beta-lactam Ring Records' always impressive packaging makes this a worthy addition to any noise rock fan's collection.
EXCLAIM!
Scott A. Gray
The land of heavy psychedelic has a new champion in Seven That Spells. Their second release, Black Om Rising, is a beautifully punishing example of progressive sonic experimentation exercised of wanky indulgence. Supreme musicianship on all fronts creates a rock solid foundation to stir up cacophonous freak-outs. The massive sounding four-piece slam out odd-meter grooves with authority while building tasteful arrangements of fuzzy bass, echo-laden free jazz saxophone, occasional synths and carefully calculated dissonant guitar. They run the gamut of dynamic intensity, disintegrating into faintly tribal staccato jazz ambience and charging into molten frenzies of metallic precision with equal aplomb. Tatsuya Yoshida of Ruins mastered the album and it's easy to see his attraction to the project, or his influence on Seven That Spells. As an added bonus to an already exceptional album, the flipside of the CD features a full visual live performance of almost every track from Black Om Rising. It's particularly impressive to see how seamlessly the band can pull off material this challenging and complicated live, and with such explosive energy. This is a truly lean but densely packed gem in an often-bloated scene.http://www.psychemusic.org/prog22.htmlanchor_327Gerald"Black OM rises to claim us all" the booklet says, with the image of a shadowed sun. -This particular night, when I reviewed this album, there was a partial solar eclipse-.
…I remember some important historical events during solar eclipses. Remember how, when Christ was crucified after betrayal, in order to get rid of a possibility for change for the Jewish belief system and for the Roman ruling powers, at the moment that he so called passed away, there was a solar eclipse (besides that the big temple floor broke in two). His crucifixion had to become an example, and also was abused in a typical Roman way for turning this moment into a fundament for a religion later on. This fact did not happen "for saving the sins of the world", but to save two sorts of traditions : the Jewish and the Roman (selfish) constructions. The later, newly formed Roman-Christian religion was invented to change the people's memory of something different behind the stories. The incomplete picture of Jesus' life and death, combined the useful tool of his strange psychology because he always kept in mind a spiritual father in heaven, because he had no other Fatherly example to focus upon, this story became the easiest to handle tool for a totally different purpose. This could bring the idea of God outside man, and would praise the sacrifice to the cross, as if it is a sacrifice to Society. Their new religion did unite God and Society into one unit, the Church, staying safely outside man's own development. It would also, thanks to another small wrong translation, place also evil, as the shadow of deeds and actions of people and society, and of course also their own actions outside man's reach, range and perspective. It would also proclaim the benefit of a Unity (reaching towards a variety in philosophy and personalities, for the sake of a blind trust in a mono-opinion governed Society) at all costs, and -in the name of God-, which is ruled by Society. The whole original tradition of discovering wisdom and methods to unify to a complete form creativity and awareness that almost became popularised by some men, like Jesus, with this, was destroyed and wiped out of history, together with all other more clear examples of its kind, and were replaced by certain well cooperating thoughts for that purpose how to form (the rules for) the world's three biggest religions.
Another important eclipse happened when the Spanish conquerors established a forced agreement with the Indians in America to take over their land. Also this was another important moment of betrayal the results which would develop to something different for many years to come. The rights for the civilisation and for the people of that land also never truly recovered...
A solar eclipse, symbolically, takes away for a moment the attention to the natural spirit of development, like the seed for visions needed for the life giving nature of developments. At that moment the 'shadow' of all things ruling underneath could eventually take advantage of that lost moment of belief in this natural development. Be careful of its actions then! Because Light and true Life are really always behind the sun, -a force of life-, while the powers which are decided by the shadows of things, brings death to whatever they decide to destroy, and when established during a solar eclipse, they seem to be able to maintain this for a very long time.
The solar eclipse is also a symbol for the hardest and true sacrificing challenge, to put aside the dearest aspects so that in the abyss of no participation, the essence could eventually still win the game because it really is only out of it's sight and nothing more. So even for some evil evolutions, maintaining its own life by multiplying its own flesh, far outside their visions on historical evolutions, outside a logical maintaining by restrictions, through stubborn constructions of power, certain essences still grew further elsewhere for a later date of appearance in the darkest need. This shaped Society did not notice Christ's further travels to Tibet, or the native Indian's silent development of a minimal essence for our later survival after a moment when the land will be no longer fertile.
Myself, looking at the front cover of The Seven That Spells new album, I have my own moments of disconnection in moments of failed concentration, attracted by these lovely sexy beautifully bosomed girls, distractions that will return my energy to its basics, while my inner, silent watcher still grows in stages of retreat, through an unseen growth process with "Buddhist" powers to make appearances that are able to reveal all connections of things, while the standard being me just seems equally limited and distracted, just like anybody, absorbed into the world's energy, with failure, because like everybody we feel we need to be part of this world, even when it is also a participation with its disconnection. But there are also other energies which have developed into the new shadows of things..
-Maybe with each solar eclipse we could remind ourselves how there is light behind the sun, and how we now and then could face the shadows of this Society, and the need to give a rightful place to light as a creative unifying power working upwards allowing life.-
After having listened to so many lazy psych jams too often, of low energies trying to speed it up with tensions of escapisms from this world's energy, it most often is not able to change that stagnant essence really. I almost forgot the true powers of psychedelia, the breaking through borders with complex rhythms and overload effects in harmonic sounds. And I am again absolutely amazed by Seven That Spells, who are able to restore that true essence for me. It takes the vague haze away, and leads to the true essence of the jam : the skills (and on another level, knowledge, against ignorant laziness) to do something more. It is no miracle to hear how Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins, Koenji Hyakkei,..) did the mastering. He did not play, but also Bruno Motik's drumming masters his drums. Great also to hear sax as one of the instruments, to break free. This music gives energy, and does not let any detail escape into smoke, while this is Fire.
http://www.popboks.com/
Nikola Marković
Zagrebački psihodelični rockeri Seven That Spells su perjanica instrumentalne scene i jedan od retkih balkanskih bendova koji aktivno nastupa i izdaje albume van ovih prostora
Početak rada benda Seven That Spells, slučajno ili ne, vremenski se podudara sa prvim zagrebačkim koncertom ekscentričnog japanskog psy/prog/rock sastava Acid Mothers Temple krajem 2002. godine. Ispostaviće se da je ovo bio tek prvi u nizu koncerata koje će Japanci održati u Zagrebu, i simboličan početak prijateljstva dva benda srodne orijentacije.
Saradnja je naročito intenzivirana u poslednjih par godina, tokom kojih se Makoto Kawabata, gitarista i frontmen Acid Mothers Templea, pojavljivao kao gostujući muzičar na koncertima i studijskim izdanjima Seven That Spellsa, a kulminaciju je dosegla ovog leta, kada je hrvatski sastav, uz Kawabatinu pomoć, otišao na svoju prvu japansku turneju!
Sasvim očekivano, Seven That Spells su stil izgradili na kosmičkim stazama kojima su koračali i Kawabata i njegova družina, i na kojima glavno mesto zauzimaju prog-rock 70-ih godina prošlog veka, hendriksovske neobuzdane solaže i modulirani zvuci sintisajzera.
Na albumu Black Om Rising sve ove stilske reference i dalje su prisutne. Ipak, u odnosu na prethodna studijska izdanja, bend zvuči svirački sigurnije, raznovrsnije, i sa izraženijim autorskim pečatom.
Čak i kada se služe prepoznatljivim žanrovskim kanonima, Seven That Spells ih kombinuju na iznenađujuće načine: jednostavni repetitivni pasaži bivaju presecani naglim ritmičkim promenama, melanholični postrockerski zvučni zastori nas uvode u punokrvni noise masakr, a razuzdana gitarska sola se smenjuju sa oštrim, funkoidnim bas-deonicama.
Raznovrsnosti albuma doprinose i numere u kojima bend odustaje od pitkih rock melodija i prelazi na polje psihodeličnih eksperimenata. RA donosi dinamičnu igru bubnjeva i saksofona u kojoj početna tema sve više varira i gubi se u kovitlacu izmešanih zvukova, dok završna Tearjerker, nakon kratkog i žestokog uvoda, ostaje bez ritam-sekcije, da bi skliznula u ambijentalni drone.
Pored vešte stilske kombinatorike, treba istaći i zavidnu disciplinu benda: na ovom albumu nećete čuti beskonačno ponavljanje gitarskih fraza, samozadovoljna sola ili pesme duže od 10 minuta. Prazan hod je sveden na minimum.
Seven That Spells su bend koji izdaje albume na američkoj etiketi, nastupa i na Zapadu i na Istoku, dok ga na matičnoj sceni prati verni krug fanova. Za ljubitelje instrumentalnog rocka u Srbiji, gde su i dalje malo poznati, ovaj album je idealna polazna tačka za upoznavanje pred dugu ljubav.