8.12.20 by Matty McPherson
The day Crash Symbols “broke the internet” [via a Ylang Ylang 7.2 on p4k], also happened to be the day “Transporting Salt” by a collaborative affair known as Spiritczualic Enhancement Center was posted to their Bandcamp. The twitter page of this blog dubbed it “a chiller for uncertain times” a couple months back, and for good reason-you can put a kettle of herbal tea on and crank it up to 23 on the boombox (with mega bass), and engage in rapid-response stay-at-home tea house typing! It’s an album that hits a distinct realm of krautrock and jam that an assortment of Kranky acts (Nudge & Fontanelle) practically ran the gambit on back in the mid-aughts.
But that was the work of a pacific northwest collective. The collective assembled here are a crack commando unit, untethered by the concept of borders. Picked apart at 4 different live concerts from a 2018 tour, we find the SEC (no, not the bad one) creating their own spiritual odyssey that connects the middle-eastern desert blues with the krautrock of the DIY spaces they inhabit across this European tour. The tape is flush with sound, 11 recordings worth (some stretching into the ten minute range). Yet, nothing feels monotonous or mechanical.
The sounds on this album are an inspired pairing. Persian percussion and homemade electronics are experiments of their own accord. Backed up by stringed instruments like the ganun and zither, and these astral recordings pervade the room like jazz cabbage, never afraid to throw in a synth to spice things up a little. The energy is breezy and relaxed, even when the electric guitar can suddenly pick things up and turn this into a garage rock crash course or “Ascension Day” level scorch. It is refreshing to see a contemporary to acts like 75 Dollar Bill, Sunwatchers, or even Garcia People that embraces the jam, but as a result of widely different musical contexts playing off of each other.
For as lost as it might have been in a variety of releases, the tape is down to its last grasp of reissue copies and I really suggest you go and grab it now. Might be the chillest release of the year, well…almost maybe.
From Crash Symbols, Edition of 250
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