Praise for Eternal Tapestry & Sun Araw‘s Night Gallery from San Francisco’s aQuarius Records: Recorded live in 2010 at South By Southwest, in Austin Texas, in a large empty TV studio and then broadcast on the radio, this psychedelic summit matched up long time pals Sun Araw (aka Cameron Stallones) and Eternal Tapestry for a single improvised performance, 45 minutes of dreamy psychedelic drift, spaced out krautrock, and full on freaked out heaviness!
Presented here as played, without overdubs, the only edits being those that separate the jam into 4 tracks. The ET&SA band quickly settle into a lysergic drift, a whirling shimmery haze, laced with fluttery flute, cymbal shimmer, and spidery guitars. A slow build to some seriously explosive spacerock swirl, a chaotic cacophonous crescendo, before settling back down into another stretch of hushed drift, this time heavy on the whirring organ, and still laced with plenty of flute. A little bit jazzy. A lot free and drifty, leading directly into the second movement.
Movement two finds the band immediately locking into some krautpsych hypnorock, some saxophone audible for the first time. The multiple guitars all tangled up in constantly shifting harmonies. The sound mesmerizing and hypnotic, simultaneously ramping up, but also blissing out, vocals swoop in, wreathed in echo and delay, eventually everything fading out but the whirring synths, the shuffling drums, the sax, and some wailing vocals buried in the mix.
The third movement is the shortest of the four, and is another slow build, but this time as the sound blossoms it also gradually grows more minimal, the arrangement more spacious and spare. The guitars and sax drifting in an expanse of shimmery thrum and muted horns, washed out and dreamlike.
Finally, the band unfurl the 14+ minute final movement. A swirling shimmering expanse of warm layered keyboards, subtle guitar shadings, and even more subtle sax. The bass offering up deep pulses, everything hazy and crystalline. The drums finally kick in and the band launch into a woozy lumbering space-drone groove. The guitars getting more crunchy, the effects thicker, never truly exploding, instead just cranked up a notch, letting the guitars howl and wail. A druggy dirgey chunk of psychedelic kraut-drone blooz. Nice.
Vinyl version includes a download coupon, fyi. Listen to Night Gallery – Movement III HERE, courtesy of Impose Magazine.
At 40 years old, Aquarius is the oldest independent record store in San Francisco. We try to only carry music we love, and we’re always searching for more new, cool, weird and wonderful music. All of which we then share with you, our loyal customers.
Tags: Album of the day, Aquarius Records, Cameron Stallones, Eternal Tapestry, Night Gallery, psychedelica, Sun Araw, Thrill Jockey
This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 19th, 2011 at 1:57 pm and is filed under 2011, Album of the Day, Roadburn Recommended . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
This thing is so freaking awesome. I wanted to catch Sun Araw (with Prince Rama) at SXSW but they were playing at some anarchist bookstore across town from where I was at like 1 a.m. and I just was like ‘forget it.’ But this…this makes me wish I’d gone for it.