ØRESUND SPACE COLLECTIVE - "THE BLACK TOMATO" [CD - Transubstans Records] Wow, these guys are really on a roll. Hot on the heels of their outstanding 2-CD "It's All About Delay" album, Øresund Space Collective are back with a brand new set of space jams. "The Black Tomato" consists of three tracks, totaling nearly 80 minutes of all instrumental improvisational space rocking bliss. The CD kicks off with the nearly 40 minute "RumBle", which begins with a stoned jamming cosmic hard rocking space groove. There's some ripping trip guitar, freaked out alien electronics, and the whole atmosphere is like a deep space stoner acid jam. This is some of the heaviest music I've heard from OSC yet. And as you can imagine on a 40 minute improv jam, the music twists and turns through a multitude of moods and themes, though of course the key to real appreciation is to just sit back and surrender yourself to wherever the band wants to take you. It's a guided tour with the focus on the voyage and destination is the least of your concerns. OSC have a fluid cast of participants but everyone has more or less played with each other enough that it's no surprise that they continue to crank out ass kicking space jams that you can groove to endlessly! Some of it brings to mind a cross between Ozric Tentacles and Alien Planetscapes. Next up is the 32 minute "The Black Tomato", another space rocking excursion. It's got some killer melodic development that really hooked me, while retaining the driving jam quality throughout. The organ and heavy keyboards give the music a 70s hard prog-psych edge that I really liked, and combined with the electronics, guitars and pounding rhythm section makes for an absolutely awesome space rock journey. Lots of cool Gong / Hillage elements and I even detected some moments of Frippertronic styled guitar, but mostly this is searing acidic mucho cosmic heavy jamming space rock. OSC have cultivated a real knack for taking off and exploring while keeping these loooooong jams comprehensible and consistently seductive throughout. Finally, rounding out the set is the relatively short [6 minutes] "Viking Cleaner", a quirky, playful, but totally spaced out rhythmic groove tune that makes for an appropriate finale to this outstanding set. These guys gotta start making the rounds of the festival circuit. Jerry Kranitz >> READ ON		ØRESUND SPACE COLLECTIVE "The Black Tomato Sessions Black Tornado Studio, Copenhagen Denmark Nov 10-11th, 2006 Mixed and mastered at Nacksvingstudios in Göteborg, Sweden by Henrik Udd. The Players: Dr.Space, Tobias, Magnus, Jocke, Michael, Søren, Mogens, Sebastian & Ola" Words | Scott The Black Tomato CD was released on August 24th, 2007 on the Transubstans Label. It was our 3rd CD on the label and I think our most inspired and heavy work ever. We had played a gig the night before with the great Swedish band, Siena Root, and it was a great party afterwards [a bit too much for some, who then failed to play up to their potential]. Anyway, everyone was in a great mood and we were joined in the studio by Henrik Udd, a producer and mixer from Göteborg, Sweden, who has previously worked with First Band from Outer Space and many death metal bands [Dimmu Borgir amongst others]. Henrik would take the music back to Göteborg and spend his spare time on and off over the next 6 months mixing this music. It was his amazing skills that pulled out the potential of our playing from that studio session. Incredible work. I hope you all agree and like the mix as well. We recorded about 5½ hrs of material on these two days and only 3 of the jams made it onto "The Black Tomato" CD. Another 80 mins of this material will be released on the Sulatron Label next year. For more you can read the detailed diary on our website. Øresund Space Collective - The Black Tomato Sessions: RumBle This was originally Jams 15,16 and 17 [this is how it was split up when we were listening to the music and everyone was putting in their votes on what were the best jams and what should be mixed by Henrik] and ran about 42 minutes. The name is a sort of play on words in Danish with Rum [not the way it is spelled by pronounced]. Rum means space and Ble means diaper. Not sure exactly how it came about but there you go. Anyway, this piece starts with some really heavy stuff and both Tobias and Magnus get to rip off some killer solos before the track gets really spaced out and the emotions and moods in the music are exposed. This is really a killer journey and Magnus comes up with some killer guitar riffs. Henrik did an amazing job in using this 360 degree tool to mix my space synths. The sample you hear in this track was no placed in later but triggered at exactly that time by Ola. It is by the Russian poet Maksimillian Voloshin and this was read in the studio by Antyom Savichsky, an actor friend of the artist, Ed Unitsky, who did our previous albums artwork. The spacey ending of this track took us like 4 hours to mix when Magnus and I went up to Göteborg to help Henrik out with some of the fine details. Amazing journey, if you are patient. This was recorded on the 2nd day. The Black Tomato This was the first killer jam on Day one and was originally referred to as jam 4-5. I think many in the band feel this was the best track we have ever made. The name is basically a play on words of the studio, where the music was recorded. It really is 3 distinct parts. Again, the mix that Henrik did, really made this track amazing. It starts with a really smooth groove and lots of great space sounds by Ola and Dr.Space before the really hypnotic stuff builds up and the first guitar solos take off. We finally come down and land in a very spacey place in the universe before the groove picks up and we really go into prog rock territory and a bit of Hawkwind spirit flows in our blood. Seb plays the first solo and has that cool twangy tone, that is so uniquely his, while Tobias plays the killer space guitars and Mogens is jamming on the Hammond. I really love the delay guitars in this part and the bass playing is killer around the part with the samples and glissando guitar by Magnus. Part 3 starts really spaced out but then around 2½ minutes we pick up and really rock out when Magnus lays down the killer riff and Tobias the totally cool space delay guitar. Magnus plays this really cool and almost tortured guitar solo and we later get into some really hypnotic stuff. Phew... Viking Cleaner This was the last jam of the night on the first night and people were really flying at this point. This jam had to unfortunately be edited down from it's original length of 19 minutes. A 13-14 min version is available on our Picks from Space Vol 11, which includes studio outtakes from all three of our studio sessions. Anyway, this is some intense stuff And you can feel the tension in the music as it slowly builds up into a massive jam. At the end, just when you think we are reached our peak, we take it one step higher.. Quite amazing way to end the CD. Mind blower... Below are a couple of videos from this session. Enjoy and support us by picking up a copy of this our CD. It is a limited edition of 1000 copies in a digiback format with really cool artwork and booklet. Øresund Space Collective - The Black Tomato Sessions on You Tube BACK TO TOP