Purling Hiss is the side-project of Birds of Maya’s guitarist Mike Polizze. Polizze continues his job of destroying our brains but this time with adrenaline rock ‘n’ roll. Have you ever imagined how would sounded a mix of japanese noisy crazyness with 70’s heavy rock? This band demonstrates it in form of total blowout psychedelic jams.
“Their music, always instrumental and often improvised, features long slow pieces of strange and obscure soundscapes in the vein of HAWKWIND’s Space Ritual, but more down-tempo and evolving, with tortured spacey guitars. Their sound is very obscure and noisy, quite modern and unique, transporting you to lost and unknown galaxies to explore… An unique experience! Icy and tormented, rather dark and experimental than light and relaxing, SUBARACHNOID SPACE is highly recommended to frightening, space and psychedelic rock explorers! NB: In anatomy, the subarachnoid space is the interval in the brain between the arachnoid mater and pia mater.”
“Bardo Pond’s drug-inspired music is often classified as space rock, acid rock, post-rock, shoegaze, noise or psychedelic rock. Many Bardo Pond album titles have been derived from the names of esoteric psychedelic substances. Their sound has been likened to Pink Floyd, Spacemen 3 and My Bloody Valentine. Allmusic describes Bardo Pond as having “lengthy, deliberate sound explorations filled with all the hallmarks of modern-day space rock: droning guitars, thick distortion, feedback, reverb, and washes of white noise.”
“Alasehir is one of the many side-projects of the Bardo Pond family. This side-project consists of John Gibbons, Michael Gibbons, Clint Takeda and Michael Zangha (the first 3 members are part of Bardo Pond). Like all of Bardo Pond’s side-project this is also band centered in improvisations and mind-expanding melodies. Their music can be seen as Space Rock or even Stoner Rock, but with slight Krautrock and Progressive Electronic influences as well. Alasehir is more rock oriented compared to most of their side-projects… Very groovy and out-there, Alasehir are highly recommended for fans of the Bardo Pond family as well as fans of heavy psychedelic improvisations.”
“Live improvisation collaboration between Bardo Pond, LSD March & Kawaguchi Masami’s New Rock Syndicate during their US tour in 2006.”
“Baikal is a new burner from Bardo Pond brothers John & Michael Gibbons along with fellow Bardo Pond members Clint Takeda and Jason Kourkonis. This time they ventured down the route of heavy free-improvisation and a Last Exit style hard rock approach coupled with a hard psych bend. With two tracks each weighing in at over 30 minutes in length it’s clear that Baikal is a deep voyage underseas with yet another Bardo Pond sideproject featuring Bardo brothers John & Michael Gibbons as your tour guide.”
“Birds of Maya did what countless garage rock geeks try and fail at: dust off 1968 and bring it back to life without making it look like museum piece. Bringing on the best of 60s power trios like Hendrix and Cream, a whiff of Blue Cheer’s bongwater, Black Sabbath’s bass heavy paranoia, and Stooges bum-out, they were sloppy in all the right places. The jamming never got tired and held everyone’s raptattention.”
“Michigan free-rock band, founded in 1992 and active until 1999, with a brief reunion in 2002 to promote a special 10-year commemorative box set edition of their CD on Enterruption, “Freedom’s just another word for never getting paid.” Messy, abrasive, loose and at their best transcendent, Gravitar forged an improv-driven path between heavy rock touchstones like the Melvins, Sabbath and Unsane with out-jazz, space rock and psychedelic noise.”
“In case you hadn’t figured it out yourself, Hash Jar Tempo takes its name from the 70s Kraut rock group Ash Ra Temple. Pretty funny, huh? This pretty much sums up the band: take that Kraut sound and bring it to the future under the guise of epic-length drone, and you have Hash Jar Tempo. Despite the Hash part of the name, the music is not necessarily drug-influenced, but rather, just like with those old Germans, “the drug was the music.” In other words, Hash Jar Tempo is less about seeing where altered states can take you, and more about creating those altered states.”
“A project by guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Steven R. Smith. Throughout his career as a solo artist, and through membership with the celebrated ensembles Thuja and Mirza, Steven R. Smith has had a hand in creating some of the most compelling and singular instrumental psychedelic music of the past ten years… As Ulaan Khol, Smith digs in deep with a palette of drums/guitar/organ to craft a monolithic & expansive free form, feedback-heavy atmospheric din that bonds the disparate realms of Fushitsusha and High Rise with Popul Vuh and Flying Saucer Attack.”