Welcome to the second edition of Outré Monde. In this ongoing series of discussions, Erik Highter and Craig Hayes will be hurling Bandcamp recommendations at each other, with the aim of recommending some new tunes for you to enjoy along the way. The rules here are simple: no genre is off-limits. Whatever takes Highter and Hayes’ fancy is thrown in the pot, with the aim of sparking a little tête-à-tête about music that might well appeal to the open-minded metal fan. Feel free to join in the conversation too, Highter and Hayes’ ears are always open.
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HIGHTER’S PICK: VESPERO
HAYES: Well played, Highter. I actually remember Vespero’s Subkraut: U-Boats Willkommen Hier from when it was first released in 2012. However, like too many albums, it disappeared into the back hole of my external hard-drive to be played infrequently, at best.
If I remember rightly, I thought long and hard about buying the deluxe version of the CD from the band’s RAIG label, and I really should revisit that idea. I owe you a debt of gratitude for reminding me of this one, because Vespero craft some exceptional Kraut / space / prog / psych-rock. Anyone who’s looking to have their synapses tickled would greatly enjoy Subkraut, but you go first: tell me all about why you picked the album.
HIGHTER: I’m a huge fan of space rock and it’s related genres, whether it’s heavy as balls like Ufomammut, a more kraut-rocking act like Vespero, or a late night prog take like Sula Bassana‘s The Night. (Expect that last one in a future installment.) It all goes back to my love of Hawkwind and pre-Dark Side Pink Floyd, both of whom I’ve been obsessed with since my early teens.
My first exposure to Vespero was with this album. Color me embarrassed…I just looked it up and it was you who first tipped me to it in August of 2012 via Twitter. Thanks, for it was love at first listen, and it only grew as the year soldiered on. It ended up in the middle of my personal top 10, but in all honesty I’ve listened to it much more than many I placed above it.
In fact, Subkraut torpedoed all other listening for weeks, the bleeping synths of “Anpellen!” pinging around the empty spaces in my head. I have a weakness for horns in odd settings; again, down to Hawkwind being such a pivotal influence as I entered my teens. But unlike Nik Turner, the horns in Vespero aren’t rooted in any jazz-like playing style. They seem to fit only the music they play. It’s a small thing, but an intriguing one to my ears. Combined with the primitive synths and rock solid drumming it’s a truly organic sounding construct.
I remember at the time that there wasn’t a whole lot of information about them outside of their label’s website, and 18 months later there still isn’t. But the description of the record from that site is so perfect:
“Subkraut: U-Boats Willkommen Hier is a conceptual framework for six instrumental kraut-rock songs which are inspired by Russian Futurism of the early 20th century, German musical underground of the 70’s, modern American fiction writers, as well as mysteries of the Great Ocean still not completely explained by mankind.”
Seriously, you could not have written a better description of many things I have loved in my 40-odd years of life. So thanks for exposing me to it in the first place, and hopefully many more will thank you as well.
HAYES: You’re very welcome. I’m fairly certain I originally stumbled upon Vespero on one of my usual hikes through Prog Archives. Like you, I’m a big fan of space rock, in all its guises—and yes, Hawkwind, early Pink Floyd, and their assorted comrades (age-old and contemporary) are in heavy rotation round ‘ere too.
I actually just received the latest issue of Shindig! magazine, Interstellar Overdrive, which I’d highly recommend to anyone looking for an enthusiastic primer on the galaxy of delights that await in the space rock realm. (Or, you know, Wikipedia is there, if the idea of a real live page to turn unnerves.)
Still, space rock is a physical medium, no matter if it’s digitally delivered. It’s got groove and often grunt, and I knew nothing at all about Russian space/prog or psychedelic rock before I heard Vespero. I’d heard a few Eastern European prog and psych albums from the late ‘70s and ‘80s, but hearing Vespero was a huge surprise. Who knew Russia was a hotbed of instrumental cosmic rock?
What I like most about Subkraut is that it sounds authentic—as far as any contemporary space / prog / Krautrock album can. The synth, sequencing, and rhythmic interplay are really infused with a wonderfully vintage sound. (Kudos to Alexander Kuzovlev and Alexei Klabukov for their production in that regard.)
Subkraut ticks all the boxes for me. It has Krautrock’s motorik groove running through many tracks, features hints from across the space / psych spectrum (i.e., glimpses of everyone from Ozric Tentacles to King Crimson, The Orb to Hawkwind), and there’s a wonderful clash of minimalism versus futurism which seeps through everything.
I know Subkraut is a conceptual piece, and clearly the ocean plays it role here. But, to my mind, this is also about stripping off your clothes and dancing round Stonehenge as much as it is lying back, closing your eyes, and drifting along on Vespero’s engrossing currents. I couldn’t recommend Subkraut highly enough, and thank you for bringing it to my attention all over again. Vespero’s other albums are also well worth checking out. They’re not all of Subkraut standard, but they’re all interesting nonetheless.
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HAYES’ PICK: COLD WOMB DESCENT
HAYES: Now, lets deal with my pick. I rocketed into space with my recommendation too, but my pick takes a very different route. Cold Womb Descent is a dark ambient project, formed by two astronomers, and you’d hope they’d know a thing or two about capturing the universes’ grim vibrations. What are your thoughts on the band’s third release, Apocatastasis?
HIGHTER: I called Vespero space rock, but this is space rock. Or maybe not rock exactly. Space as sound? Ambient gamma-ray oscillations? The actual music of the spheres? I know nothing about these gents beyond the paragraph on Bandcamp, but astronomical music made by astronomers definitely piqued my interest before hearing a note.
Though you and I have had a few conversations on drone and it’s ilk, I don’t think we’ve ever touched on when it works for me and when it doesn’t. I’m picky when it comes to drone, unlike say, my whoring for 10th generation Sabbath clones. It has to be transformative or transportive; make me feel other than I am, or take me places I can’t reach alone. Apocatastasis, despite it’s meaning, was not personally transformative – I’m the same old schlub the whole way through – but I was transported.
I was only slightly joking when I said it was the music of the spheres. Apocatastasis moves on a scale that feels interstellar; the vistas are vast, the sounds unfold from afar, reaching the ears long after the image has come and gone from the mind. Cold Womb Descent are masters of the swell. They take a synth wash and drag it’s rise from a dust mote to a star and it feels like it unfolds over the millennia that process actually occurs.
But it’s never dull. This is epic music, a triumphant big bang slowed 800 times.
I think it’s safe to say I liked it. Even though it did bring to mind the Roy Batty “tears in the rain” section of Vangelis‘ Blade Runner score once or twice. I’ll be damned if this isn’t the proper sound to accompany the glittering c-beams near the Tannhäuser Gate.
HAYES: Ha! Well, yes, there’s no denying there is whiff of Blade Runner to be found, but anything that draws that film into closer orbit is a good thing. Details on Cold Womb Descent are somewhat slim, which makes me very curious to find out more about them, but as far as I can ascertain, the duo of astronomers is closely aligned with Vozrozhdeniya, a Mexican dark ambient project well worth seeking out on Bandcamp too. Both bands offer free downloads, and both travel the interstellar routes, but Cold Womb Descent feel more interested in the cold hard reality of deep space. They’re inspired by “observing astral creations and clouds of cosmic dust,” and I think there’s certainly something distant and icy lurking in their sound; probably more so on their first two releases than on Apocatastasis.
You’re right, we have discussed drone’s allure before, and while I’m with you on needing the transportive elements it provides, it’s not so much transformation that I look for as is it contemplation.
I’m not a religious person at all (no gods, no masters, all the way), but I would say that I find something immensely spiritual, or probably more accurately, deeply transcendental about the cosmos. I find it truly awe-inspiring to live in a universe that doesn’t care if we exist at all, and there are abundant dark drones that evokes the thrills and chills for me in that regard. I’ve been using ambient music (dark and light) as sacrament for years, essentially since I first discovered Lustmord’s Heresy, and I’ve grown increasing obsessed with dark ambient music because I’m getting older and the infinite void is fast approaching.
In that sense, Apocatastasis is exactly what i’m looking for; a glimpse into the unknowable and unreachable. But, it also brings with it a great big dollop of sci-fi soundtracking and slinky synth, and I’m a huge fan of early electronic music, like the utter magnificence of Tangerine Dream’s first decade. I’m really glad you liked Apocatastasis,; you never know with dark ambient sounds. Some folk find it a real turn-off. But, for me, ambient music is the ignition switch to a journey to the beyond—a trip to my personal version of heaven.
I’m really glad we were able to present two very different sides of cosmic music here, and honestly, the fact you reminded me of Vespero has made my week. I’m looking forward to more astronomical recommendations. I’m convinced, as the intergalactic prophet and philosopher Sun Ra wisely stated, space is the place.
