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Øresund Space Collective — Everyone Is Evil
(Bandcamp Space Rock Productions SRP080, 2023, LP / CD / DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2023-07-23

Everyone Is Evil Cover art

I’m always a little suspicious about bands that churn out four or five albums in a typical year. There can’t be much going on along the lines of planning or forethought, let alone composition. One case in point is Øresund Space Collective, who since their 2006 self-titled debut have released some 64 albums. Granted that a lot of those are live sets from festivals and others released in microquantity CDrs, that’s still a lot of recorded output in a relative short period of time. The leader of the group is “Dr.Space,” a.k.a. Scott Heller, an American now based in Portugal by way of Denmark who plays modular synth and Mellotron. The collective features some of the best players in Scandinavia, bar none: Mattias Olsson (drums, guitar, Mellotron) from Ånglagård, Necromonkey, Isobar, Gösta Berlings Saga, Anima Morte, and many many more; Jiri Hjorth (congas, cymbals, bass); Jonathan Segel (violin, guitar); Luis Simoes of Saturnia (guitars); Hasse Horrigmoe of Tangle Edge (bass and guitars); Mogens Deenfort (synth, Hammond organ); Pär Halje (synths). That’s the lineup for the CD version of this particular album, though the personnel changes somewhat from one album to the next. As mentioned earlier, the group is purely improvisational — they get together in the studio (or at a live performance), push the record button, and just let whatever happens flow. It’s no surprise that the outcome is generally intensely psychedelic — it’s what they strive for, and the quality of these players and their backgrounds allows them to pull it off without any difficulty, though it has to be said, they do love to hear themselves play. The opening title track, which takes up all of CD1 (and all four sides of the 2LP version) clocks in at well over an hour, and at times it might get a bit tiresome — as a listener it’s difficult to stay focused for all that time, it becomes an endurance test. The second disc, which features three long tracks spread across 62 minutes fares better simply because there is more variation in the styles, and the pieces are somewhat shorter overall. If one likes lengthy drawn out psychedelic jams, then this is where you want to be.

Filed under: New releases, 2023 releases

Related artist(s): Øresund Space Collective, Jonathan Segel

More info
http://oresundspacecollective.bandcamp.com/album/everyone-is-evil

 

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