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Various Artists — 19th Dream of Dr. Sardonicus
(Fruits de Mer winkle 55, 2023/2024, 2LP)

by Henry Schneider, Published 2024-08-25

19th Dream of Dr. Sardonicus Cover art

The 19th Dream of Dr. Sardonicus Festival in August 2023, held in Cardigan’s Cellar Bar saw London Underground and Pinhdar flying from Italy to perform with several UK bands. Peter Bingham of Sendelica, supported by Keith Jones of Fruits de Mer Records and sponsored by Record Collector magazine, organized and recorded the two day, three night event. The Cellar Bar is a small venue with only room for 150 fans of psychedelia, progressive rock, krautrock, acid-folk, spacerock, and of course vinyl. Peter and Keith culled the recordings for a selection of the artists for a limited-run double LP 19th Dream of Dr. Sardonicus Festival of Psychedelia. The double LP set opens with London Underground peforming “Tropic of Capricorn,” a killer Hammond organ propelled track from their album Four. The second track, “Dust Storm on Mars,” is by a new Welsh band called Spectral Streams. This instrumental starts out quiet with sweeping analog synths to blossom into some of the best contemporary Berlin school electronic music. This track has it all and rivals the best of Tangerine Dream. Next is Sendelica with their concert staple since first covering it for Fruits de Mer in 2010, their intrepretation of Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain.” This excellent instrumental builds to a strong lead guitar riff and psych jam that morphs into Hawkwind’s “Master of the Universe” riff. The fourth track is Hanford Flyover’s “Space Tractor,” a tune making its debut at the festival. This track is one wild ride with motorik beats, vocoded vocals, and power chords that will plow you down. Next is Consterdine’s “Sepia” that slows things way down with its tone-poem approach. After four minutes, things start to change, picking up the tempo and adding a saxophone, that then drifts in and out of sensory deprivation causing a ripple effect to the sonic texture. The first actual song is next, Pinhdar’s “Atoms and Dust” from Parallel. This is an excellent performance with a dark foreboding texture that builds to a strong and aggressive climax with Cecilia’s crystal clear vocals. Next is another new band to the FdM fold, McDowell and Westaway performing their trippy psych song “Black Tar Acid” with its nod to the music of the late 60s. A track by another new band, Dark Zen Kollectiv “Ice Lock Up Stones edit,” follows with some driving motorik kosmische music with percolating analog synths through the psych jam. The ninth track is a fantastic cover of the Velvet Underground’s “Venus in Furs” by the Cary Grace Band. If you thought that Lou Reed’s original was dark, wait until you hear the band’s psych siren call from the nether urban depths of depravity. “Venus in Furs” never sounded to desperate and gut-wrenching. And the album closes with the bright and bubbly song from Spygenius, “Café Emery Hill.” This is a well conceived, composed, and engaging song that makes you want to sing along with the refrain. A beautiful closing to this set of festival highlights.

Filed under: New releases, 2024 releases, 2023 recordings

Related artist(s): Sendelica, Various Artists, Cary Grace, London Underground, Hanford Flyover, Pinhdar

More info
http://www.fruitsdemerrecords.com/19thvinyl.html

 

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