Repsychled Records is based in Peru, and has done great work documenting their psychedelic rock scene. This particular one is a weird treasure from 2019. Culto al Qondor bring the freakiest of Krautrock to South America with two 14-minute tracks of pure drone-laced music inspired by bands like Ash Ra Tempel or Amon Düül II. Really good music.
The Utopia Strong are a band out of the United Kingdom which blew me away. Praise to Chris Morley for alerting me to the band’s existence. It sounds something like Krautrock or psychedelic rock which goes funky. It’s almost as if you can dance to some of this material. The musicianship is excellent, reminding me of Gong or groovier elements of bands like Embryo or even Neu! It turns out that I was right to think this, as the pedigree of the band is impressive.
Personnel:
Kavus Torabi (Gong/Cardiacs/Knifeworld/
Steve Davis and Michael J. York (Coil/Teleplasmiste/Guapo)
The Quietus Magazine also do a tremendous writeup on their latest release. You can check that out here.
It looks like Mute Records are beginning to put more effort into their Bandcamp page, adding a lot of classic albums from their catalogue including licensed material from CAN, the legendary Krautrock band whose members all went on to do wonderful projects on their own. Though most readers here will have a favorite album they would rather feature (mine is Monster Movie), I’m posting this concentrating on my Chinese friends today so that they can sample what CAN were all about. The Singles is a decent introduction to their material.
Subact are based out of Dresden, Germany, and are friends of myself and my former blog, A Miscellany Of Tasteful Music. They produce a very hyperactive electronic music sound, and the energy given out is dance-floor-friendly. As well as dubstep, one can hear ragga, jungle, and if you can believe it, Krautrock. Yes! They have managed to be one of the few bands who have legitimately modernized the genre, rather than serve as retro band copying the masters (which I have no problem with, to be honest). It’s good that the lads have managed to keep evolving as any good artist should be doing, and this EP is a natural progression for the band.