Hidria Spacefolk

I enjoyed listening to this a lot. It's nearly pure space rock without any "distractions", it's basically one long jam with songs that are essentially built as a set of improvisations over a basic theme - mostly based only on one chord, a groove and some riffs, but rately ever distinct melodies. If you're into that sort of thing you'll definitely like the album, if not then there's a chance that you'll find this quite boring.

This album grew on me in just one day after repeated listening to it during a work day in which I was hooked to phones. At first this sounded as disconnected blurbs of music that were connected to each other by mere coincidence. And then after 4 or 5 listens I started to realize. This is not just aimless jamming. There is a theme for the different track. There is a main idea that drives it and sets it into motion. Then after the idea is presented, the music starts swirling and moving into several directions, presenting more ideas that might be seen as jamming. The music is made up of guitars keyboard and then some more instruments to add to the flavour but the result is so very rich in sound. Those musicians are talented and know their stuff. Besides playing very well, they show their jamming and improvisational capabilities and also their compositional skills, which are not to be disregarded. This might be to you just another psych/space album, but I hear here so much more. The way these guys build their music I find to be impressive. Yes, they rely on improvisations and jamming, but the core of the music is well thought out and planned composition. What is beautiful is that they manage to make their music sound as if they had just written it or are making it up as they are playing. The sounds they produce are exotic (with the marimba, vibraphone and trumpet), psychedelic and rock in nature all in the same track. They take on their main theme and develop it further on (sometimes jamming around it) and on a few tracks deviate at a certain point and play in a new direction. There are some brilliant ... -> show full review