KANOI

— First review of this album —

Kanoi & KRPL experimental rock project by Benjamin Kantschieder since 2010 working in the studio, initially in love with the Beatles; teams up with KRPL for their 4th album, the 14th for Benjamin with psychedelic tones from the 70s.

'Gelebte Solidarität' gives the 'la' of the album, a convoluted space-rock air, with a musical structure that turns rather than hovering, put in the mouth. 'Stargate or Die!' for one of the 3 big pieces, a gig, a weighted improvisation; a sound reminiscent of Tangerine Dream for the guitar, much more like the Spacelords, Astral Magic for stoner rock or Aton Five for long wanderings; a clarinet in the distance brightens up the listener at the end before the guitar can distract them from an explosive psychedelic-heavy-stoner solo. 'Ewiges Eis' for a psychedelic interlude giving pride of place to Stephan's bass and letting the mind wander freely before leaving for 'Der Kokosnussjongleuse' and its even more soaring air; goes in, heavy, hypnotic, with invasive notes; note the catchy and progressive finale, with this heavy bass. 'Not Enough Darkness' more space ambient, with the oppressive LP crack, the catchy diatonic melody, a long and slow monologue running through space, the ether, your brain.

Kanoi obscure fictional character throws a musical nest from which birds can vibrate in the cosmos; KRPL powerful trio, mixture of Stoner, Psychedelic, Sludge, Doom brings long harmonics, stratospheric suites surfing on alternative rock; an experience for fans of saturated and colorful music eyeing the Oresound Space Collective and the Hawkwind of yesteryear.

I'm not big on these one man projects that seem to be everywhere these days but I just had to check out Benjamin Kantschieder's latest record called "Buru Haze" simply because this Austrian is listed under Krautrock. Yes I was very curious to hear this album after reading the review from octupus-4, and i'm glad I picked it up even though it did leave me unfulfilled. The vocals are what i'd describe as "thin" almost weak sounding, which is fine when it comes to psychedelic music but I do wish a professional did the recording and mixing as I find that part of the album to be lacking a lot. Benjamin needs to find some like-minded musicians in my opinion and just go for it. Easy for me to say I know.

"Naeco II" opens with relaxed sounding guitar as mellotron-like sounds add some atmosphere. Relaxed vocals then drums add to the sound. That light mood is broken by some heavy guitar before 3 minutes. Nice opener. "Buru Haze" has a good heavy groove to it as the vocals join in. Not a fan of the vocals here or the lyrics but I love the guitar especially 4 1/2 minutes in to the end. "The Golden Country" is an instrumental with a spacey atmosphere and relaxed guitar expressions. "Windchild" does remind me of "Moonchild" by CRIMSON as far as the vocals go and sometimes with that mellow sound. Mellotron and picked guitar to start and it stays mellow and spacey throughout.

"Song Of Distance" opens with an excellent instrumental intro with prominent guitar. It does settle back before 2 minutes then the vocals arrive. Another calm piece. "By The Sunrise" opens with birds singing as mellow guitar and bass come in. Reserved vocals follow and I like the laid back guitar solo before 2 1/2 minutes. "Quokka" is a short instrumental that builds right away and it sounds really good. "A New Beginning" is the over 14 minute closer. Atmosphere is created by the organ as we get some relaxed guitar then vocals. Another chill-out tune until the guitar starts to light it up before 3 1/2 minutes. Another calm before 6 minutes and it's almost silent before 8 minutes but not for long.

Man this could be one of my favourite projects with some changes. I just really like his compositions and I did get glimpses of legends like GURU GURU and ASHRA TEMPEL but unfortunately "Buru Haze" is but a shadow right now of the incredible albums that those bands created, in my opinion of course.

Blues finds its way anyway!

Austrian born Benjamin Kantschieder is a one man band named KANOI, not far from Buckethead's concept. Moonglow, 2013, is close in spirit to Blues' long gone legends like the unrepeatable Stevie Ray Vaughan's raunchiness and overdrive or early cosmic blues/rock stylings.

Krautrock gives shelter to this kind of un-proggy/proggy efforts, as long as they carry some kind of "inner craziness" not found in their root music foundations to distinguish them from those same pure blues/rock artists. KANOI's holds some of these unpure momentums along the way.

Music language wise its closeness to these old standards, I suppose, seems surprising nowadays. Kanoi's energy drive is his best weapon yet do not expect groundbreaking musical structures, better yet, appreciate his fidelity to old Blues/Rock guidelines, which by themselves are not that Proggy but Prog related or Proto prog founded, blended with touches of electronic music decorations and sonic environments, which are in fact where he sounds more unique and Progressive.

Well written songs (there are 6), but kind of low keyed by its own proposal and idiom to travel beyond the ***3 PA stars rating and criteria. But good certainly suits it to perfection.

The good thing with Kanoi is that the quality of compositions, execution and production is continuously improving. I liked a lot his live in Arnbach II and the Gemstone EP which features a very good cover of PINK FLOYD's The Embryo.

Exactly this song must be mentioned. In this last album, the first as artist signed with a label, Benjamin Kantschieder from Wien has brought the sounds of the early Floyds to a new life. This is mainly Krautrock, but the strong relationship that also the historical Kraut bands had with early Pink Floyd is known. Also TANGERINE DREAM are in debt with A Saucerful of Secrets as EDGAR FROESE once said.

The use of fade-in, especially in the last part of the conclusive track reminds clearly to that album with the acid and bluesy guitar emerging from the deep, just following the more relaxed and sung part which makes me think to the mood of Grantchester Meadows.

Ben himself mentions Meddle and Obscured by Clouds as source of inspiration for this album and for the last track in particular.

But I also appreciate the most "noisy" parts. Before this one, the last album that I've listened to today was "Liquid" by the Dutch band 35007. Who knows the track "Tsunami" from that album will have an idea of how those parts sound.

This is in my opinion the best Kanoi release up to now, but since last year he has started a very good phase of his production. Everything he has released since 2014 deserves to be heard, especially if you like the early Floyd.

Not a clone, anyway. The guy is original enough, and if you don't believe me, you can give a listen to his older releases which are more Krautrock oriented.

4 solid stars.

KANOI, a one-man rock project by Benjamin KANTSCHIEDER, shows one of strategies for launching Krautrock flavour, with his personal interpretation and original tribalism and psychedelia here and there.

From the beginning "Atlantean Conductor" his innovative edge of insanity can be heard ... hippy, trippy, groovy persistence created with percussive rhythm depth with kinky, grumpy guitar fuzzez are pretty of addiction. No need to analyze, but to leave yourself along with the mind-altering agent. The following folksy acidity "Birdsong" reminds me Jerry Garcia's stoner blues. Benjamin's dreamy voices take us into the bottom of his blue sound sea ... this effect might have been experienced when I listened to The Folk Crusaders in my younger days. And his verdict upon acid folk scene is flicked up as an unstable sound tremor. Mysterious really.

Sadly the two tracks in the middle of this album sound less experimental than others mentioned above. In "Witch Mt." his shoegaze guitar shots fly over based upon sticky blues riffs. Curious he played such a simple song like "Strawberry Jam" with imaging what. Good songs nonetheless.

On the contrary, "Armor & Blade" drives us crazy with his deep, mellow, magnificent psychedelic theatre in the middle part, and with slimy organ -based sound fractal. Why can we keep breathing? The last tricky elektronika "Snow Country" can be quite suitable for our nightcap filled with persistent hypnotic atmosphere. A good ending for us. Ahem, good feeling later.

The second Kanoi's album is surely a big improvement respect to the debut. The drummer is gone and Benjamin Kantschieder is a one-man band. This means more proper "songs" and less jamming. Not that the acid improvisations of Blisterfinger were bad, but this album is really better in terms of compositions which in any case are developed around the guitar, and even when he jams as in "Storm", it's not improvisation only. The sounds are close to the Pink Floyd of the Meddle period, I mean the rock-blues sounds of Gilmour's Fender. There are lyrics and vocals, too. Sometimes so high pitched to sound quite feminine, very well fitting with the music.

One special mention is deserved by the long suite which closes the album and gives it the title. The keyboard layout and the clean guitar reminded me to the intro of "Coming Back To Life" from The Division Bell but the comparison stops here as it goes on in this way, mainly on a single major chord. It's that the guitar sounds similar to Gilmour's, but this is the kind of music that on PA is called "Progressive Electronic". The chord remains the same and the tone and volume of the keyboard layer changes only in the last three of this 23 minutes track.

In brief, the first seven tracks are a sort of "classic krautrock" if anything of this kind exist, which can appeal fans of the likes of ASH RA and AMON DUUL II while the long suite is more meditative, more suitable for who likes early Tangerine Dream, Alio Die and the progressive electronic in general.

As all the Kanoi's albums up to now, also this is a name your price download which I strongly suggest.

In terms of stars, it still misses something to have the fourth but, as I have already written, it's a very big improvement. Instead of "good but non-essential" I'd say Non-essential but good". It sounds better in this way. Three stars but very close to the fourth.

Kanoi is a one-man project by the Austrian multi instrumentist Benjamin Kantschieder, but this debut album is mainly a duo with a drummer nicknamed Tankstellenproleten, where Tankstellen in German means "service station" and proleten something like "red neck".

After a short noisy-trippy intro (Maelstorm - not Maelstrom) we are in a bluesy and acid jam made of guitar, drums and bass. It seems to come up from a time-machine. What's more Krautrock than this "Blisterfinger"? Old Thunderhead follows. It's another jam, I don't know how much improvised. Slower than the previous track it sees the guitar providing a layer for the drummer which leads the track. The guitar makes mainly a single chord with some soloist notes here and there, but the purpose is supporting the drumming.

"Papules/Postules" has a Floydian start, I mean the first post-Barrett period - Saucerful Of Secrets to mention an album. Blues transformed into psychedelia but unfortunately without the keyboards of a Rick Wright which in the end makes it sound closer to the Grateful Dead than to Pink Floyd. An excellent track, anyway, if you are in the right mood for old-fashioned psych stuff. It becomes more rock in the second half but still very acid.

Speaking of trips, "Turquoise Coloured Tide" has an acid title too. Initially it's just few drumbeats and some repetitive guitar, apparently sequenced, behind. The track progresses slowly with the guitar jamming a bit of blues on the drums which play the same thing throughout the whole track. Hypnotic.

If it was a vinyl, and it may have been conceived in this way, the 1 minute and half of "Re- Entry" could have been the intro to the B-side. Following there's a track with a space-rock title: "A swirl in Jovian kies". It's the longest jam of the album, scoring more than 17 minutes. It's very hypnotic, still based on drums and guitar with the bass supporting the passages as a keyboard may have done. The sound is fullfilled by echo end reverb on the guitar. The base is still acid blues as Krautrock often is. IN some moments the guitar seems wishing to escape from this layout but it doesn't, as it was constrained into the track's boudaries. Anyway, unless it's a high-pitched bass, I think sometimes that there are two guitar tracks overdubbed. After 16 minutes of lazyness, the last minute sees the drums increasing the volume and close the track as lead instrument to a fading out final.

If the longest track was very relaxing, "Scorched/Scattered" returns to the blues-based psychedelia. With different arrangements and sound it could have been hard rock. The problem is that only drums and guitar with only a little help from bass can't cross the krautrock boudaries. The chords remind to Devo's "Mongoloid".

Anyway, after Jupiter we see the "Titanian Moonrise". It sounds to me very Californian-psych. at least in the first beats. The fact that the bass is now the principal and louder instrument makes it different from the other tracks. It also gives the guitar the possibility to express its sound better.

Relistening to Stellar Collider I have had the impression of my left feet becoming longer....jokes apart, this is the closing track of a trippy album after more than one hour of music. Not for everybody, this music is everything but challenging, but requires the right mood, let's say, after a good lunch.

A space-time trip from the 70s. Very close to 4 stars, just a bit too long. It's a free download and despite being quite a standard krautrock album, with very few surprises, it deserves to be listened.