HDRSF-01 (EP)

Hailing from Finland, Hidria Spacefolk plays excellent instrumental psychedelic space rock. They combine a lot of world music influence into their rhythms and use a variety of instruments like flutes, post horns, didgeridoos, Jew's harp and all sorts of percussion. The band tastefully combines these two styles into a pretty unique trippy world music adventure. The music is very energetic but never becomes repetitive, heavy or overbearing. I see a lot of people name dropping the Ozric Tentacles as another band that sounds like these guys (or rather, these guys sound like Ozric Tentacles), but I'm not very familiar with the Ozrics, but if you are, here you go.

"Amos Ame" opens the EP and soon swirling guitars and keys come in and set the psychedelic mood. A flute solo appears before thick and heavy synths lay down pulsating beats. A short acoustic passage in the middle of the songs breaks it up a bit before the band repeats main themes in the song, except reggae-like until the end. This is really one of the best songs on the EP and gives a good overview of the band's sound. "Kafar-I" is a straightforward and less varied song than "Amos Ame" but still great in its own right. It's very energetic and almost trance-inducing at times, but they manage to keep things varied and it never gets repetitive or boring. "Sindran Rastafan" is my other favorite song here. This is a very psychedelic song with lots of pulsating beats and a wonderful guitar part. The instruments are less varied here, but the band creates excellent spacey landscapes. "Gnomen" is a shorter song, dominated by percussion instruments. The song starts out with just the drums and gradually the song builds up with a synth rhythm line, jew's harp and another keyboard, playing a techno-like lead part. The EP closes with "Marastronaut". The first half is very calm and atmospheric until the guitar and drums come in playing a repetitive riff and ends softly with a few drums playing.

I highly recommend anyone interested in spacey rock music to check out Hidria Spacefolk. They definitely have their own very unique style of trippy space rock. I got this EP free off of the band's website (and was instantly converted), which is very generous, to say the least! Since it's free (as of now), there's no excuse not to listen to this amazing band.

Standout songs: "Amos Ame", "Sindran Rastafan"