LONG DISTANCE TRIP

German cosmic rockers Samsara Blues Experiment are the practitioners of some excellent but fairly heavy psychedelia and, for what it's worth, their debut album ''Long Distance Trip'' looks like it will feature prominently among my top ten favourite releases of the year just ended.

Effects-laden guitars dominate proceedings with occasional sitar giving an Eastern flavour such on the opening track ''Singata Mystic Queen''. The texture here is thick with twin guitars and an organ throbbing in the background, and everything congeals into a powerfully melodic riff that makes me feel like I'm peering into the cavernous throat of the abyss. The short but intense instrumental ''Army Of Ignorance'' sounds like Sabbath's ''Iron Man'' in a drug-fuelled delirium, while the otherworldly hypnotic pattern of ''For The Lost Souls'' also gives way to a heavy riff and gruff vocals. The atmosphere changes with some dreamy organ and synthesizer, although the heavy, malevolent riff is not long in returning either.

''Center Of The Sun'' lurches along to a Hawkwind-style groove of spacey sound effects before it gets swept up in a vortex of harsh vocals and fiery wah wah guitars. The atmosphere lightens again with the acoustic ''Wheel Of Life'', presumably based around the Buddhist perspective of cyclic existence. Buddhism seems to be a guiding principle on this album and in his review Uwe has already highlighted that the band's name is derived from the religion's concept of continuous flowing. This is exemplified on the krautrock-inspired ''Double Freedom'', a 23-minute cosmic montage that once again features sitar. I'm glad to say that exotic substances aren't required in order to appreciate this spacescape, just lie back and let your imagination run wild.