ROTVÄLTA

If you're a fan of old, and I mean really old Pink Floyd, then this band and cd should be of interest to you. The Spacious Mind are a group of Swedish musicians in the psychedelic vein. They sound like a cross between Saucerful of Secrets, The Man and the Journey era Pink Floyd and Hawkwind, In Search of Space era Hawkwind. There are plenty of droning Hammond sounds and muted drumming parts throughout the music. In fact, the first track sounds very much like the song A Saucerful of Secrets. The second track starts off slow and spacey with lots of reverb and echo but then builds into a more violent crescendo that has that early, heavy Hawkwind feeling like on the song You Shouldn't Do That. The third track is more of a spacey intertwining of droning Hammond organ and floating, echoed guitar with little else. The fourth track starts with keyboards sounding a lot like what John Paul Jones played on Led Zeppelin's song No Quarter. Track five gets a lot heavier with some great blues guitar like an young, aggressive David Gilmour and heavy distorted bass. The track then builds to an intense climax, similar in effect to Careful with That Axe, Eugene before fading into some more spacey Hammond organ drones. The final track returns to a similar form as in track three except this time around the guitar is the more dominant instrument in the interplay between guitar and organ.

I wouldn't so much as call this a studio album as I would call it a "live in the studio" album. To be honest, I can't imagine how or why someone would rehearse material like this. It sounds more like a collection of live jams, which is not to say that's bad, unlistenable, or incoherent. Quite to the contrary this is a very engaging recording. Having listened to several of TSM live recordings, there are a lot of similarities in their 20min live jams and this studio recording. I'll be the first to say that the similarities of this recording to early Pink Floyd and early Hawkwind are more than just passing. However, having heard many of their live performances I can also say this band definitely has their own unique style. I'd recommend this recording to anyone that likes the older, hard edged psychedelic music and it is definitely worth seeking out.